SMART Modular Technologies, Inc. ("SMART"), a division of SGH and a global leader in memory solutions, solid-state drive (SSD) and hybrid storage products announces the next generation of its DuraFlash ME2 family of SATA SSD products, which includes industry-standard M.2 2242, M.2 2280, mSATA, Slim SATA and 2.5" form factors. These SSDs are available in both industrial and commercial temperature grades and have versions that implement SMART's SafeDATA power-loss, data-protection technology for graceful handling of power fluctuations and sudden power loss events.

The new ME2 SSDs incorporate the latest generation 3D NAND-technology and SMART Modular's proprietary NVMSentry firmware to deliver high performance SSD products with endurance up to one drive writes per day (DWPD) for five years using JEDEC JESD219A enterprise endurance workload. The new NAND device offers better cost per bit over previous 64-layer and 96-layer NAND generations without sacrificing performance and reliability.

Next week at Dell Technologies World, KIOXIA America, Inc. will be on hand to demonstrate how its innovative solid state drives (SSDs) are accelerating customer application performance and enabling product breakthroughs. From SSDs designed with PCIe 5.0 technology that boost power and performance to the industry's first lineup of Enterprise and Datacenter Standard Form Factor (EDSFF) E3.S SSDs, best in class drives from KIOXIA are used in a number of Dell product lines.

KIOXIA, the inventor of NAND flash, sits at the forefront of flash storage and SSD innovation. Achievements such as the introduction of 3D flash memory, XL-FLASH storage class memory, and new form factors and interfaces underscore the contributions the company has made toward enabling next-gen applications - and transforming the digital world.

For many years, TEAMGROUP has been developing high-quality products for industrial use and automation applications. In response to the growing market for 5G applications, the company this year is focusing on the new market demands of 5G infrastructure, AloT edge computing, and autonomous driving, as well as in-vehicle computing and environmental safety control applications. Today, TEAMGROUP is announcing its 745 SSD Series, which features the 5th generation BiCS NAND flash memory. It's a comprehensive industrial solution that comes with high capacities, low latencies, and high durability for the various application of industrial market.

The TEAMGROUP 745 SSD Series uses the new 112-layer 3D TLC and the latest 5th generation BiCS NAND flash memory, giving it approximately 40% more capacity and 50% better I/O performance than BiCS4 SSDs. This makes it fully suitable for the high-capacity, low-latency transmission requirements of edge computing. To meet the needs of a wide range of industrial applications, the 745 SSD Series is available in a variety of form factors with mainstream specifications, including models with SATA and PCIe Gen3x4 interfaces and capacities from 128 GB to 2 TB, offering the industry a variety of professional options. The 745 SSD Series is also equipped with SLC cache technology, which improves SSD read and write efficiency and supports high AI load for smart manufacturing and autonomous driving, while the AES 256-bit encryption prevents data security concerns and ensures safety and stability of the SSD.

ADATA Technology (Taiwan Stock Exchange: 3260.TWO), a leading manufacturer of high-performance DRAM modules, NAND Flash products, and mobile accessories today announces the launch of a proprietary management software that supports TCG OPAL data encryption technology, A+ OPAL. It applies to all ADATA's industrial-grade NVMe and SATA III solid state drives that support TCG OPAL. With an intuitive and simple interface, it enables users to safely manage storage devices, especially for data centers, servers, surveillance, healthcare, and other applications and meets the strict data security requirements of enterprises and governments.

Compared with other encryption software systems, the "Self-Encrypting Drive (SED)" hardware technology defined by TCG OPAL can provide more efficient and convenient management. A+ OPAL software not only greatly reduces the high threshold set by the TCG OPAL specification for users with non-technical backgrounds, but it also saves time and simplifies encrypting through the host system, making information security protection more efficient.

Seagate Technology Holdings plc, a world leader in mass-data storage infrastructure solutions, and Phison Electronics Corp., a global leader in NAND flash controller and storage solutions, announced today plans to expand their SSD portfolio of next-gen high-performance, high-density enterprise NVMe SSDs. The new SSDs will help enterprises lower total cost ownership (TCO) through increased storage density, lower power consumption, and higher performance. The companies also announced that they have entered a long-term partnership that will strengthen the development cycle and distribution of enterprise-class SSDs.

