Sure signs of a storage geek… I haven’t been on the ground no more than 36 hours after returning on a 15hr hr flight from Computex Taipei and I am testing storage.  Worse yet… my initial testing for today’s report was only completed at 4:30am this morning… Yup extreme jet lag…  But look at this.  These two SSDs in this …

This week at Computex ADATA introduced three new SSDs aptly named the Mars 980 SSD line.  In common, they are all based on the SMI SM2508 8-channel NVMe SSD controller and all are capable of the expected 14GB/s read and 13GB/s write speeds with up to 2 million IOPS. All are Gen5 x4 (4-lane) form factor 2280 (22mm wide x …

Our visit to Patriot at Computex in Taiwan this morning resulted in two interesting Patriot soon-to-be releases…and just a bit of familiarity.  First off, Patriot has jumped aboard the Silicon Motion train with their newest PV593 which is a Gen5 SSD based on the SMI SM2508 8-channel NVMe SSD controller.  This controller will provide speeds of 14GB/s read and 13GB/s …

I personally think we lose out on some of the best in North American retail and my visit to KIOXIA at Computex 2025 this morning proved correct.  I might compound this belief with mention that KIOXIA (formerly Toshiba) is technically the inventor of flash NAND way back in 1987. KIOXIA, while being a very strong enterprise and data center resource …

Silicon Motion introduced a new Gen5 SSD controller at Computex 2025 this week.  The SMI SM2504XT is a Gen5 4-channel DRAMless SSD controller built on the TSMC 6nm process and capable of speeds up to 3600MT/s. This controller is capable of up to 11.5GB/s read and 11GB/s write with 1.7 million read and up to 2 million write IOPS. This …

If the name Corsair sounds just a bit familiar around these parts, it is because the Corsair name is literally built into every SSD report we have done going all the way back to 2011. What started as a SSD reviewing relationship grew to Corsair becoming our Test Bench peripheral sponsor for some 14 years now.  And there is a …

Having been in the flash review business since the beginning, we have seen so many companies come and go.  This morning at Computex we visited Lexar when I realized that they are one of the few companies that we have covered consistently for more than 14 years.  And would you believe that we were in for a bit of a …

Perhaps the Achilles Heal of the SSD industry has always been heat.  We can get you that 14GB/s performance…but at a price.  Only recently have we seen Gen5 SSDs doing what it takes to bring down the heat.  Things such as smaller footprint controllers, newer memory which can establish higher capacities in a single-sided format, a DRAMless form factor…and now …

It is not uncommon for products to be introduced at CES, ceBit, Flash Memory Summit or Computex that never see the light of day.  This is especially so in the SSD world where products could, as well, not hit the consumer market for years.  What is a complete shock, as one who reports on flash media, is when the person …

Apologies if we did not make the announcement but we have landed!  The SSD Review is on the ground in Taipei, Taiwan, and preparing for Computex 2025.  This is our first return to the event since 2019 and we are proud to provide special recognition to SMI who has sponsored us for this event.  If you would like to meet …