So… on our PCIe Gen 4 Test Bench today we have an SSD that is rather exciting. It is the Samsung 980 Pro PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD and, not only is it the smallest and fastest SSD on the planet right now, but also, it’s…very cool! By cool, we don’t mean that is trendy or awesome per se, but rather, …

Portable storage has come a long way.  As much as I am not going to give my age away by mentioning rather large bulletproof hard drive contained external SSDs, being able to throw a portable SSD in your pocket, much less one that is capable of storing hundreds of thousands of pictures, songs or thousands of movies, is impressive.  Such …

It isn’t too often that we’re reviewing SATA 3 SSDs these days.  The reason of course is that that bigger and better gets all the attention.  Data transfer speeds of 550MB/s are all to often forgotten when PCIe 4×4 is now moving data at just under 10x that.  Similarly, capacities up to 2TB are fairly common but we have really …

It is no secret that I am a fan of portable storage.  Thunderbolt 3 Portable SSDs rank tops as we can hit speeds of 2.8GB/s, however, anything above SATA is a bonus when you work in the media world and take the amount of photos as I do.  Retail sales of flash storage has conformed just a bit as of …

Well… I am kind of speechless at just how I should be starting this report because, quite frankly, it has been rather unexpected.  For years now, the SSD industry has had an unofficial divide between premium SSDs and those that are intended for the value point.  Typically we can separate the big boys from the rest by their controller, controllers …

If you are up to spec in the tech storage field, 4-bit mlc (multi-level cell) is all the rage.  If you are a typical consumer, things get just a ‘bit’ confusing.  After all, what does your search for adequate storage have to do with anything but price, warranty, speed and capacity?  Actually quite a bit (intended pun), as electronic storage …

Samsung has recently concluded their Tech Day 2018 from San Jose, CA, and is announcing new innovations that help maximize datacenter efficiencies, and to enable AI and other enterprise and emerging technologies.  Key revelations from Samsung Tech Day 2018 include: 7nm EUV process node from Samsung’s Foundry Operations delivers significant improvements in power, performance and size. SmartSSD is a field-programmable …

Samsung is announcing their newest lineup of Data Center SSDs for small and medium businesses (SMBs) that address today’s, as well as future trends in high performance computing storage in a big data era.  Samsung’s new series of Data Center SSD solutions is comprised of the 860 DCT, the 883 DCT, the 983 DCT and the 983 ZET.  Samsung’s latest …

So we have been on a bit of a kick lately, testing as much TB3 external storage as we could find.  And things have come along.  Where we were once restricted to external storage of 500MB/s, today’s portable storage is capable of almost 6 times that with Thunderbolt 3.  Don’t jump so fast though as TB3 is still rather niche …

Samsung is announcing that it has begun mass production of the industry’s first QLC (4-bit, quad-level cell) SATA solid-state drive (SSD) for consumers.  Based on 1-terabit (Tb) V-NAND that features outstanding performance similar to Samsung’s 3-bit design, their QLC SSDs are expected to offer new levels of efficiency to consumers, with capacities of up to 4TB in a single 2.5″ …