Seagate and Phison have collaborated on Seagate's mainstream SATA SSD products since 2017. That close cooperation has continued through the company's performance-leading line of FireCuda consumer gaming NVMe PCIe Gen4 x4 SSDs and the world's first purpose-built NAS NVMe SSDs. The partnership will now focus on meeting the evolving global enterprise demand for higher density, faster, and smarter storage infrastructure needs that complement HDD storage to enable comprehensive enterprise applications such as hyperscale data center, high-performance computing and AI.

MSI is launching a new blazing fast model to its SSD product line - SPATIUM M480 PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 PLAY, exceeding all performance requirements for PlayStation 5 use. MSI SSDs enhances our company's identity as a high-performance PC brand by expanding our ecosystem and covering the high-performance storage category. These SSDs are built with high-quality, high-density 3D NAND flash that delivers great performance with up to 7000 MB/sec read. On SPATIUM M480 PLAY, the sleek dual finish aluminium heatsink is designed to fit the PlayStation 5. This improves heat-dissipation to sustain transfer speeds across all platforms for professionals, content creators, and gamers. Other performance-improving technologies include DRAM cache buffer and an SLC cache.

SPATIUM M480 PLAY is the optimal product made for console gaming in the SPATIUM lineup with four storage capacities - 500 GB, 1 TB, 2 TB, and 4 TB. This brings next-level storage performance to players for PlayStation 5, content creators, and PC gamers. Expanding the storage device on the PS5 is a simple upgrade that allows for lightning-fast save and load times for large game files.

Samsung and Western Digital today signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) that implies that the two companies will join their efforts to create next-generation data placement, processing, and fabrics (D2PF) storage technologies. The MOU states that the two companies will collaborate on creating Zoned Storage devices, including ZNS (Zoned Namespaces) SSDs and SMR (Shingled Magnetic Recording) HDDs. The ZNS SSD initiative is a challenge of creating entirely new SSDs that work on the ZNS principle instead of traditional block-based drives. Opposite to data in traditional SSDs written in blocks, ZNS SSDs will place data into zones and have software understand where each bit of information is written without excessive read/write action. Another benefit of ZNS is that managing data allows less garbage collection, thus higher efficiency.

Software adoption for ZNS makes it hard, and Samsung's conjoined efforts with Western Digital aim to simplify it. Western Digital notes that "In addition, this collaboration is expected to serve as a starting point to expand zone-based (e.g. ZNS, SMR) device interfaces, as well as future-generation, high-capacity storage devices with enhanced data placement and processing technologies. At a later stage, these initiatives will be expanded to include other emerging D2PF technologies such as computational storage and storage fabrics including NVMe over Fabrics (NVMe-oF)." So, with further development of ZNS, Samsung and Western Digital will collab on more advanced storage options as well.

ADATA Technology (Taiwan Stock Exchange: 3260.TWO), a global leading brand of industrial-grade memory, including flash storage products and DRAM modules, today announces that its in-house developed firmware for 112-Layer (BiCS5) 3D NAND PCIe solid state drives has become University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory (UNH-IOL) NVMe 1.4 certified. The certification reaffirms ADATA's core competencies in R&D and commitment to offering high performance SSDs. UNH-IOL is an independent test facility that provides interoperability and standards conformance testing for networking, telecommunications, data storage, and consumer technology products.

The IM2P32A8 M.2 2280 and IM2P32A4 M.2 2242 industrial-grade solid state drives will benefit from the newly certified firmware. What's more, both SSDs feature 112-layer 3D TLC Flash memory developed by WD and KIOXIA, supports the PCIe Gen3x4 interface, and provides large capacities of up to 2 TB. With ADATA's firmware, they provide improved performance and interoperability. In addition to processing large volumes of data, the SSDs can also serve as storage devices or a boot disk, which can fulfill the needs of applications such as 5G, Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), smart cities, and telemedicine.

