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I am somewhat of a laptop nut.  Part and parcel to extensive travel for The SSD Review, my laptop has to be two things; high performing and it must have an amazing battery life.  Add to that the fact that I want a big OLED screen that I can flip, USB4 ports in something around 3 lbs and there was …

Emerging technologies are always an interest when it comes to flash and Micron’s newest HBM4 is a perfect example of that.  HBM, standing for high bandwidth memory is just that and is used in applications such as AI accelerators where they are able to respond to the users query more quickly and reason more efficiently. HBM4 uses 3D-stacking and is …

PCIe 5.0 (Gen 5) has settled into the flash world very well and become the standard in the past year plus, as has SSD increasing capacity points, endurance and power efficiency.  We have spoken plenty of KIOXIA’s newest award winning Gen 5 LC9 with its 245TB capacity, still reaching great performance of 12GB/s throughput and over 1 million IOPS for …

Explaining enterprise, data center and the newest AI-centric focussed SSDs can sometimes be a bit confusing to many but this week at FMS 2025, KIOXIA displayed something that I have tried to explain for years with respect to what exactly we do and how flash media is structured.  Describing ‘flash’ is actually very simple, in that, it is like an …

SMI had the SM2504XT Gen 5 SSD controller on display at Flash Memory Summit 2025 this week and this controller is a 4-channel NVMe 2.0 SSD controller that can run at up to 3,600MT/s.  When utilizing MSDirect Storage, this controller can operate at an unbelievable 2.4W in active power mode and 1mW in PS4 state. Performance for the SM2504XT is …

This morning at Flash Memory Summit 2025, we came across a new release by SanDisk identifies as the SN5100s client Gen4 SSD.  Normally we might not take a second look at Gen 4 SSDs in this scenario, but this SSD brings to light a main theme at FMS this year…higher speeds with better power efficiency.  This SSD will provide 7300MB/s …

It is great to see well deserved credit where credit is due.  Yesterday at Flash Memory Summit 2025, our friends at KIOXIA were awarded the ‘Best in Show’ for their LC9 Series 245.76 TB Enterprise SSD and myself and Jon Coulter from Tweaktown were right there when the award arrived at the KIOXIA booth!  Who chose this picture? The LC9 …

Let’s set the stage for what is one amazing announcement.  There was a time that the public learned that Apple phones and PCs contained Samsung memory and SSDs.  The world stopped.  Nobody could believe it.  And there was a time when Samsung proudly acknowledged that their SSDs and other memory devices contained proprietary components, proprietary components meaning that the device …

So the Flash Memory Summit 2025 has begun in 2025 and it is our first return since pre-COVID.  I always find myself confused with respect to this event, as it plays such a importance in each one of our lives, yet it is relatively unknown to.  I would be exaggerating just a bit if I tried to make the sale …

It seems we are always speaking of SSDs in one shape or another but we fall short of just how vast this market is.  Single chip designs are never spoken of and , well many may not be aware, but there is a perfect example of this in every cell phone on the planet.  Today, KIOXIA has announced sampling of …

Where to start…. Micron just hit a landmine that’s going to send alot of storage companies back to the board room to reconsider what’s best for their service.  Without a doubt the fastest SSD on the planet right now is going to be the Micron 9650 which is already sampling and reaching unbelievable speeds of 28GB/s.  To give you an …

Moving the world of AI a step forward this week, KIOXIA has introduced the world’s first 245.76TB Gen5 NVMe EDSFF (Enterprise and Data Center Standard Form Factor) E3.L form factor.  This is a completely proprietary SSD based on KIOXIA controller, NAND and firmware and it features KIIOXIA 32-die stack BiCS  QLC 3D NAND flash memory The LC9 family is shown …

Our review this morning of the KIOXIA Exceria Plus G2 2TB Portable SSD comes on the heals of our last KIOXIA Review of the Exceria Plus G4 Gen5 M.2 SSD just a few weeks back.  Our reviews of KIOXIA products are rather unique as they are Europe and Asia based products that may or may not be predominant in North …

After NAND Flash and controller, DRAM is perhaps the most important component on an SSD. In our premier article of our newest ‘ Learning to Run with Flash 2.0’  entitled, ‘Understanding SLC, MLC, TLC and QLC NAND Flash‘ we provided an understanding of the different types of NAND and value of each in the SSD spectrum. Today, we’ll be taking …

Up bright and early this morning to find you some Amazon Prime deals and they arte posted early.  Let’s get right to it! Simply click on the title of each. WD_Black SN8100 Gen5 2TB – $209.98 (Was $319.99) -34% (Link) This is one of the most powerful SSDs today and we reviewed it here!  The 1TB version of this has …