SMART Modular Technologies, a leader in specialty memory, storage and hybrid solutions including memory modules, Flash memory cards and other solid state storage products, today announced the introduction of its N200 line of SATA products. With burst speed and low power consumption, the N200 family is an ideal economic option for NAS/SAN storage systems, x86 server-storage appliances, distributed scale-out servers, telecom and networking routers and switches, industrial control, printers and more.

Built with Triple Level Cell (TLC) 3D NAND technology, the new N200 line of SATA products, consisting of the mSATA (MO-300), the M.2 2242 and 2280, the Slim SATA (MO-297), and the removable 2.5" solid state drive form factors, delivers the advantages of economical, industrial-grade non-volatile memory to embedded computing applications. The N200 SATA products are offered in capacities ranging from 32GB to 1TB, depending on form factor, and all are available in industrial and commercial temperatures.

Samsung Electronics, the world leader in advanced memory technology, today announced that it has begun mass producing the industry's first one-terabyte (TB) embedded Universal Flash Storage (eUFS) 2.1, for use in next-generation mobile applications. Just four years after introducing the first UFS solution, the 128-gigabyte (GB) eUFS, Samsung has passed the much-anticipated terabyte threshold in smartphone storage. Smartphone enthusiasts will soon be able to enjoy storage capacity comparable to a premium notebook PC, without having to pair their phones with additional memory cards.

"The 1 TB eUFS is expected to play a critical role in bringing a more notebook-like user experience to the next generation of mobile devices," said Cheol Choi, executive vice president of Memory Sales & Marketing at Samsung Electronics. "What's more, Samsung is committed to assuring the most reliable supply chain and adequate production quantities to support the timely launches of upcoming flagship smartphones in accelerating growth of the global mobile market."

CORSAIR, a world leader in PC gaming peripherals and enthusiast components, today announced the availability of a wide range of new PC enthusiast accessories to help complete the look of a custom PC: CORSAIR Premium Individually Sleeved PSU Cables, Premium Sleeved Front Panel Extension Kit, Premium Sleeved SATA Cable, Premium PCIe 3.0 x16 Extension Cable, and TM30 Performance Thermal Paste. From custom paracord cables available in a range of colors, to flexible PCIe mounting and dependable thermal paste, the new range of accessories are the perfect way to build and complete a stunning professional-looking custom PC.

PLEXTOR, a leading developer of award-winning solid-state drives (SSDs) and other high-performance digital storage devices, today announced the introduction of its latest line of PCIe and SATA SSDs at this year's CES.

The new M10Pe PCIe SSD Series offers a new level of speed and performance targeted for all PC gamers and applications intensive users. The new series combines advanced 96-layer 3D NAND flash and industry leading controller to deliver awesome sequential read/write speeds up to 3,200/2,500 MB/s and random read/write speeds up to 410,000/320,000 IOPS.

BIOSTAR, a leading manufacturer of motherboards, graphics cards, and storage devices announced the S100 Plus series SSD, an affordable solid state drive (SSD) with outstanding performance for laptop and desktop computer upgrades. Built in a beautifully designed 2.5-inch unibody with ultra-slim 7.0mm casing, featuring an ultra-stable shock-proof design. The S100 Plus Series SSDs are available in 240GB and 480GB, making upgrading or replacing previous generation storage more accessible than ever.

With the SATA3 6GB/s interface, the S100 240GB Plus has sequential read/write speeds of 510MB/s and 370MB/s, and the S100 480GB Plus with read/write speeds of 540MB/s and 460MB/s to achieve ultra-fast game or software access. Compared with traditional hard drives, the read/write speed is an improvement of up to 200-300% in performance, which offers a whole new gaming and work experience.

CES may have officially ended but our coverage from the trade show continues. Bitspower had invited TechPowerUp to come visit their suite, mentioning there would be something new and unexpected, and that indeed was the case. Our tour began with the customary showcase of the new GPU water blocks compatible with reference, and board partner designs, for the new NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 and relatively new AIC RTX 2070/80(Ti) cards as well. These feature integrated RGB lighting compatible with all major motherboard lighting solutions for control, and adopt the split central-inlet flow design as well.