Apacer has taken 3D NAND Flash optimization to new heights. Today, it announces the release of SLC-liteX industrial SSDs that can provide an incredible 100,000 P/E cycles. That's 3 to 33 times higher than competing 2D MLC or 3D TLC products can offer. 5G and AIoT manufacturers who are invested in large-scale data collection and analysis, including those demanding higher capacities, higher performance and higher endurance, will quickly see the advantages of this development. According to Allied Market Research, "the global 3D NAND flash memory market size was valued at $12.38 billion in 2020, and is projected to reach $78.42 billion by 2030, registering a CAGR of 20.3% from 2021 to 2030."

The endurance of any NAND Flash product can be measured in P/E cycles. Every time a write or erase action is performed, the Flash cell will suffer irreparable damage. In the industrial world, 3,000 P/E cycles was considered quite a competitive number. But with increasing demands for greater endurance thresholds in applications such as 5G O-RAN and edge computing switches, the market was hungry for more - while still recognizing the paramount importance of cost-effectiveness. Apacer's crack team of firmware experts tackled the problem and were able to tweak the technology to deliver 100,000 P/E cycles. Careful cell distribution management of the 3D TLC structure was necessary in order to correctly adjust the voltage delta and charge sensing. Furthermore, powered by carefully selected industrial grade NAND components, the firmware structure is specifically optimized to enhance NAND flash stability during daily operations, and the error handling algorithm is significantly improved to avoid any unexpected ECC errors.

Kingston Digital, Inc., the Flash memory affiliate of Kingston Technology Company, Inc., a world leader in memory products and technology solutions, today announced it closed out a prosperous 2021 in the number one spot for SSD Unit market share in the channel. SSD demand through Q4 2021 remained high due to continued growth in the client, enterprise and OEM sectors. In October, Kingston also broadened its portfolio by launching two new high performance client M.2 NVMe PCIe Gen 4 SSDs, KC3000 and Kingston FURY Renegade.

Market share data from analyst research company TRENDFOCUS showed Kingston as the number one client SSD vendor in the channel with 22.2% for unit market share and 22.3 million client SSDs shipped for all of 2021 in the channel. In Q4 alone, Kingston's client SSD market share grew to a substantial 26.8% in the channel which displays a healthy annual unit growth despite ongoing component shortages. According to TRENDFOCUS, total client SSD units increased 12.4% YoY in 2021. Notebook PC units increased 12% YoY while desktop PCs inched up 1% over the same period, reflecting the rapid adoption of solid-state drives by clients largely due to performance, size and reduced power consumption. Kingston maintains a competitive advantage by working closely with its suppliers, partners, and customers to remain flexible and adapt to ever-changing needs and market conditions.

Mushkin Enhanced MFG - An industry-leading designer and manufacturer of high-performance and high-reliability computer products, today launched its new Redline VORTEX Series of high-performance NVMe solid-state drives. Featuring a carbon nano heat dissipating label, the Redline Vortex delivers colossal throughput of up to 7415 MB/s sequential read and up to 6,800 MB/s sequential write. In combination with Dynamic SLC Caching and DRAM Cache Buffer, the Redline Vortex gives you a performance boost needed for content creators, gaming, and professionals alike.

The Redline VORTEX series, powered by Innogrit's IG5236 series (Rainier) controller, features the next evolution of the PCI-Express Gen4 interface offering an impressive range of performance, security, and reliability. Delivering up to 10 times the sequential read and sequential write speeds of some SATA SSDs and up to 50 times the speed of some traditional HDDs.

Nextorage Corporation will launch a PCIe Gen 4.0 x4 ("PCIe 4.0") M.2 2280 NVMe SSD "NEM-PA series" for the USA market from March. The products are initially sold on Amazon. Nextorage was established on October 1, 2019, as a company specializing in the memory storage solutions business led by engineers and staff who built on 20 years of history in memory storage at Sony.

