It was only a matter of time until SSDs really got hooked into the gaming scene and today, there isn’t a gamer around without flash media overseeing the storage of their gaming system.  Seagate released their FireCuda 520 back in  December of 2019 with the ‘FireCuda Gaming’ label and today we are reporting on their latest release, the FireCuda 530 …

Just about this time two years ago, we posted our report on the Intel H10 Optane Memory SSD and benefits it could bring to your everyday PC use. A quick review of that report might be a great start here as it provides an in depth look at SSD hot caching and what hot caching does for your system. Briefly, …

If there is anything the storage industry has gotten wrong, it would be its approach to educating the consumer on storage speeds and their importance.  As much as we would like to get into advertised flash performance specs which, for the most part are a total fallacy in relating the actual speed that data moves, today we are going to …

Just when things seem to be shaping up in the world of SSDs, an unexpected entry always seems to appear.  This is the case with the Western Digital Black SN850 NVMe SSD we have on the bench today, and many might say that we really never saw this coming.  Like a freight train…  We were all just so excited to …

It needs to be said.  Having a Gen 4 SSD in hand with speeds of 5GB/s in a 4TB capacity is rather special.  Many might never find need for such speed and capacity, but as a media professional, this is heaven.  My camera of choice is a Canon EOS R5 and I only shoot RAW which means each shot is …

The latest and greatest in SSDs is PCIe 4 and the extreme performance that comes with it, presently showing off speeds up to 7GB/s.  Accompanying these high power and rather expensive SSDs is something that we’ve really never had to tackle in the SSD industry, at least not to this extent…heat. At least up until today, Gen 4 SSDs had …

It is a bit amusing actually.  With every new level of NAND flash memory comes the forum thread wars.  When NAND flash memory first became a thing back in 2008, it was SLC (single level cell) which was short lived by the next generation MLC, or multi-level cell NAND flash memory.  Thread wars back then predicted that the world would …

This report examines the Crucial P5 NVMe SSD which has just been released in the past month or so.  It is a bit of an odd duck as we are seeing PCIe 3 SSDs settle with the latest and greatest in PCIe 4.0 entering the market. Historically, Crucial has been known to sit in the weeds with their SSD releases, …

Every now and then we run across an SSD that makes us smile.  It is usually something that was received and didn’t get looked at right away and something that really opens our eyes when we finally get it on the test bench.  With respect to PCIe 3.0 M.2 SSDs, it would have to be something that gives the Samsung …

Last week in Zhongshan, China, Lexar invited a very small group of international press for a special preview of just a few of their upcoming releases.  This event was held at the Longsys/Lexar/Foressee Headquarters which also houses the Lexar Memory Museum.  To say that this facility is breathtaking is just a bit of an understatement as it is situated in …