Storage
As Seagate ramps up shipments of its new heat assisted magnetic recording (HAMR)-based Mozaic 3+ hard drive platform, the company is both in the enviable position of shipping the first major new hard drive technology in a decade, and the much less enviable position of proving the reliability of the first major new hard drive technology in a decade. Due to HAMR's use of temporal heating with its platters, as well as all-new read/write heads, HAMR introduces multiple new changes at once that have raise questions about how reliable the technology will be. Looking to address these matters (and further promote their HAMR drives), Seagate has published a fresh blog post outlining the company's R&D efforts, and why the company expects their HAMR drives...
NVMe 1.3 Specification Published With New Features For Client And Enterprise SSDs
The first major update to the NVMe storage interface specification in almost two and a half years has been published, standardizing many new features and helping set the course...
16 by Billy Tallis on 5/24/2017Western Digital Seeks To Intervene In Toshiba's Sale Of Memory Business
Western Digital, through its SanDisk subsidiary, is seeking arbitration to prevent Toshiba from selling off its stake in their flash memory joint venture without the consent of Western Digital...
12 by Billy Tallis on 5/23/2017WD Adds Helium-Filled 10 TB NAS HDDs to WD Red, WD Red Pro Lineups
Western Digital has announced two new helium-filled hard drives targeting consumer and business NAS applications. The new WD Red and WD Red Pro HDDs increase capacity of WD’s NAS...
19 by Anton Shilov on 5/22/2017Western Digital Ships Client SSDs Based on 512 Gb 3D TLC NAND Chips
Last week Toshiba demonstrated the operation of its XG-series SSDs NVMe PCIe SSD based on the company’s 64-layer 512 Gb 3D NAND chips. What was left unnoticed is that...
10 by Anton Shilov on 5/19/2017Western Digital: Sales of Helium-Filled HDDs Accelerating, 15M Sold So Far
Western Digital recently announced that it had sold 15 million helium-filled hard drives, indicating that sales of such HDDs are accelerating. Since the launch of the HGST HelioSeal platform...
29 by Anton Shilov on 5/13/2017Previewing Maxiotek's MK8115 SSD Controller: Can DRAM-less Drives Make The Cut?
Maxiotek, the fabless SSD controller design group formerly part of JMicron, has released their first new controller since being spun off. The MK8115 is a DRAM-less SATA SSD controller...
60 by Billy Tallis on 5/9/2017Toshiba Demonstrates NVMe SSD With 64-Layer BiCS3 3D NAND
Toshiba's transition from planar NAND flash to 3D NAND flash memory has been a long, drawn-out process. Their BiCS 3D NAND architecture is on its third generation but has...
10 by Billy Tallis on 5/8/2017Seagate Ships 35th Millionth SMR HDD, Confirms HAMR-Based Drives in Late 2018
Seagate last week made two rather important announcements regarding its current and upcoming hard drives. First, the company said that it had shipped 35 million HDDs based on shingled...
19 by Anton Shilov on 5/3/2017Intel Announces New DC P4500 And P4600 Datacenter SSDs
Intel has announced the most significant updates to their enterprise PCIe SSD lineup since the launch of their first NVMe SSDs. The new Intel SSD DC P4500 and P4600...
4 by Billy Tallis on 5/2/2017Micron Hires New CEO: Sanjay Mehrotra, SanDisk Co-Founder And Former CEO
In February, Micron CEO Mark Durcan announced his retirement after three decades with the company. Durcan had previously announced plans to retire in 2012 while serving as the company's...
1 by Billy Tallis on 4/27/2017LaCie Announces 2big Dock: 2-Bay TB3 DAS with Card Reader, USB-A and DisplayPort
LaCie this week has taken the wraps off of the latest member of their family of DAS devices, the 2big Dock. The newly revealed dock is their first Thunderbolt...
12 by Anton Shilov on 4/27/2017The Intel Optane Memory (SSD) Preview: 32GB of Kaby Lake Caching
Last week, we took a look at Intel's first product based on their 3D XPoint non-volatile memory technology: the Optane SSD DC P4800X, a record-breaking flagship enterprise SSD. Today...
110 by Billy Tallis on 4/24/2017Toshiba Launches N300 HDDs for NAS: Up to 8 TB, Up to 240 MB/s
Toshiba this week launched its new lineup of high-reliability hard drives for NAS units. The drives offer up to 8 TB of capacity and are based on enterprise-grade platforms...
16 by Anton Shilov on 4/21/2017The Intel Optane SSD DC P4800X (375GB) Review: Testing 3D XPoint Performance
Intel's new 3D XPoint non-volatile memory technology, which has been on the cards publically for the last couple of years, is finally hitting the market as the storage medium...
117 by Billy Tallis on 4/20/2017ADATA Launches Premier ONE UHS-II SD Cards: 3D MLC, Up to 290 MB/s, V90 Labels
After previously demonstrating them back at CES, ADATA has officially launched its SD cards based on 3D MLC NAND. The new Premier ONE UHS-II cards offer capacities up to...
18 by Anton Shilov on 4/17/2017SK Hynix Launches 72-Layer 256 Gb 3D TLC NAND with Increased Performance
SK Hynix has formally introduced its fourth-generation 3D NAND memory chips with 72 layers. Initially, the 3D TLC flash chips will be offered in 256 Gb configurations, but by...
3 by Anton Shilov on 4/14/2017Western Digital Expands Purple Lineup with a 10 TB Helium-Filled HDD
Western Digital has expanded its Purple lineup of hard drives, aimed at video surveillance applications, with a 10 TB helium-filled HDD. The drive is optimized for write-intensive workloads and...
8 by Anton Shilov on 4/13/2017HighPoint RocketStor 6618 Thunderbolt 3 DAS: 8-Bays, Up to 96 TB, 2.7 GB/s, $999
HighPoint has started to ship its RocketStor 6600-series Thunderbolt 3 RAID enclosures that can accommodate up to eight storage devices. The enclosures support all popular RAID levels and can...
21 by Anton Shilov on 4/11/2017Western Digital Announces My Passport SSD: Up to 1 TB, AES-256, USB-C
Western Digital has announced its first external SSDs to be sold under the WD brand. The My Passport SSDs are shock resistant, support hardware-based AES-256 encryption, use USB 3.1...
8 by Anton Shilov on 4/11/2017Toshiba Launches MG05ACA Enterprise HDDs: 8 TB, 7200 RPM, NAND Cache
Toshiba recently introduced its new generation of enterprise-class nearline HDDs for servers, surveillance, and higher-end NAS systems. The new MG05ACA-series hard drives offer up to 8 TB of capacity...
10 by Anton Shilov on 4/10/2017