The NEM-PA series is an M.2 2280 SSD equipped with a PCIe 4.0 / NVMe 1.4 controller and a 3D TLC NAND, and comes with a heatsink for heat dissipation. The drive achieves sequential read up to 7,300 MB/s, sequential write up to 6,900 MB/s, and random read/write up to 1,000 K IOPS (in a PC environment). The NEM-PA series delivers both high-speed loading and smooth gaming experience.

Silicon Power (SP) releases its newest PCIe 3.0 SSD, the UD80, featuring storage capacities up to 2 TB with 3D NAND flash technology. The UD80 strikes a perfect harmony between cost and performance to breathe new life into your system without burning a hole in your pocket. Designed for creators that need more than just a jolt of inspiration, the UD80 provides exceptional value and a performance boost with a PCIe Gen 3 x4 interface - a boost that leaves SATA III SSDs behind in the dust.

The UD80 utilizes the speed capabilities of PCIe 3.0 with the efficiency of NVMe and Host Memory Buffer (HMB) technology. Let your creative juices flow with rapid read and write speeds up to 3,400 MB/s and 3,000 MB/s, respectively. At the same time, experience seamless productivity via the higher performance and lower latency that's achieved by NVMe 1.4 and HMB technology.

Kioxia Corporation today announced that its KIOXIA PM7 Series of enterprise SAS SSDs are now available for customer evaluation. Targeted at enterprise applications and use cases - including high-performance computing, artificial intelligence, caching layer, and financial trading and analysis - the new drives bring improved performance, reliability and security to enterprise servers and storage. With an emphasis on security, the PM7 Series is FIPS 140-2 certified and currently under test for FIPS 140-3 certification.

Designed for modern IT infrastructures, 24G SAS (SAS-4) doubles effective bandwidth over 12 Gb/s SAS (SAS-3). Featuring Kioxia's 5th generation BiCS FLASH 3D flash memory, the PM7 Series delivers sequential read performance of up 4.2 Gigabytes (GB) per second (GB/s) and 720K random read IOPS, achieving approximately 20% performance improvement over the previous generation KIOXIA PM6 Series. The new Kioxia drives are available in capacities up to 30.72 terabytes (TB), making them the industry's highest capacity 2.5-inch SAS SSD.

In 4Q21, NAND Flash bit shipments grew by only 3.3% QoQ, a significant decrease from the nearly 10% in 3Q21, according to TrendForce's investigations. ASP fell by nearly 5% and the overall industry posted revenue of US$18.5 billion, a QoQ decrease of 2.1%. This was primarily due to a decline in the purchase demand of various products and a market shift to oversupply causing a drop in contract prices. In 4Q21, with the exception of enterprise SSD, the supply of which was limited by insufficient upstream components, the prices of other NAND Flash products such as eMMC, UFS, and client SSD, all fell.

TrendForce's summary of NAND Flash market sales performance in 2021 is as follows: although there have been signs of weakening since 2H21, thanks to remote services and cloud demand driven by the pandemic, revenue performance still grew significantly compared to 2020. Revenue reached US$68.6 billion, up 21.1% YoY, the second-biggest increase since 2018.

China is reacting to new outbreaks of the Omicron variant of the Coronavirus with partial lockdowns. This could further delay the availability of laptops with 12th Gen Intel Core processors and NVIDIA's Ti graphics cards, which debuted at the beginning of the year. The first factories have already been closed in Suzhou in the east of the country. Supply chain and logistics bottlenecks, a shortage of certain chip types and price increases are already on the horizon.

AeroCool unveiled the Cipher mid-tower case targeted at those with copious amounts of local storage. It features a mostly conventional horizontally-partitioned layout, but with a key difference. Toward the forward-right region of the case, is a fan vent that holds either two 120 mm or two 140 mm fans; and can mount 280 mm or 240 mm radiators. The radiator ends up in the crawl-space behind the motherboard tray, while its fans are on the other side. It exhausts through vents along the right side-panel. The left side-panel has these vents, too, but serves as intake. This is where things get interesting. There are four detachable 3.5-inch drive-cages mounted along the motherboard tray (with clearance for the radiator fans). These cages can either serve as a fresh air-guide for the side-mounted radiator, or hold up to eight 3.5-inch HDDs ventilated by those fans. You can pluck out the drive-cages you don't need.

