Tag: M.2

Phison E37T controller: Affordable Gen5 SSDs with 15 GB/s speeds

Processors, News | | Jan Olšan

NAND flash has become significantly more expensive, while DRAM prices have surged even more dramatically. DRAM is used as cache in higher-end drives and modules and cheaper SSDs will therefore become more important than ever—especially those that do not require DRAM. “DRAMless” SSDs have improved considerably in recent years, but a new PCIe 5.0 controller from Phison could push them even further—practically to high-end levels. Read more “Phison E37T controller: Affordable Gen5 SSDs with 15 GB/s speeds” »

Say Goodbye to WD SSDs. You’ll find them as Sandisk products now

News, SSDs | | Jan Olšan

A year ago, Western Digital, who historically associated with mechanical (magnetic) HDD technology but then expanded into SSDs as well, announced the SSD business would move under the Sandisk name. WD acquired this formerly independent NAND and SSD manufacturer ten years ago. It took a while, but now this change is happening for real—all SSDs are being renamed, so let’s take a look at what names you should now be searching for. Read more “Say Goodbye to WD SSDs. You’ll find them as Sandisk products now” »

Ilustrační foto: WD Blue SN5100 v adaptéru do slotu PCIe 4.0 ×4, který není součástí balení (Autor: HWCooling)

How good can a QLC SSD be? We tested the WD Blue SN5100

Extra tests, SSDs | | Jan Olšan

The artificial intelligence hype is driving up the prices of system memory and storage, including SSDs. Prices have risen significantly, so you may now be forced to look for cheaper instead of “premium” SSD when on a tighter budget. We got the opportunity to briefly test one such drive: the WD Blue SN5100 module, which represents a lower product tier but offers solid performance and the  “premier-league” brands. Read more “How good can a QLC SSD be? We tested the WD Blue SN5100” »

WD Blue SN5100: New Budget SanDisk SSD Is Faster, but Uses QLC

News, SSDs | | Jan Olšan

Western Digital, or more specifically its SanDisk division, is among the more popular SSD brands. Now they’re introducing a new addition to the budget WD Blue lineup: the WD Blue SN5100. These modules replace last year’s SN5000 line-up and promise significantly better performance. Not always though, because while the new series uses a newer and better generation of NAND, all models now come with QLC-based chips. Read more “WD Blue SN5100: New Budget SanDisk SSD Is Faster, but Uses QLC” »

Micron 2600: Adaptive Write Technology Ending All QLC Issues?

News, SSDs | | Jan Olšan

You may soon start seeing Micron SSDs in laptops. The company, which manufactures its own NAND memory, sells products under the Crucial brand in retail, but uses its own name for OEM products. The latest offering, branded as the Micron 2600, is built on QLC NAND memory, but it promises performance matching even exceeding TLC modules. This is supposed to be achieved through a special write approach—though we shouldn’t expect miracles. Read more “Micron 2600: Adaptive Write Technology Ending All QLC Issues?” »

ADATA PCIe 5.0 SSDs introduce low-power controller, unusual cooler

News, SSDs | | Jan Olšan

SSDs using the high-speed PCI Express 5.0 interface have faced significant issues with power consumption and overheating since their debut virtually across the board, as all early models featured the same hot-running Phison E26 controller. This is now improving with the arrival of more efficient second-generation modules. Among the first are ADATA’s XPG Mars 980 drives, which benefit from a controller manufactured using a 6nm process. Read more “ADATA PCIe 5.0 SSDs introduce low-power controller, unusual cooler” »

Raspberry Pi releases its own SSD for RPi 5, adds PCIe 3.0 support

News, SSDs | | Jan Olšan

Raspberry Pi started as a small foundation, but since then it has created several boards and modules, its own “keyboard PC”, peripherals and is starting to develop its own chips. RPi traditionally used memory cards as the storage, but the latest version has NVMe SSD support, so now comes the logical thing to do: Raspberry Pi is releasing its own SSD, although this time it is not in-house product, the module is manufactured externally. Read more “Raspberry Pi releases its own SSD for RPi 5, adds PCIe 3.0 support” »

Crucial P310: Surprising performance from an SSD with QLC NAND?