Seagate at CES 2019 unveiled its first NAS-grade solid state drives, under the Ironwolf 110 series. A "NAS-grade" HDD/SSD is typically that which has its durability or endurance rated halfway between client- and enterprise segments. The Ironwolf 110 series boasts of 1 DWPD endurance, and comes in capacities of up to 3.84 TB. Backing these endurance chops is a 5-year warranty. The drive is also designed keeping in mind the rigors of 24x7 operation and RAID environments. Although built in the 7 mm-thick 2.5-inch form-factor with SATA 6 Gbps interface, Seagate understands that a lot of home/SOHO NAS devices only feature 3.5-inch caddies. It's likely that these drives will include a simple accessory that lets you use them with 3.5-inch trays.

Available in capacities of 3.84 TB, 1.92 TB, 960 GB, 480 GB, and 240 GB, the Ironwolf 110 incorporates 3D TLC NAND flash memory. All variants are capable of up to 560 MB/s sequential reads, and barring the 240 GB variant that writes at up to 345 MB/s, all variants offer up to 535 MB/s sequential writes. The 4K random access read performance ranges between 85,000 to 90,000 IOPS for the 960 GB thru 3.84 TB variants, and between 55,000 to 75,000 IOPS for the 240 thru 480 GB ones.

Toshiba announces MG08 Series, the industry's largest capacity 16 TB Conventional Magnetic Recording (CMR) HDD. With 33% more capacity than today's widely adopted 12 TB drives, and 14% more capacity than prior 14 TB models, MG08 16 TB drives are compatible with the widest range of applications and operating systems, and adapted to mixed random and sequential read and write workloads in both cloud and traditional datacenter environments.

The MG08 Series is Toshiba's second-generation helium-sealed HDD family, and eighth-generation Enterprise Capacity HDD family. Toshiba has delivered its industry-leading 16 TB capacity and improved power efficiency by utilizing the 9-disk helium design, introduced last year in 14 TB models, and its own advanced precision laser welding process to ensure the helium remains sealed inside the drive case. The MG08 features 7,200 rpm performance, a 550 TB per year workload rating, a 2.5 million-hour MTTF, a 512 MB cache buffer, and a choice of SATA and SAS interfaces-all in an industry-standard, 3.5-inch form factor.

Seagate Technology plc., a world leader in data solutions, today announced an exciting extension of its portfolio with several new models, including new solid state drive offerings at CES 2019. From gung-ho gamers to Instagram gurus, photo-collecting parents, or visionary creatives, Seagate offers the data storage solutions that empower users to live their best digital lives in today's fast-changing data-heavy landscape.

Today, consumers have more ways than ever to consume content, driving the need to create, distribute and manage data efficiently. According to a recent IDC whitepaper sponsored by Seagate, five billion consumers are currently interacting with data every single day. By 2025, that number will jump to six billion, or 75 percent of the world's population. Each of those six billion people will have at least one data interaction every 18 seconds, bumping the amount of data created worldwide to 175 zettabytes by 2025. Consumers increasingly need reliable ways to collect, protect, manage and access a good portion of that data, and Seagate's latest products - including the cutting-edge LaCie Mobile Drive, LaCie Mobile SSD, Seagate Backup Plus HDDs, FireCuda 510 and BarraCuda 510 internal SSDs, and IronWolf 110 NAS SSD - are designed to fit a variety of data storage needs and digital lifestyles.

Synology Inc. today launched DiskStation DS1819+, an 8-bay desktop NAS providing outstanding performance with great expandability, ready to grow as your business thrives. "This is a compact NAS with an expandable design that can be an ideal investment for small to medium-sized businesses, especially when capable of hosting versatile applications." Said Kevin Meng, product manager of Synology Inc. "As an updated 8-bay desktop NAS in the Plus family, DS1819+ provides a performance increase of over 57% in sequential reading compared to its predecessor, making it more than capable of being just a file server or backup target to satisfy various business requirements with its all-inclusive built-in applications."

Greenliant is growing its portfolio of ArmourDrive solid state drive (SSD) modules with the introduction of 87 PX Series SATA M.2 products. Designed for embedded systems requiring removable data storage that can operate in extreme environments, industrial temperature (-40°C to +85°C), SATA M.2 ArmourDrive SSDs are built in the widely used 2280 form factor.

