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...
Crucial P310 NVMe SSD Unveiled: Micron's Play in the M.2 2230 Market
Hand-held gaming consoles based on notebook platforms (such as the Valve SteamDeck, ASUS ROG Ally, and the MSI Claw) are one of the fastest growing segments in the PC...
6 by Ganesh T S on 7/17/2024Western Digital Adds 8TB Model to Popular High-End SN850X SSD Drive Family
Western Digital has quietly introduced an 8 TB version of its high-end SN850X SSD, doubling the top capacity of the well-regarded drive family. The new drive offers performance on...
19 by Anton Shilov on 7/16/2024Samsung Joins The 60 TB SSD Club, Looking Forward To 120 TB Drives
Multiple companies offer high-capacity SSDs, but until recently, only one company offered high-performance 60 TB-class drives with a PCIe interface: Solidigm. As our colleagues from Blocks & Files discovered...
19 by Anton Shilov on 7/5/2024Kioxia's High-Performance 3D QLC NAND Enables High-End High-Capacity SSDs
This week, Kioxia introduced its new 3D QLC NAND devices aimed at high-performance, high-capacity drives that could redefine what we typically expect from QLC-based SSDs. The components are 1...
6 by Anton Shilov on 7/5/2024SK hynix Wraps up Dev Work on High-End PCB01 PCIe 5.0 SSD for OEMs, Launching Later This Year
SK hynix early in Friday announced that the company has finished the development of it's PCB01 PCIe Gen5 SSD, the company's forthcoming high-end SSD for OEMs. Based on the...
8 by Anton Shilov on 6/29/2024Western Digital Rolls Out Updated Budget WD Blue SN5000 SSDs, Adds 4TB Model
Western Digital expanded its WD Blue NVMe family of budget SSDs this week with the introduction of the the WD Blue SN5000 series, an updated lineup of SSDs that...
16 by Anton Shilov on 6/20/2024Silicon Motion Demos Low-Power PCie 5.0 SSD Controller: SM2508
Rounding out our Computex 2024 SSD controller news, let's talk about the final major controller vendor at the show: Silicon Motion. Silicon Motion has been somewhat late to the...
5 by Anton Shilov on 6/14/2024Realtek Outlines SSD Controller Roadmap: High-End PCIe 5.0 x4 Platform in the Works
While Realtek is best known in the enthusiast space for for its peripheral controllers such as audio codecs and network controllers, the company also has a small-but-respectable SSD controller...
3 by Anton Shilov on 6/13/2024Cheaper PCIe 5.0 x4 SSDs Incoming: Silicon Power Demos Phison E31T-Based SSD
Although consumer SSDs based on Phison's PS5026-E26 controller have been on the market for almost a year and a half now, the class-leading drives still carry a distinct price...
6 by Anton Shilov on 6/11/2024Lexar ARMOR 700 Portable SSD Review: Power-Efficient 2 GBps in an IP66 Package
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...
1 by Ganesh T S on 5/30/2024Sabrent Launches Rocket Nano M.2-2242 SSD: Up to 5 GB/sec
Sabrent tends to get into news when it launches ultra-high-performance SSDs for enthusiast-grade desktops, but this week the company introduced a completely different type of product: a small form-factor...
4 by Anton Shilov on 5/9/2024Samsung Starts Mass Production of 9th Generation V-NAND: 1Tb 3D TLC NAND
Samsung Electronics has started mass production of its 9th generation of V-NAND memory. The first dies based on their latest NAND tech come in a 1 Tb capacity using...
2 by Anton Shilov on 4/23/2024Lexar SL500 Portable SSD Review: Silicon Motion SM2320 and YMTC NAND in a Potent Package
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...
7 by Ganesh T S on 4/23/2024SK hynix Tube T31 Stick SSD Review: Bridging Solution Springs A Surprise
SK hynix is one of the few vertically integrated manufacturers in the flash-based storage market. The company is well-established in the OEM market. A few years back, they also...
15 by Ganesh T S on 4/15/2024SK hynix Platinum P51 Gen5 SSD with 238L NAND Spotted at GTC
SK hynix is set to unveil their first Gen5 consumer NVMe SSD lineup shortly, based on the products at display in their GTC 2024 booth. The Platinum P51 M.2...
8 by Ganesh T S on 3/19/2024First DNA Data Storage Specification Released: First Step Towards Commercialization
The DNA Data Storage Alliance introduced its inaugural specifications for DNA-based data storage this week. This specification outlines a method for encoding essential information within a DNA data archive...
13 by Anton Shilov on 3/15/2024Western Digital Launches PC SN5000S SSD: Low-Cost Meets High Performance
Western Digital has introduced its new series of SSDs aimed at mainstream PCs, which combine high performance and low cost. The Western Digital PC SN5000S family of DRAM-less drives...
11 by Anton Shilov on 3/14/2024Best Portable SSDs: March 2024
Once the domain of external, bus-powered hard drives, these days the market for external storage has been almost completely consumed by portable SSDs. Rapid technological advancements in NAND flash...
1 by Ganesh T S on 3/8/2024SanDisk Professional PRO-BLADE Portable SSD Ecosystem Review
Western Digital had unveiled the SanDisk Professional PRO-BLADE modular SSD ecosystem in mid-2022 to serve the needs of the professional market. Compact and sturdy NVMe drives (PRO-BLADE SSD Mag...
13 by Ganesh T S on 3/7/2024Western Digital Issues Update on Company Split: CEOs for Post-Split Entities Announced
Now well in the midst of executing its plan to divide itself into separate hard drive and NAND businesses, Western Digital today offered a fresh update on the state...
27 by Anton Shilov on 3/6/2024