The storage features don't end there. The bottom compartment has an additional three 3.5-inch bays, two 2.5-inch drives can be mounted behind the motherboard tray, and two on top of the partition, for a total of 15 drives, not counting the M.2 SSDs on your motherboard. Other ventilation options include three 120 mm front fan-mounts behind a mesh intake; three 120 mm top exhausts, and a 120 mm rear exhaust. The expansion slots include two vertical slots. Front-panel connectivity is pretty standard, with a USB 3.x type-A, two USB 2.0, and HDA jacks. All this, in mid-tower dimensions of 205 mm x 485 mm x 485 mm (WxDxH). The company didn't reveal pricing.

While NVMe storage devices offer significant performance and reliability advantages over their platter-based counterparts, many Linux and VMware based applications continue to rely on older SAS & SATA solutions due to the ready availability of firmware level RAID storage and native driver support. This combination greatly simplifies the kernel update process while minimizing downtime. RAID solutions with native driver support will be treated as embedded devices, and do not need to be updated separately to comply with the kernel change.

The SSD6200 product family was designed to address these concerns. The NVMe RAID capability is integrated at the firmware level, and functions independent of the host. In addition, SSD6200 series controllers are natively supported by all major Virtualization platforms, such as VMware, Microsoft Hyper-V and Proxmox, and all current versions and distributions of Windows, Linux and FreeBSD operating systems. This native, In-Box driver support ensures administrators are free to update the Kernel, apply patches, or download and install scheduled updates whenever the need arises, using standard operating procedures. No work-arounds, no hassles, no surprises.

PATRIOT, a global leader in performance memory, SSDs, gaming peripherals, and flash storage solutions, is pleased to announce the PATRIOT P400 PCIe Gen4x4 NVMe M.2 SSD with capacities of 512 GB and 1 TB. The PATRIOT P400 was built using the latest PCIe Gen4x4 NVMe controller and best-in-class components to deliver faster data access, multi-application processing, and quick transfer speeds up to 5000 MB/s in sequential. The PATRIOT P400 can offer double the transfer speeds compared to standard PCIe 3x4 solutions with lower power consumption making it the best solution for laptop battery efficiency. In addition, the exclusive thin graphene heatshield provides outstanding heat dissipation, especially in systems with limited space.

"The PATRIOT P400 M.2 is designed to be an ideal solution for budget-minded users looking to achieve a cost-efficient storage solution with PCI Express gen4x4 performance. Our design team has created an excellent thermal solution using a slim graphene heatshield which can avoid any physical interference when using this drive-in system with limited space, such as a thin laptop." Said Roger Shinmoto, the vice president of PATRIOT MEMORY.

TechPowerUp partnered with NAND flash pioneer KIOXIA to give you a chance to bring home one of three KIOXIA Exceria series SSDs. Based on the company's BiCS 3D NAND flash technology, the Exceria series spans various client SSD form-factors, including M.2 NVMe and 2.5-inch SATA. The brand also extends to the company's various consumer flash products, including portable SSDs, USB flash drives, and memory cards. Up for grabs in the TechPowerUp Giveaway were a 2 TB Exceria Plus G2 NVMe SSD, a 1 TB Exceria NVMe SSD, and a 960 GB Exceria SATA 2.5-inch SSD. The results are in, and we have the winners!

• Martin from Malta, wins the 2 TB Exceria Plus G2 NVMe SSD
• Pari from New Zealand, wins the 1 TB Exceria NVMe SSD
• Paul from the United Kingdom, wins the 960 GB Exceria SATA 2.5-inch SSD

A huge Congratulations to you three! TechPowerUp and KIOXIA will return with more such interesting giveaways.

Infortrend Technology, Inc. (TWSE: 2495), the industry-leading enterprise storage provider, satisfies requirements of high throughput and fast response time for high-performance computing (HPC), media post-production, and medical PACS applications ­— with EonStor CS NVMe SSD storage delivering 13 GB/s throughput in a 3-node cluster, and performance linearly increases in a scale-out mode.