News, SSDs | | Jan Olšan

QLC NAND SSDs, which have low endurance but should allow for lower prices, have recently been improving in performance more and more, which is the second main criticism of this type of memory. Recently there was the cheap Kingston NV3 SSD, which will apparently feature both QLC and TLC NAND versions, now a new Crucial P310 drive is coming to market. And this module is seemingly the fastest QLC SSD ever to come out so far. Read more “Crucial P310: Surprising performance from an SSD with QLC NAND?” »

Intel Arrow Lake chipsets: Z890/B860/H810 specs and differences

Chipsets, Motherboards, News | | Jan Olšan

We recently covered the I/O capabilities of Intel’s new processors for laptops and the LGA 1851 desktop platform, due to replace today’s LGA 1700 boards and Alder Lake and Raptor Lake processors in October. However, that was the full features that apply to the more pricy boards based on Z890 chipsets. But Intel will once again resort to segmentation and the cheaper boards will be cut down in various ways, sometimes by quite a bit. Read more “Intel Arrow Lake chipsets: Z890/B860/H810 specs and differences” »

Gigabyte SSD brings back SLC NAND, lasts 109,500 write cycles

News, SSDs | | Jan Olšan

The boom (or bubble?) around AI has brought many things, and among them interesting news for those missing SSDs based on MLC and SLC NAND Flash which was more pricy but had better performance and crucially, much longer lifespan so you didn’t have to worry about wearing out the SSD. That said, Gigabyte is launching an SSD that is officially designed for AI applications, but not just for them – its main asset is precisely SLC recording. Read more “Gigabyte SSD brings back SLC NAND, lasts 109,500 write cycles” »

GeForce RTX 4060 Ti with M.2 slot launched, can use PCIe 5.0 SSD

Graphics, News, SSDs | | Jan Olšan

Some GPUs in current gaming graphics cards use just eight PCIe lanes instead of the whole ×16 interface. This includes cards like the Radeon RX 7600 and also the GeForce RTX 4060 and 4060 Ti. Asus recently came up with an idea to make use of the extra lanes that would go to waste such a GPU, and made a graphics card that gets some utility out of of the excess lanes, using them to connect an SSD and provide an extra M.2 slot. Read more “GeForce RTX 4060 Ti with M.2 slot launched, can use PCIe 5.0 SSD” »

Corsair’s MP700 Pro Gen5 SSD delivers up to 12.4 GB/s speeds

News, SSDs | | Jan Olšan

When SSDs using PCI Express 5.0 technology came to market, most models available delivered sequential speeds of “just” around 10 GB/s. The Phison E26 controller used is supposed to reach up to about 12.5 GB/s, but it turned out that with most of the NAND available on the market it only reaches that lower level bar between 9500 – 10 000 MB/s. Fortunately, things are getting better and the 12.5GB/s drives promised a year ago are coming. Read more “Corsair’s MP700 Pro Gen5 SSD delivers up to 12.4 GB/s speeds” »

Asus puts M.2 SSD on GeForce RTX 4060 Ti to make use of PCIe ×16

Graphics, News, SSDs | | Jan Olšan

There’s more and more graphics cards that don’t use the full width of PCI Express ×16 slot and run with just eight lanes to cut GPU die area and cost. This usually renders the remaining eight lanes useless, but Asus has now come up with an idea to make them useful. They still won’t be usable for the graphics card itself, but at least they’ll find some use. It could come in handy on A620 boards with a shortage of M.2 slots, for example. Read more “Asus puts M.2 SSD on GeForce RTX 4060 Ti to make use of PCIe ×16” »

Beware: counterfeit Samsung SSD 980 Pro are selling in China

News, SSDs | | Jan Olšan

When you shop on auction servers or Chinese internet “marketplaces”, you are at risk of counterfeit hardware. There have been and still keep being sold counterfeit graphics cards (that usually contain old and worthless GPUs), but also processors. And now, apparently, we are getting counterfeit NVMe SSDs. They also appeared in China and are while they are quite sophisticated, you won’t get the desired features and performance. Read more “Beware: counterfeit Samsung SSD 980 Pro are selling in China” »

PCIe 5.0 SSDs have started selling. The first models use a fan

News, SSDs, Storages | | Jan Olšan

When PCI Express 4.0 first appeared in desktops in 2019, SSDs started to use it virtually right away. On the other hand, PCI Express 5.0, available from autumn 2021 on the LGA 1700 platform and from autumn 2022 on AM5 boards, has suffered a disappointing lack of any SSDs till now. But they are finally here now. Corsair has shown its first PCIe 5.0 module, which however raises some concerns by including a cooling a fan. Read more “PCIe 5.0 SSDs have started selling. The first models use a fan” »

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