With high reliability and low power consumption, SATA M.2 ArmourDrive SSDs can be used in a multitude of applications, including Internet of Things (IoT) devices, industrial automation, servers, networking equipment, digital signage, surveillance and video conferencing systems. SATA M.2 ArmourDrive supports the SATA 6Gb/s interface and can reach up to 550/500 MB/s sequential read/write performance. Using 3-bits-per-cell (TLC) 3D NAND flash memory, 87 PX Series SATA M.2 ArmourDrive is rigorously tested to give customers cost-effective and reliable removable solid state storage for space-constrained systems.

Showcasing its continued strength and leadership in enterprise-capacity storage solutions, Western Digital today announced the industry's highest capacity HDD, the 15 TB Ultrastar DC HC620 host-managed SMR HDD. The Ultrastar DC HC620 delivers an unprecedented capacity point with a time-to-market advantage for customers who have invested in, and continue to take advantage of the benefits of SMR.

"With data continuing to grow at unprecedented rates, many hyperscale and cloud storage customers know that their workloads trend toward data that is written sequentially. In these instances, customers are optimizing their infrastructures with the lowest TCO and the maximum capacity," said Eyal Bek, vice president of product marketing, Western Digital. "By capitalizing on our highest-capacity SMR storage solutions, our customers' investment can not only be fully leveraged today, but for subsequent generations of SMR areal density improvements for continued infrastructure optimization."

Samsung Electronics America, Inc. today unveiled the Samsung Data Center solid-state drive (SSD) lineup to address current and future trends in high performance computing storage in the big data era for small and medium businesses (SMBs). Samsung's new family of Data Center SSD solutions, which consists of the 860 DCT, 883 DCT, 983 DCT and the 983 ZET, are engineered to meet the evolving needs of SMBs, including faster, sustained performance, higher capacities and enterprise-class reliability and security.

Samsung's Data Center SSD portfolio will raise the bar for efficiency compared to legacy storage systems, requiring fewer servers and reduced power and cooling for a lower total cost of ownership (TCO). The new lineup delivers better Quality of Service (QoS) for SMBs by reducing latency and lowering data delays. The entire line provides enhanced reliability and endurance for 24/7 operation backed by a 5-year limited warranty and impressive Drive Writes Per Day (DWPD) ratings.

Toshiba today announced that Super Micro Computer, Inc. has successfully qualified the MG07ACA Series 14TB and 12TB HDD SATA models on select Supermicro storage server platforms. Using a 9-disk, helium-sealed design, the new MG07ACA Series provides power-efficient capacity and storage density, which is now available on Supermicro's popular SuperStorage (SSG) line-up of server platforms. The MG07 Series industry-leading 14TB capacity allows data center customers a choice of storage server platform solutions available through Supermicro's extensive network of distributors as well as systems and solutions integrators.

"As we continue to develop solutions to meet the growing capacity needs of enterprise and cloud data center customers, Toshiba is pleased to be working with Supermicro on solutions utilizing our new MG07ACA Series helium-sealed HDD," said Shuji Takaoka, General Manager of Storage Products Sales & Marketing Division at Toshiba Electronic Devices & Storage Corporation. "Toshiba's innovative, power-efficient 9-disk design delivers the highest capacity available in the market today using conventional magnetic recording, and matches up well with Supermicro's highly-regarded lineup of server and storage solutions."

The Serial ATA International Organization (SATA-IO), the storage industry consortium dedicated to sustaining the quality, integrity and dissemination of the Serial ATA (SATA ) technology, announced the publication of the SATA Revision 3.4 Specification. The newest SATA specification introduces features that enable monitoring of device conditions and execution of housekeeping tasks, both with minimal impact on performance.

The storage market continues to demand improvements in performance, reliability and compatibility. The industry standard group has added new features to the specification revision 3.4 so that SATA devices may offer improvements in these areas, including:

• Durable /Ordered Write Notification: enables writing selected critical cache data to the media, minimizing impact on normal operations.
• Device Temperature Monitoring: allows for active monitoring of SATA device temperature and other conditions without impacting normal operation by utilizing the SFF-8609 standard for out of band (OOB) communications.
• Device Sleep Signal Timing: provides additional definition to enhance compatibility between manufacturers' implementations.

Today Toshiba Memory America, Inc., the U.S.-based subsidiary of Toshiba Memory Corporation, unveiled a new, game-changing category of SAS SSDs expected to replace SATA SSDs in server applications. The RM5 12Gbit/s value SAS (vSAS) series features capacity, performance, reliability, manageability and data security advantages - at a price that obsoletes SATA SSDs.

