Tag: NVMe

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” »

Something for Everyone: A Guide to Patriot SSDs for M.2 NVMe

PR article, Preview | | Editors

Patriot continues to expand its SSD lineup and has models for all types of users. We’ll discuss the specs and features of affordable PCIe 3.0 solutions, high-performance PCIe 4.0 SSDs, and the latest PCIe 5.0 models that deliver top-notch performance and innovative cooling. The lineup also includes fast and compact SSDs for space-constrained devices or gaming consoles. Read more “Something for Everyone: A Guide to Patriot SSDs for M.2 NVMe” »

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?” »

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” »

Netac’s new CF2000 CFexpress cards offer up to 1750 MB/s speeds

News, PR article | | Jan Olšan

Today, you can have a small NVMe SSD even inside your camera, as memory cards have adopted this technology, evolving CompactFlash cards into a new CFexpress standard. Memory cards of this type has now been released by Netac, which offers not only memory cards but also standard SSDs which positions the company well to combine the two technologies into a memory card for demanding professional photography or video capture. Read more “Netac’s new CF2000 CFexpress cards offer up to 1750 MB/s speeds” »

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” »

New Silicon Motion controller will make PCIe 5.0 SSDs low-power

News, SSDs | | Jan Olšan

PCIe Gen5 SSDs have so far been the domain of Phison, whose E26 controller has a pretty high power draw, and there are reports of throttling or even system crashes due to overheating of these SSDs. Silicon Motion controllers will quite possibly solve this, as their power draw is supposed to be significantly lower. It turns out then not just the lower-tier ones, but even the high-performance SM2508 design will be quite efficient. Read more “New Silicon Motion controller will make PCIe 5.0 SSDs low-power” »

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” »

1 2