Storage
While the tech industry as a whole is well in the middle of transitioning to UFS and NVMe storage for portable devices, it would seem that the sun won't be setting on eMMC quite yet. This week Kioxia has introduced a new generation of eMMC 5.1 modules, based around a newer generation of their 3D NAND and aimed at those final, low-budget devices that are still using the older storage technology. Kioxia's new storage modules are compliant with the eMMC 5.1 standard, offering sequential read performance that tops out at 250 MB/s – the best that this technology can provide. But the internal upgrade to a newer generation of Kioxia's 3D NAND can still provide some benefits over older modules, including 2.5x higher sequential and...
Seagate's 2nd Gen Momentus XT: More NAND, Larger Capacity
It's been over a year since I reviewed Seagate's first hybrid hard drive: the 500GB Momentus XT. At the time I felt that it wasn't nearly as good as...
39 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 11/28/2011The OCZ Octane Review (512GB)
I have to hand it to OCZ's CEO, Ryan Petersen, I never thought he'd turn the company around in the way that he did. When I first met Ryan...
75 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 11/23/2011OCZ's Octane: Initial Performance Results
Last month OCZ finally unveiled the fruits of its Indilinx acquisition: the OCZ Octane SSD. Based on the Indilinx Everest platform, the Octane was to be OCZ's more affordable...
50 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 11/22/2011Understanding Wireless Storage: Kingston Wi-Drive and Seagate GoFlex Satellite
Let me pose a hypothetical situation: say you bought an iPhone or iPad, but cheaped out and got a 16GB model. You’ve got around 10GB worth of music, a...
32 by Vivek Gowri on 11/21/2011Seagate Awarded $525 million in Arbitration with Western Digital
Western Digital announced today in a press release that the arbitrator for a Seagate vs. Western Digital complaint sided with Seagate and ordered an award of $525 million paid...
19 by Amman Sood on 11/21/2011Intel to Add TRIM Support for RAID 0
Intel's release notes for Rapid Storage Technology (RST) 11.5 Alpha version reveal that they have plans to add TRIM support for RAID 0 arrays in the next version of...
31 by Kristian Vättö on 11/21/2011Newegg Giving A 15% Discount on Any OCZ SSD
Update: Apparently, the sale was only valid for one day (November 16th), meaning that the coupon code no longer works. Newegg is having a sale and they are giving a...
37 by Kristian Vättö on 11/16/2011Backify Closes Free Accounts, Starts to Charge for Storage
Two months ago, we wrote about a new online storage provider called Backify. Backify got our attention because of their magnificent offer: 512GB of "totally free" online storage. I...
42 by Kristian Vättö on 11/16/2011Kingston Releases SSDNow V200 Series
Kingston has released a new SSD lineup named as SSDNow V200. This series comes in 2.5" form factor and is the successor of V100 series, which was released a...
12 by Kristian Vättö on 11/10/2011Corsair Gives Marvell Another Try With Performance Pro SSD
Corsair is no stranger to Marvell based SSDs. Prior to its current flagship Force 3 and Force GT (SF-2281 based) SSDs, Corsair released the Performance 3 Series using Marvell...
10 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 11/10/2011OWC Mercury Aura Pro Express 6G Review: A Fast MacBook Air SSD Upgrade
I've written previously about the SSD lottery you play when you buy a new MacBook Air. As with many commodity components, Apple sources its SSDs from two sources. For...
40 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 11/9/2011LaCie Little Big Disk (240GB SSD) Review
A week ago we published our review of the first sub-$1000 Thunderbolt drive enclosure: LaCie's Little Big Disk. Armed with a pair of 2.5" hard drives, the Little Big...
24 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 11/8/2011Seagate's New Barracuda 3TB (ST3000DM001) Review
Platter density has been the crutch of hard drive makers in recent history. Increasing spindle speeds can reduce random access latency, but at the expense of cost and thermals...
77 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 11/2/2011The LSI SandForce Acquisition: Anand's Thoughts
I'd almost given up hope that someone would acquire SandForce. After taking so long to fix the infamous BSOD issue and our own interests beginning to shift away to...
22 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 11/2/2011Seagate Introduces New 1TB-Per-Platter Barracuda, Solid State Hybrid Version Coming
Yesterday Seagate had three members of its Barracuda family of 3.5" hard drives: the Barracuda Green, Barracuda, and Barracuda XT. Today, all three lines are being folded under the...
37 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 11/1/2011LaCie Little Big Disk (2TB) Review: More Affordable Thunderbolt Storage
Thunderbolt is the absolute fastest consumer interface available for users who want high-speed external storage. We proved this in our Pegasus R6 review where we sustained transfer rates of...
40 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 10/31/2011LSI Announces Agreement to Acquire SandForce
For much of the past year I've been hearing SandForce wanted to be bought. The price? $300M - $400M. A bit too rich for OCZ's blood, but a figure...
27 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 10/26/2011OCZ's Octane SSD: Indilinx Everest, Up to 1TB in a Consumer Drive
In March, OCZ signed a definitive agreement to acquire Indilinx, the SSD controller company that pretty much dominated the value segment in 2009 before Intel got aggressive on pricing...
58 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 10/20/2011SandForce Identifies Firmware Bug Causing BSOD Issue, Fix Available Today
After months of end user complaints, SandForce has finally duplicated, verified and provided a fix for the infamous BSOD/disconnect issue that affected SF-2200 based SSDs. The root cause is...
31 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 10/17/2011The Intel SSD 710 (200GB) Review
When Intel entered the SSD market one of its declared goals was to bring the technology into the mainstream. The goal was so important to Intel that its consumer...
69 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 9/30/2011