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...
Samsung Portable SSD T3 Review
Samsung launched the Portable SSD T3 at CES 2016. The claim to fame was the availability of 2TB of flash in a palm-sized enclosure with a USB 3.1 Gen...
50 by Ganesh T S on 2/22/2016Samsung Releases 750 EVO SATA SSD
After an accidental leak in November that was spotted by our friends at Tom's Hardware, the Samsung 750 EVO has now officially launched worldwide. Since the introduction of their...
49 by Billy Tallis on 2/17/2016Micron 3D NAND Status Update
Update: We've got some more information and diagrams from Micron's Winter Analyst Conference earlier today. After samples of their upcoming 3D NAND were sighted in the wild at CES, Micron...
19 by Billy Tallis on 2/12/2016Plextor Introduces M6S Plus SSDs with Toshiba’s 15nm MLC NAND
Plextor this week introduced its M6S Plus SSDs that use Toshiba’s latest MLC NAND flash memory as well as a proven controller from Marvell. The new SSDs offer the...
36 by Anton Shilov on 2/10/2016Sony Enters SSD Market with Phison S10-Based SLW-M Series
Sony-Asia this month introduced its first own-brand solid-state drives that it will sell in retail. The decision to start selling consumer SSDs is completely unexpected because Sony has been...
35 by Anton Shilov on 2/8/2016OCZ Releases Trion 150 SSD
As previewed at CES, OCZ has released an update to their budget-oriented Trion 100 SATA SSD. The Trion 150 switches from parent company Toshiba's A19nm TLC to their 15nm...
27 by Billy Tallis on 2/4/2016CES 2016: Phison previews upcoming SSD controllers
Phison may not be a household name, but they're a major player in the SSD market. Where Marvell's SSD controllers are typically sold to drive vendors who then pair...
7 by Billy Tallis on 1/21/2016Silicon Motion at CES: 3D NAND support for SM2246EN and roadmap update
2015 was a great year for SSD controller designer Silicon Motion. Their SM2246EN controller was at the heart of some of the best mainstream and value SATA SSDs, while...
2 by Billy Tallis on 1/21/2016Marvell Implements Host Memory Buffer for DRAM-less 88NV1140 SSD Controller
The first version of the Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe) standard was ratified almost five years ago, but its development didn't stop there. While SSD controller manufacturers have been hard...
33 by Billy Tallis on 1/12/2016ZOTAC to Expand Lineup of SSDs with PCIe Offerings
ZOTAC is primarily known for its NVIDIA GeForce-based video cards, but in the recent years, the company started to sell motherboards, small form-factor personal computers and various accessories. Last...
8 by Anton Shilov on 1/6/2016Patriot Memory Enters PCIe Storage Market with Hellfire SSDs
Patriot Memory has been selling solid-state drives for about eight years now. To date, virtually all of Patriot’s SSDs have used the Serial ATA interface, which became a performance-limiting...
7 by Anton Shilov on 1/5/2016SanDisk Announces X400 Client SSD for OEMs
As CES gets underway, SanDisk is announcing the X400 SSD as the successor to the X300 and X300s and as the higher-performance counterpart to the Z400s. The new X400...
7 by Billy Tallis on 1/5/2016Samsung Introduces Portable SSD T3
In recent years a new category of portable storage devices has emerged. Based on the same controllers and flash used in 2.5" SATA SSDs, portable SSDs offer much higher...
11 by Billy Tallis on 1/4/2016Transcend Announces SuperMLC: Pseudo-SLC SSDs For Industrial Market
Transcend offers one of the broadest ranges of SSDs and flash memory cards, with products for almost every form factor and even some legacy interfaces like IDE. Part of...
14 by Billy Tallis on 12/31/2015The Angelbird Wings PX1 M.2 Adapter Review: Do M.2 SSDs Need Heatsinks?
The M.2 form factor has quickly established itself as the most popular choice for PCIe SSDs in the consumer space. The small size easily fits in to most laptop...
70 by Billy Tallis on 12/21/2015The Crucial BX200 (480GB & 960GB) SSD Review: Crucial's First TLC NAND SSD
The Crucial BX200 is the successor to the very successful BX100 and is Crucial's new value-oriented SSD. The BX200 moves to the newer Silicon Motion SM2256 controller and is...
86 by Billy Tallis on 11/3/2015The Samsung 950 Pro PCIe SSD Review (256GB and 512GB)
Samsung's new flagship consumer SSD is here to wrap up all the latest technology from Samsung in a small package, with the goal of raising the bar beyond the...
142 by Billy Tallis on 10/22/2015Western Digital To Acquire SanDisk
Western Digital announced today that they have entered in to an agreement to acquire SanDisk for approximately $19 billion. Western Digital is one of the few remaining hard drive...
35 by Billy Tallis on 10/21/2015OCZ Announces First SATA Host Managed SSD: Saber 1000 HMS
Today OCZ is introducing the first SATA drive featuring a technology that may be the next big thing for enterprise SSDs. Referred to by OCZ as "Host Managed SSD"...
18 by Billy Tallis on 10/15/2015The Plextor M6V (256GB) SSD Review
Plextor's M6V SSD was originally planned to be their first drive using TLC NAND, but that has now been put off to next year's M7V. Instead, Plextor is taking...
51 by Billy Tallis on 10/12/2015