A homogeneous SAS environment has long been the gold standard for enterprise server and storage systems. With vertical integration expertise in flash technology, firmware and controller design, Toshiba leveraged its leading position as the world's leading SAS SSD line optimizing RM5 to close the cost gap with SATA - and usher in a new class of SSD. SATA simply cannot compete with SAS, falling well short in terms of performance, robustness and encryption options.

It's not just fast memory, but also fast storage from GALAX this Computex. The company unveiled three new SSD products, beginning with the Hall of Fame (HOF) E12 AIC PCIe SSD. This drive features signature HOF styling, complete with the white PCB, and a silvery shroud. There's also a dash of RGB LED lighting elements along the top and front of the shroud. The drive comes in 1 TB capacity, and combines 3D TLC NAND flash with new Phison PS5012-E12 controller. The drive takes advantage of PCI-Express 3.1 x4 and the NVMe 1.3 protocol. The drive is capable of sequential speeds of up to 3400 MB/s reads, with up to 3000 MB/s writes, and 4K random access speeds of up to 600,000 IOPS.

Next up, is the GALAX One 2.5-inch SATA drive. The model shown has 240 GB capacity, and combines MLC NAND flash with Phison PS3111-S11 controller, to serve up sequential transfer rates of up to 520 MB/s reads, and up to 460 MB/s writes, and 4K random access speeds of up to 90,000 IOPS reads, with up to 80,000 IOPS writes. Lastly, there's the GamerRGB, a 2.5-inch SATA drive with 256 GB capacity, the same PS3111-S11 controller, but RGB LED lighting. The company didn't reveal performance numbers for this drive.

QNAP Systems, Inc. (QNAP ) today unveiled the TS-963X, a 9-bay NAS with an AMD quad-core 2.0 GHz processor, up to 8 GB RAM (upgradeable to 16 GB), and 10GBASE-T connectivity supporting five connection speeds (10G/5G/2.5G/1G/100M). The compact TS-963X is the size of a 5-bay NAS but accommodates five 3.5-inch HDD bays and four 2.5-inch SSDs bays that deliver high-performance, high-capacity storage potential including automatic file/data tiering based on access frequency (Qtier Technology). The TS-963X is ideal for small businesses and organizations to boost data access efficiency, network transmission speed and to meet demands of mission-critical tasks.

"The TS-963X is designed to enhance the everyday workflows of small businesses and organizations at a budget-friendly price," noted Jason Hsu, Product Manager of QNAP. "The 10GBASE-T/NBASE-T port and four 2.5-inch bays for SSDs can all significantly improve performance, allowing the total cost of ownership to remain reasonable and affordable for most businesses," he added.

QNAP Systems, Inc. today unveiled new TVS-882BR RDX models (including the TVS-882BR-RDX and TVS-882BRT3-RDX) that integrates the Tandberg RDX QuikStor internal SATA 5.25-inch docking station (8813-RDX) for installing removable and portable RDX hard disk cartridges. Compared to standard external hard drives, the Tandberg RDX cartridge features a rugged dust-proof design that protects data for a longer period of time and allows users to easily transfer data with the cartridges.

"QNAP constantly integrates partner backup solutions to our existing NAS solutions. By supporting RDX hard disk backup, the new TVS-882BR RDX models allows users to enjoy longer data protection and the portable cartridges can easily be shared for data exchanging. Coupled with Media Asset Management (MAM) software and a wide range of backup solutions, the TVS-882BR helps improve work efficiency while also providing highly-scalable storage space and powerful hardware that meets the requirements from modern businesses and organizations" said Dan Lin, Product Manager of QNAP.

OWC, a leading zero emissions Mac and PC technology company, is making drive juggling a thing of the past with the new OWC Mercury Elite Pro Quad. The new external storage solution offers four drive bays to provide massive amounts of storage from a single USB-C connection, with the flexibility to be utilized in Mac, PC and mixed Mac/PC environments. Designed for users who require high capacity storage with fast transfer speeds, the Mercury Elite Pro Quad is ideal for use by post- production firms, photographers, creative agencies, higher education programs, and small businesses.

