SSD Drives

Toshiba Corp. on Thursday introduced the world’s first NAND flash memory packages, which stack eight or 16 dies of NAND flash memory devices and feature 128GB or 256GB capacities. The NAND flash memory chips are designed for various applications that require high density of NAND flash storage, including mobile products …

Micron Technology and Seagate Technology on Tuesday introduced their first jointly-developed solid-state drives for datacentres. The new SSDs are designed for enterprise applications, such as data analytics, financial transactions and media streaming. The Micron S600DC-series and the Seagate S1200.2-series drives use Micron’s advanced NAND flash along with Seagate’s SAS-related technologies. …

Toshiba Corp. and SanDisk Corp. have formally introduced their first vertically stacked triple-level-cell (TLC) NAND flash memory IC [integrated circuit] with 256Gb capacity. The new 3D BiCS [bit cost scalable] NAND flash memory will be mass produced next year. Toshiba’s new 256Gb (32GB) 48-layer BiCS flash device features 3-bit-per-cell TLC (triple-level cell) …

In a bid not to create oversupply of NAND flash memory in the market, SanDisk Corp. will continue to cautiously expand its manufacturing capacities to sustain its profit margins. While even a minimal expansion of wafer capacities will be enough for SanDisk to fulfill demand for its products, it remains …

SanDisk Corp. and Toshiba Corp. are on-track to start volume shipments of products based on their BiCS [bit cost scalable] 3D NAND flash memory in 2016. Recently the two companies began to purchase equipment needed to manufacture vertically stacked NAND chips and will initiate pilot production later in 2015. Moreover, …

The attitude of hard disk drives makers to solid-state drives is well known: they claim that such devices can only serve certain niche markets and cannot really compete against HDDs. On Friday chief executive of Seagate went on to say that nobody uses SSDs as storage devices. Nowadays solid-state drives …

2015 is the year of the Solid State Drive. The technology has advanced to the limit of the SATA 3 interface, and prices have never been more competitive. SK hynix are keen to cement their position in this market and regular readers will be aware of our reviews of their …

Shipments of solid-state drives by Western Digital Corp. set an all-time record for the company in the Q2 of 2015. The manufacturer only sells solid-state drives for enterprise and such products represent a small portion of the company’s revenue. Moreover, for WD, hard disk drives bring more profits than NAND …

Intel Corp. and Micron Technology on Tuesday introduced a brand new type of memory called 3DXPoint. The new memory technology combines advantages of DRAM and NAND flash and is expected to enable storage solutions with performance that is orders or magnitude higher than today. 3D XPoint will be exclusively manufactured …

SK Hynix has begun to produce 3D NAND flash memory, which will be used for solid-state drives later this year. The vertically-stacked NAND flash memory from SK Hynix will improve performance and reliability of the company’s solid-state drives. The 3D NAND memory device that SK Hynix produces in volume features …

Market analysts believe that 30 per cent of notebooks this year will use solid-state drives instead of hard disk drives. SanDisk, a major maker of SSDs, thinks that eventually NAND flash-based storage devices will replace HDDs in client PCs completely. “We expect SSDs will rapidly replace HDDs in laptops and …

SanDisk introduced the world’s first datacentre-class 4TB solid-state drives back in April, 2014. While the SSDs are available, SanDisk ships them to only one major customer today because clients, who require such high-capacity SSDs and can afford them need to qualify drives before deployment. But while 4TB SSDs are yet …

Plextor, a leading maker of solid-state drives primarily known for high-end SSDs, this week officially introduced its M6V family of products that target customers in budget. The new M6V lineup features triple-level-cell (TLC) NAND flash memory and an inexpensive controller. Nonetheless, Plextor claims that the drives boast with the company’s …

Western Digital has quietly started to sell its new WD Blue solid-state hybrid drives with ‘self-learning’ NAND flash cache. The drives are designed to offer solid-state drive-like performance in select applications, but are not expected to be too expensive since they belong to WD’s mainstream family of products. Initially Western …