Today's HPC applications perform computationally intensive operations with billions of files across multiple resources of different nature at PB scale. Storage for HPC, therefore, must be able to simultaneously support multiple random and sequential IO workloads of different sizes. Otherwise, it can extensively delay the HPC application output and the company's success. EonStor CS NVMe SSD storage, CS 4014U, effectively eliminates these concerns and guarantees fast response time, satisfying various types of IO profiles.\

Micron Technology, Inc., today announced it has begun volume shipments of the world's first 176-layer QLC NAND SSD. Built with the most advanced NAND architecture, Micron's 176-layer QLC NAND delivers the industry's leading storage density and optimized performance for a broad range of data-rich applications. Designed for use cases spanning client and data center environments, Micron's transformative new NAND technology is now available with the introduction of the Micron 2400 SSD, the world's first 176-layer PCIe Gen4 QLC SSD for client applications. The new 176-layer QLC NAND will also be incorporated into select Micron Crucial consumer SSDs, and available as a component for system designers.

Micron's groundbreaking 176-layer QLC NAND provides a layer count and density unprecedented in QLC NAND flash and follows Micron's delivery of the industry's first 176-layer TLC NAND. Additionally, Micron's 176-layer QLC NAND enables 33% higher I/O speed and 24% lower read latency than Micron's prior generation solution. Its replacement-gate architecture is the only mass production QLC flash storage that combines charge trap with a CMOS-under-array design. These improvements are driving adoption of QLC SSDs in the client PC market, which is expected to triple QLC adoption by 2023, exceeding 35%, and reaching nearly 80% bit share in 2025.

DeepCool, a global brand in designing and manufacturing high-performance computer components for enthusiasts worldwide, announces the CK SERIES Mid-Tower Cases, which consists the CK500, CK500WH, CK560 and CK560WH. Available in black and white, all cases deliver a balance of airflow, silent performance and exceptional cooling for the modern-day builder.

The CK SERIES deliver a no-nonsense approach to a clean, sleek computer chassis design. For Minimalist Builders who appreciate the CK500 and CK500WH minimal solid front panel can be rest assured that airflow performance is not hindered thanks to enlarged ventilation outlets throughout the front, top, and rear panels for additional air movement. For Builders that insist for even more airflow, the CK560 and CK560WH feature a unique cross-hair patterned steel front panel. All cases offer a clean aesthetic and fits a modern day look while being feature-packed for additional hardware expansion and upgrades.

Phison Electronics Corp., a global leader in NAND flash controller integrated circuits and storage solutions, will showcase its lineup of next-generation gaming solutions for customers, partners, media and other interested parties during CES 2022, January 5-8 exclusively by private virtual demos. The new-class of solutions include the company's first PCIe Gen5 controller for high-end desktop gaming, a future high-performance Gen4 solution, and demonstration of the next-generation game workload coming soon to PCs.

Phison, the leader in gaming-optimized SSDs pushes the boundaries of performance. The company's solutions power seamless experiences for modern console, desktop/notebook and mobile gaming, which are delivered to consumers through an extensive and diverse group of partners.Update Jan 4th: Added presentation slides, product images and closeups of the PCB designs.

TechPowerUp and KIOXIA come together to bring you a change to win one of three KIOXIA Exceria client SSDs. The Exceria range of SSDs span 2.5-inch SATA and M.2 NVMe form-factors, and combine KIOXIA's in-house BiCS flash memory, and the legacy of being the inventors of flash memory. Up for grabs are a KIOXIA Exceria Plus G2 2 TB M.2 NVMe SSD, a KIOXIA Exceria 1 TB M.2 NVMe SSD, and a KIOXIA Exceria SATA 960 GB SSD. The Giveaway is open worldwide (wherever legal), entries close on January 9, 2022. To participate, simply fill up a brief form to help us get back to you if you've won. All the best!

For more information and to participate, visit this page.