SSDs
When Western Digital introduced its Ultrastar DC SN861 SSDs earlier this year, the company did not disclose which controller it used for these drives, which made many observers presume that WD was using an in-house controller. But a recent teardown of the drive shows that is not the case; instead, the company is using a controller from Fadu, a South Korean company founded in 2015 that specializes on enterprise-grade turnkey SSD solutions. The Western Digital Ultrastar DC SN861 SSD is aimed at performance-hungry hyperscale datacenters and enterprise customers which are adopting PCIe Gen5 storage devices these days. And, as uncovered in photos from a recent Storage Review article, the drive is based on Fadu's FC5161 NVMe 2.0-compliant controller. The FC5161 utilizes 16 NAND channels supporting...
Seagate Releases Game Drive PCIe 4.0 SSDs for PlayStation 5
Western Digital's WD_Black SN850P was the first officially PlayStation 5-licensed SSD to hit the market. Seagate wants a piece of that and has hopped on the PlayStation 5 train...
4 by Zhiye Liu on 10/3/2023Samsung T9 Portable SSD Review: A 20 Gbps PSSD for Prosumer Workloads
Samsung's portable SSD lineup has enjoyed significant market success since the launch of the T1 back in 2015. Despite the release of the Thunderbolt-capable X5 PSSD in 2018, the...
15 by Ganesh T S on 10/3/2023eMMC Destined to Live a Bit Longer: KIOXIA Releases New Generation of eMMC Modules
While the tech industry as a whole is well in the middle of transitioning to UFS and NVMe storage for portable devices, it would seem that the sun won't...
11 by Anton Shilov on 9/27/2023Crucial Unveils X9 Portable SSD: QLC for the Cost-Conscious Consumer
Crucial entered the portable SSD market relatively late, with their X6 and X8 PSSDs being the mainstay for many years. Based on QLC NAND, they were marketed for read-intensive...
1 by Ganesh T S on 9/27/2023Solidigm Introduces D7-P5810: 144L SLC NVMe Drive for Write-Intensive Workloads
Solidigm's datacenter SSD offerings have been clearly delineated into different categories - the D3- SATA offerings for legacy servers, the D5- QLC-based offerings (with different models offering different tradeoffs...
3 by Ganesh T S on 9/25/2023Sabrent Ships 8TB SSD for PlayStation 5: High Capacity for a High Price
Although Sony's PlayStation 5 game console fully supports off-the-shelf PCIe 4.0 solid-state drives, Sony initially limited the maximum capacity to 4 TB. Recently the company removed that cap as...
19 by Anton Shilov on 9/22/2023Western Digital Releases WD_Black SN770M: M.2-2230 SSD for Consoles
Western Digital has unveiled a compact version of its WD_Black SN770 SSD, tailored mainly for handheld gaming consoles such as the Asus ROG Ally and Valve Steam Deck. The...
10 by Anton Shilov on 9/12/2023Samsung 990 Pro SSD Gets 4TB Model
When Samsung launched its 990 Pro family of SSDs for retail market last year, it only introduced 1 TB and 2 TB models, surprisingly omitting premium high-capacity 4 TB...
15 by Anton Shilov on 8/24/2023OWC Teams Up with Frore for 32TB and 64TB SSD Devices
OWC and Frore Systems demonstrated silent 32 TB and 64 TB solid-state storage devices that use Frore's AirJet Mini coolers at the Flash Memory Summit 2023. Both devices promise...
12 by Anton Shilov on 8/15/2023Samsung Teases 256 TB SSD: 3D QLC NAND at Its Best
Samsung teased the industry's first 256 TB solid-state drive at the Flash Memory Summit 2023. The new drive features unprecedented storage density and is aimed primarily at hyper-scale data...
27 by Anton Shilov on 8/11/2023Silicon Motion Readies PCIe Gen5 SSD Platform with 3.5W Power Consumption [UPDATED]
UPDATE 8/24: As it turns out, the 3.5W figure referes to power consumption of the controller alone, not the whole SSD. The story has been updated accordingly. We also...
19 by Anton Shilov on 8/9/2023SK Hynix Shows Off 321-Layer 3D TLC NAND Device
SK Hynix showcased its 321-layer TLC NAND memory at the Flash Memory Summit 2023. The South Korean company is the first NAND maker to publicly demonstrate 3D NAND with...
11 by Anton Shilov on 8/9/2023Kioxia's CD8P SSD Unveiled: Up to 30.72 TB, PCI 5.0 x4 Interface
Hyperscale data centers have very specific requirements for different tiers of storage devices: some tiers need maximum performance, and others demand maximum storage density. Kioxia's new CD8P drives for...
11 by Anton Shilov on 8/7/2023Crucial X9 Pro and X10 Pro High-Performance Portable SSDs Announced
Crucial's X6 and X8 Portable SSDs have been attractive budget options for the mainstream consumers looking to purchase high-capacity direct-attached storage drives. The company has been delivering some industry-firsts...
8 by Ganesh T S on 7/25/2023Solidigm Announces D5-P5336: 64 TB-Class Data Center SSD Sets NVMe Capacity Records
Advancements in flash technology have come as a boon to data centers. Increasing layer counts coupled with better vendor confidence in triple-level (TLC) and quad-level cells (QLC) have contributed...
18 by Ganesh T S on 7/20/2023Adata Reveals Its First PCIe Gen5 SSD: Legend 970
Adata has introduced its first PCIe 5.0 SSD, the Legend 970. A Phison E26-based design, the Legend 970 pairs Phison's high-end controller with a sophisticated active cooling system that...
26 by Anton Shilov on 7/6/2023PNY Pro Elite V2 and Elite-X PRO Portable SSDs Review: Performance on a Budget
PNY Technologies is well known in the computing industry for its NVIDIA-based graphics cards, but the company also participates in the DRAM and flash-based storage products markets. In the...
5 by Ganesh T S on 6/30/2023Western Digital Updates WD Blue Series with SN580 DRAM-less Gen4 NVMe SSD
Western Digital is unveiling its latest addition to the mainstream WD Blue family today - the SN580 NVMe SSD. A DRAM-less PCIe 4.0 x4 drive, it brings in performance...
4 by Ganesh T S on 6/28/2023Seagate Announces FireCuda 540 PCIe Gen5 SSD
Flash-based computer storage has been improving in speed and capacity at breakneck pace over the last decade. M.2 NVMe SSDs have almost completely replaced SATA drives for primary storage...
3 by Ganesh T S on 6/27/2023SK Hynix Launches Beetle X31 Portable SSD
UISK Hynix has introduced the Beetle X31, its first portable SSD. The drive promises to hit sequential transfer rates of up to 1,050 MB/sec when working with appropriate hosts...
3 by Anton Shilov on 6/26/2023