ADATA Technology, a leading manufacturer of high performance DRAM modules, NAND Flash products, and mobile accessories, today launched the XPG SX950U 2.5" SATA 6 Gb/s Gaming SSD which utilizes the latest 3D NAND Flash memory and is driven by a high-speed SMI controller to reach large capacities of up to 960 GB with significantly higher read/write speeds up to 560/520 MB/s.

Furthermore, the SX950U is equipped with Intelligent SLC Caching and a DRAM Cache Buffer to provide an optimized and consistent performance. To ensure data integrity and the safety of data transmission, the SX950U features LDPC ECC and RAID Engine technologies, enhancing the stability of the system and extending the SSD's lifespan. For PC enthusiasts and gamers in pursuit of the optimal gaming experience, the SX950U is the ideal choice for improving system performance at an affordable price.

It is safe to say having larger and faster data storage such as a 4 TB SATA SSD or even better, streamline 32 Gb/s NVMe SSD is an improvement over optical media in term of speed, size and popularity. However, to certain users, optical media's advantages of long shelf life and resistance to alteration on data are the key requirements to their mission critical applications.

Because of these demands, ICY DOCK came up with solutions for those who seek to replace existing slim optical drives with a faster drive system, along with those who still see utility in using optical media or have to deal with large amounts of optical media. ICY DOCK ODD/FDD solutions can help accommodate various builds ranging from a personal workstation to a large data center.

QNAP Systems, Inc. today launched the new REXP-1610U-RP and REXP-1210U-RP expansion enclosures that support 6 Gbps SATA hard drives and SSDs. Designed for expanding the storage space of a QNAP NAS, the new expansion enclosures provide a flexible and budget-friendly solution for organizations to tackle applications with intense data growth (such as archiving, high-resolution media storage, and video surveillance) without needing a large up-front investment.

"The rampant growth of data makes a flexible storage expansion solution a priority for organizations," said David Tsao, Product Manager of QNAP, adding "QNAP provides a wide range of expansion enclosures with various transmission interfaces and price points, fulfilling the need for higher capacity and lower costs to resolve the needs of data storage and backup."

Micron has announced that they will be introducing QLC (Quad Level Cell) NAND-based, own brand drives for the server environment this year. The new QLC drives are expected to boost maximum storage density (and price per GB) closer to that of mechanical HDDs, which is why Micron is positioning drives based on this memory technology as data center-class SSDs for the nearline storage market. The company is positioning these drives as replacement options for 7,200 RPM HDDs for workloads that require heavy reads of stored information - thus offsetting QLC NAND's lower endurance when it comes to available maximum writes on the drives' cells.

It's a known trade-off when it comes to the NAND world: higher amounts of bits per cell to represent information means that there must be much increased accuracy when it comes to reading a given cell's voltage state. While SLC NAND only tracks two voltage states, MLC (2-bits per cell) tracks four voltage states, TLC doubles that to eight voltage states, and QLC doubles the ante again for a maximum 16 voltage states, where each voltage state represents data on the cell. Of course, with repeat writes and voltage changes, accuracy and capacity for the cell to maintain its given voltage tend to drop, which leads to incorrect information and thus corrupted data or those cells to be rendered inoperative. This is one of the reasons for manufacturers to include overprovisioning in their NAND-based solutions.

ADATA Technology, a leading manufacturer of high-performance DRAM modules and NAND Flash application products, today launches the ISMS331, an industrial SATA 7-pin Disk-On-Module (DOM), which is suitable for desktops, compact computers, industrial computers and embedded applications by providing various specifications and wide temperature support. It also features several key technologies, including self-diagnostics, life time monitoring and ECC (Error Correcting Code) for product longevity and high reliability.

Various Upgrade Configurations for More Possibilities
The ADATA ISMS331 SATA 7-pin DOM utilizes high-quality SLC and MLC NAND flash and comes with a variety of capacities from 4GB to 32GB (SLC models) and 8GB to 128GB (MLC models). It is available in both horizontal and vertical pin orientations to accommodate a wide variety of system form factors. In addition, it provides excellent performance and reliability with sequential read/write speeds of up to 260MB/s for SLC models and 300/180MB/s for MLC models. Thanks to the industrial grade operable temperature range of -40°C to +90°C, the ISMS331 can operate in harsh environments for long periods of time.