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...
Intel SSD 750 PCIe SSD Review: NVMe for the Client
Ever since our SSD DC P3700 review, there's been massive interest from enthusiasts and professionals for a more client-oriented product based on the same platform. With eMLC, ten drive...
134 by Kristian Vättö on 4/2/2015The Samsung SSD 850 EVO mSATA/M.2 Review
Four months ago Samsung introduced the world to TLC V-NAND in the form of SSD 850 EVO. It did well in our tests and showed that 3D NAND technology...
58 by Kristian Vättö on 3/31/2015Estimating Intel-Micron 32-layer 3D NAND Die Size
Yesterday Intel and Micron shared some new details of their 3D NAND technology and during the presentation they also showed a production wafer. I missed the wafer during the...
36 by Kristian Vättö on 3/27/2015Intel-Micron Share Additional Details of Their 3D NAND
Today must be the busiest day in the world of NAND. Earlier today, Toshiba announced that it has begun sampling of its 48-layer 128Gbit 3D NAND part and now...
35 by Kristian Vättö on 3/26/2015Toshiba Announces 48-layer 128Gbit 3D NAND - Samples Shipping Today
The 3D NAND race is heating up. Samsung has been shipping its 3D NAND products for over six months now, but so far we have known very little about...
13 by Kristian Vättö on 3/26/2015The OCZ Vector 180 (240GB, 480GB & 960GB) SSD Review
OCZ has been teasing the Vector 180 for quite some time now. The first hint of the drive was unveiled over nine months ago at Computex 2014 where OCZ...
89 by Kristian Vättö on 3/24/2015Samsung SM951 (512GB) PCIe SSD Review
The PCIe SSD revolution is upon us. So far nearly every controller vendor has shown off its PCIe SSD controller design and the latest news I've heard is that...
128 by Kristian Vättö on 2/24/2015Samsung Releases Statement on 840 EVO Performance - Another Fix Is In the Works
Over the last month there has been some concern over the read performance of Samsung’s 840 EVO drives, and whether after Samsung’s previous performance fix, that these same drivers...
75 by Ryan Smith on 2/20/2015OCZ Releases Important Firmware Updates for ARC 100 & Radeon R7 SSDs
A little less than two weeks ago OCZ released mandatory firmware updates for the ARC 100 and Radeon R7 SSDs, so I figured I would give the owners a...
16 by Kristian Vättö on 2/9/2015Mushkin Reactor 1TB SSD Review
Silicon Motion has practically become the new SandForce. Almost every tier three manufacturer (i.e. one with no controller/firmware IP or NAND fab) has released an SM2246EN based drive in...
69 by Kristian Vättö on 2/9/2015Intel Launches SSD DC S3610 & S3710 Enterprise SSDs
Late last week Intel updated its enterprise SATA SSD lineup with the 'Data Center' DC S3610 and DC S3710. At the time of the announcement the details of what...
5 by Kristian Vättö on 2/3/2015Interview with OCZ's CEO Ralph Schmitt: The New Tides of OCZ
At CES I had the opportunity to sit down with Ralph Schmitt, OCZ's CEO, for a good hour to discuss the state of the company. Before we get to...
21 by Kristian Vättö on 1/27/2015Transcend SSD370 (128GB, 256GB & 512GB) Review
We got the first glimpse of Transcend's SSD370 at Computex last year and now the drive has been in retail for quite some time. The interesting bit about the...
44 by Kristian Vättö on 1/27/2015Samsung Displays New 3D V-NAND Based Enterprise SSDs at CES 2015
Along with the release of the SM951 PCIe SSD, Samsung had several new enterprise SSDs on display at the show. The PM863 and SM863 are SATA 6Gbps drives and...
23 by Kristian Vättö on 1/15/2015Plextor Releases M6e Black Edition PCIe SSD, Shows Off Upcoming M7e PCIe SSD & TLC SSD
Continuing with our CES SSD coverage, Plextor released a new M6e Black Edition PCIe SSD at the show. Unfortunately, the Black Edition offers nothing new in terms of the...
1 by Kristian Vättö on 1/15/2015Samsung Launches SM951 M.2 PCIe 3.0 x4 SSD for OEMs/SIs
Back at Samsung SSD Global Summit in July, Samsung showed off the SM951 for the first time. The drive has then created a lot of interest because the Z97...
15 by Kristian Vättö on 1/14/2015Mushkin Releases New Striker SSD, Displays an Upcoming M.2 PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe SSD
Mushkin had a couple of new and upcoming products in its suite during CES. The first one is a new Striker SSD, which uses Phison's S10 controller coupled with...
15 by Kristian Vättö on 1/13/2015ADATA CES Suite Tour: PCIe & TLC SSDs, Power-Loss Protection Demo, 256GB SD Cards, USB 3.1 And More
I stopped by ADATA's suite last week to see what the company has been up to in the past six months. While ADATA didn't release or announce anything new...
9 by Kristian Vättö on 1/12/2015OCZ Suite Tour: Vector 180, JetExpress PCIe NVMe Controller & Z-Drive 6000
While the Barefoot 3 platform is already a couple of years old, it is still going strong. OCZ has been in the process of adopting Toshiba's latest A19nm to...
26 by Kristian Vättö on 1/9/2015Crucial Announces MX200, BX100 SSDs & SSD Toolbox
Crucial's MX100 has been one the most successful SSDs on the market. Its very aggressive pricing along with decent performance and great feature set has made it an excellent...
32 by Kristian Vättö on 1/8/2015