SSDs
Lexar has a long history of serving the flash-based consumer storage market in the form of SSDs, memory cards, and USB flash drives. After having started out as a Micron brand, the company was acquired by Longsys which has diversified its product lineup with regular introduction of new products. Recently, the company announced a number of portable SSDs targeting different market segments. The Lexar ARMOR 700 Portable SSD makes its entry as the new flagship in the 20 Gbps PSSD segment. Despite its flagship positioning and rugged nature, the ARMOR 700 is reasonably priced thanks to the use of a native USB flash controller - the Silicon Motion SM2320. Similar to the SL500, the product uses YMTC 3D TLC NAND (compared to the usual Micron...
CES 2020: Patriot Goes Big on Bandwidth For New EVLVR 2 TB3 SSDs
At this year's CES, Patriot has introduced an enhanced version of its EVLVR (Evolver) Thunderbolt 3 external SSD. The new drive is set to offer radically improved sequential read/write...
5 by Anton Shilov on 1/10/2020CES 2020: Patriot Demonstrates PXD External SSD w/ USB-C
Among the many storage vendors at this year's CES was Patriot, who was showcasing its upcoming PXD external SSD. The device features a USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C interface...
5 by Anton Shilov on 1/9/2020ASUS Going Fast: Quad PCIe 4.0 x4 SSD Storage Add-in Card Hyper M.2
One of the driving features of performance in the high-end desktop space is the creator community: the need for fast CPUs and fast storage is strong, regardless of cost...
19 by Dr. Ian Cutress on 1/9/2020Samsung Launches Portable SSD T7 Touch with Fingerprint Security
Samsung's mass-market external drive, the Portable SSD T-series, was last updated in August 2017 with the introduction of the T5 with 64-layer V-NAND. The Portable SSD T5 came with...
8 by Ganesh T S on 1/8/2020Fire At Kioxia & Western Digital NAND Fab - Impact on Supply to be Minimal
Kioxia has reportedly informed its customers that a production tool at one of its fabs caught fire early on Tuesday. The fire was promptly extinguished and no casualties were...
6 by Anton Shilov on 1/8/2020CES 2020: Samsung 980 PRO PCIe 4.0 SSD Makes An Appearance
Samsung's booth at CES 2020 includes our first look at their next flagship consumer SSD, the 980 PRO M.2 NVMe SSD. This would appear to be Samsung's first client/consumer...
55 by Billy Tallis on 1/7/2020Samsung’s Fab in Hwaseong Suffers Power Outage
Samsung had to stop production of DRAM and V-NAND memory at its fab near Hwaseong, South Korea, due to power outage earlier this week. Damage caused by disruption of...
48 by Anton Shilov on 1/2/2020AnandTech Year In Review 2019: Solid State Drives
In 2019, flash memory prices have leveled out and have even crept back upward a bit, and new technologies have been slow to roll out, although we are currently...
42 by Billy Tallis on 12/31/2019Kioxia: 3D Stacked Storage Class Memory, like 3D XPoint, Isn’t the Future
One of the key battlegrounds of the next decade is going to be storage: density, speed, and demand. Naturally all the major players in the space want to promote...
23 by Dr. Ian Cutress on 12/30/2019OWC Releases Accelsior 4M2 SSD: Quad-M.2 For Over 6000 MB/s
Just in time for the launch of Apple's newly redesigned Mac Pro tower, OWC has introduced the ‘fastest SSD [they've] ever built’, the Accelsior 4M2. The high-end solid state...
24 by Anton Shilov on 12/23/2019Micron Obtains License to Sell DRAM & NAND to Huawei
The inclusion of Huawei into the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Entity List and consequent restrictions to work with the Chinese giant clearly made it much harder for the U.S.-based...
12 by Anton Shilov on 12/19/2019The ADATA XPG SX6000 Pro 1TB SSD Review: Realtek's Entry-level NVMe Solution
Realtek's second-generation NVMe SSD controllers are ready for prime time, and ADATA decided to try them out. The XPG SX6000 Pro is an entry-level DRAMless NVMe SSD with competitive...
36 by Billy Tallis on 12/18/2019Samsung to Expand 3D NAND Fab in China
Samsung reportedly plans to invest billions of dollars to expand its 3D NAND production facility in Xian, China. If the company proceeds with the plan, bit production capacity of...
5 by Anton Shilov on 12/17/2019OWC Launches ThunderBay 4 Mini DAS: 4 SATA Bays With SoftRAID, Up to 1.5 GB/s
OWC has introduced a new small form factor high performance, high redundancy DAS for the professional market. The ThunderBay 4 Mini incorporates 4 2.5-inch storage bays, allowing it to...
29 by Anton Shilov on 12/16/2019Western Digital Announces WD Blue SN550 SSD
Western Digital is refreshing their NVMe-based WD Blue product line, replacing the WD Blue SN500 with the new WD Blue SN550. The SN550 updates both the controller and NAND...
15 by Billy Tallis on 12/10/2019The ADATA Ultimate SU750 1TB SSD Review: Realtek Does Storage, Part 1
Realtek has entered the SSD controller market and scored several design wins with ADATA for retail SSDs. The ADATA SU750 entry-level SATA drive is not as important to their...
54 by Billy Tallis on 12/6/2019Western Digital Starts Sales of WD_Black P50 USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 SSDs
Western Digital has started sales of its WD_Black P50 SSDs that were announced earlier this year. The drives are aimed at the high-performance market and are among the first...
17 by Anton Shilov on 12/5/2019GELID Unveils SubZero M.2 XL: A DIY Cooling System for M.2-22110 SSDs
GELID has introduced a rather unusual product: an aftermarket heatsink designed for SSDs that use the server/workstation-oriented M.2-22110 form-factor. The SubZero M.2 XL aluminum heatsink is shipped with two...
16 by Anton Shilov on 12/3/2019Intel Releases SSD 665p: Second-Gen QLC
Two months after being announced, the Intel SSD 665p is set to be released today. The 665p is the successor to the 660p, the most (only?) successful consumer SSD...
28 by Billy Tallis on 11/25/2019Biostar Launches M700 SSDs: Entry-Level PCIe SSDs
After entering the SSD market a couple of years ago, Biostar has been playing things cautiously, only offering low-cost SATA drives. But as the prices of PCIe SSD controllers...
12 by Anton Shilov on 11/22/2019