Today we look at the new OCZ Trion 100 drive, in 240GB and 480GB capacities. These drives are designed to deliver excellent all round performance while being very cost effective at £60.99 and £124.99 inc vat respectively. This is also the first 100% Toshiba based OCZ SSD featuring a Toshiba …

Solid-state drives have higher performance compared to hard disk drives, but when it comes to storage capacities HDDs are unrivalled. High-capacity SSDs are usually very expensive and are not considered as replacement for hard drives. However, Samsung on Monday introduced its new 850 Evo and 850 Pro solid-state drive that …

We run a lot of competitions on our Facebook page and some of these are ‘review competitions'. The idea is simple – we give the winner a product, and they review it for our readers. Reader Glyn Horton recently won an OCZ Vector 180 480GB SSD in one such competition …

Today we take a look at the new Solid State Drive from SK hynix – the SC300 – in 256GB capacity.  This drive is due to be launched in the United Kingdom over the coming weeks and faces stiff competition from many more established brands.  SK hynix have many years …

Micron Technology has been rather cautious about using triple-level-cell (TLC) NAND flash in solid-state drives and for a long time only used such memory for various removable storage applications. However, it appears that the company has finally solved all the challenges with such cheap NAND and plans to introduce an …

We run a lot of competitions on our Facebook page, and sometimes we ask you guys to supply a review – if you win. Sadly not many of you have kept your part of the deal, but reader Glyn Horton delivered the goods for us today, and we thank him …

Intel Corp. produces very advanced solid-state drives for various applications, but its market share is below 10 per cent. A media report claims that Intel plans to significantly boost shipments of its SSDs in the future and will significantly increase market share next year. According to TrendFocus, Samsung Electronics controlled …

Nearly one third of modern notebooks are set to use solid-state drives as their primary storage systems in 2015, according to a new research. Thanks to major decreases of NAND flash memory pricing in the recent years, SSDs are now more affordable than ever, which means that mobile PCs will …

Zotac, a leading maker of graphics cards that belongs to PCPartner, has been gradually expanding its business for several years now. In addition to Nvidia GeForce-based graphics adapters, the company also offers mainboards, tablets as well as small form-factor PCs. This week the company quietly started to sell solid-state drives under …

We had a chance to take a look at ASRock's USB 3.1 implementation with the company's excellent X99E-ITX/ac motherboard and a custom USB 3.1 RAID testing card. How does ASRock's 10Gbps USB 3.1 solution fare? USB 3.1 has been a huge talking point for the past few months. We have …

Plextor produces one of the best solid-state drives available today. However, Plextor’s drives are pretty expensive and are designed for premium market segment. Apparently, Plextor is working on an inexpensive SSD based on cost-effective triple-level-cell NAND flash memory, which will be available later this year. Not a lot is known …

Chillblast, a well-known maker of enthusiast-class personal computers from the U.K., offers rather substantial discounts on Samsung Electronics’ 850 Evo and 850 Pro solid-state drives for a limited time. For less than two weeks, Samsung’s latest family of solid-state drives will be available with £10 – £50 discounts at Chillblast. …

Even as fast as SATA III SSDs are, the new battleground for the storage performance crown lies with PCIe drives, as the potential read and write times with that interface blow everything away. Which is why Plextor has been showing off its own PCIe solutions at Computex this year, but …

Shipments of solid-state drives increased in the first quarter compared to the fourth quarter of the year, according to analysts from TrendFocus. Samsung Electronics remained the world’s largest supplier of SSDs, followed by Micron Technology and SanDisk. In the first quarter of 2015 sales of solid-state drives for client PCs …

Want to have a high-performance external storage device with USB 3.1 interface, but consider commercially available products too expensive? Sharkoon, a leading maker of PC peripherals, may have a solution! Sharkoon has introduced a special DIY [do it yourself] kit for an external storage device with USB 3.1 interface. The …

OCZ Storage Solutions, a maker of solid-state drives controlled by Toshiba Corp., is working on a new family of client SSDs powered by triple-level cell (TLC) NAND flash memory. The new solid-state storage devices will be aimed at inexpensive PCs, they will provide performance comparable to that of advanced SATA-6Gb/s …