Hot off the heels of Intel’s SSD 750 series launch, and with NVMe-based SSDs beginning to gain momentum in the consumer marketplace, MSI is preparing to launch an adapter card to provide support for SFF-8639 drives to its X99 motherboards. Intel’s SSD 750 series drives utilise four lanes of PCIe …
Read More »End of planar NAND flash nears as Samsung to focus on 3D V-NAND
Samsung Electronics plans to concentrate on expansion of production capacities used to make its 3D V-NAND memory going forward. A media report claims that the South Korean conglomerate no longer plans to build new manufacturing facilities for production of traditional planar NAND flash. NAND flash was invented by Toshiba Corp. …
Read More »SanDisk – ‘excellent takeover candidate’ for Seagate, WD, says analyst
SanDisk is one of the leading producers of NAND flash-based devices, could be an excellent acquisition target for Seagate and Western Digital, according to a financial analyst. While at present the takeover of SanDisk is a hypothetical thing, HDD makers may be very interested in acquiring a company with NAND …
Read More »Intel 750-series SSD for consumers: up to 1.2TB capacity, up to 2.40GB/s transfer rates
Intel Corp. announced its new 750-series solid-state drives this week. The new SSDs are designed for high-performance desktops and the manufacturer calls the drives its “highest-performing client SSDs”. With read speeds up to 2.40GB/s and capacities up to 1.2TB, the Intel 750-series SSD is a dream of any performance enthusiast. …
Read More »Phison to greatly expand its SSD controller business operations this year
Phison, once an underdog on the market of controllers for solid-state drives, today is one of the leading independent designers of SSD controllers. In a bid to further strengthen its positions on the market, Phison plans to spend up to $320 million on mergers and acquisitions, build a research and …
Read More »Intel SSD 750 Series 1.2TB PCIe NVMe Review
The push for greater performance from storage devices is seeing enthusiast drives transition towards PCIe-linked connections for increased bandwidth. While faster hardware is great, on paper, it is of limited use if the surrounding ecosystem is unable to put the performance increases to effective use. That's where the SSD-optimised Non-Volatile …
Read More »Micron to consolidate NAND flash market: cuts-down IC supply, increases prices
Micron Technology has announced that it will reduce shipments of its NAND flash memory to the spot market. While the move may have limited effects on the market initially, it could lead to consolidation of makers of NAND flash-based devices, including solid-state drives. In a bid to improve its profit …
Read More »OCZ Competition winner: final ARC 100 hits 695.5TB!
When OCZ challenged KitGuru back in December to kill five of its Arc 100 SSDs by writing and rewriting to them constantly for the foreseeable future, nobody could have predicted that four months and several hundred terabytes later we’d still be talking about it. However we need to really, since a …
Read More »SK Hynix preps MLC NAND with enhanced performance, reliability
SK Hynix is about to announce new multi-level cell (MLC) NAND flash memory chips that are expected to boost performance of solid-state drives in various applications. The new chips also promise better reliability than previous-generation NAND flash ICs [integrated circuits]. The world’s third largest producer of NAND flash memory is …
Read More »Toshiba’s 48-layer BiCS 3D NAND enables fast and reliable SSDs
Toshiba Corp. and SanDisk Corp. this week said that they have finished development of vertically-stacked 3D NAND memory devices. The BiCS [bit cost scalable] NAND flash memory from the two companies will be mass-produced in 2016 and will enable new solid-state storage devices with enhanced reliability and performance. Toshiba’s three-dimensional …
Read More »TLC NAND flash to account for 45% of flash memory output by late 2015
Triple-level cell (TLC) NAND flash memory is dramatically less durable than traditional multi-level cell (MLC) or single-level cell (SLC) NAND. However, it has one distinctive advantage over competing technologies: it is more affordable to manufacture. This single advantage drives its popularity among makers of various devices and by the end …
Read More »OCZ Vector 180 480GB and 960GB Review
Regular readers of KitGuru will know that OCZ have been making amends to repair their reputation with the enthusiast audience. They feel so confident in their latest technology that they asked us recently to kill 5 of their ARC 100 drives (latest update and links back HERE). Today it is …
Read More »Patriot Ignite 480GB SSD Review
Patriot. A name I haven't heard in quite some time. Years ago we reviewed a steady stream of their products, then they seemed to vanish from view to focus solely on mobile accessories. While the recent shift back may only be a cautious toe in the water today we look …
Read More »OCZ SSD competition update: last drive still going
When OCZ challenged KitGuru back in December to kill five of its Arc 100 SSDs by writing and rewriting to them constantly for the foreseeable future, nobody could have predicted that four months and several hundred terabytes later we'd still be talking about it. However we need to really, since a …
Read More »Apple to use Samsung’s ultra-fast 3D V-NAND SSDs in its laptops
In a bid to improve performance and reliability of solid-state drives inside its notebooks, Apple will use SSDs made by Samsung and powered by 3D V-NAND flash memory. This is a major win for Samsung as it gets a major PC maker as a client. The latest MacBook notebooks will …
Read More »Win OCZ ARC 100 240GB SSD: guess the final drive death!
If you've been a regular KitGuru reader for the past few months, then chances are you'll have spotted at least one of Leo's videos discussing the ongoing challenge from OCZ – to kill 5 ARC 100 SSD's by continually writing data to them, until they cave in. While the warranty …
Read More »OCZ Challenge update: 4th ARC 100 drive dies at 424TB
We hope by now that many of you have been following the ‘Kill x5 SSD Challenge' issued to us by OCZ – this started way back on December 10th last year. Today, the fourth drive has kicked the bucket with only one still ticking away. The warranty data transfer figure …
Read More »Samsung unveils ‘SSD’ for smartphones with up to 600MB/s bandwidth
Samsung Electronics this week said that it had started to mass produce a family of NAND flash memory devices for mobile applications that are compliant with the Universal Flash Storage (UFS) 2.0 standard. The new chips will be used for smartphones and tablets and will enable SSD-class performance on mobile …
Read More »27% of SSD owners experienced malfunction of SSDs – study
Kroll Ontrack, a leading provider of data recovery services, revealed this week that while there are a lot of people who already take advantage of solid-state drives, many of them also have experienced failures of such drives and data loss. Apparently, the amount of people, who suffered an SSD malfunction …
Read More »OCZ Challenge update: 3rd ARC 100 drive dies at 384TB
Given the nature of SSD technology, one sure fire way to check reliability is to run massive amounts of data through them – which is what we started to do with five OCZ ARC 100s back on December 10th. Here's the latest update from KitGuru Labs. The warranty term for this kind …
Read More »Plextor M6e Black Edition PCIe 256GB Review
Today we look at the Plextor M6e Black Edition. This SSD product supports PCI Express Gen 2 x 2 and potentially delivers more performance than a simple SATA 3 capable Solid State Drive. Rated sequential speeds of the Plextor M6e Black Edition are said to hit 770MB/s. It uses the …
Read More »OCZ Challenge update: 2nd ARC 100 drive dies at 352TB
Regular readers will know of the challenge submitted to KitGuru by OCZ – to kill 5 of their ARC 100 Solid State Drives. If you need a recap, then head back to this original page posted on December 10th. The drives all passed the warranty figure of 300TB on 3rd …
Read More »Kingston increases investments in SSD controller developer
Kingston Technology, a leading manufacturer of memory modules, solid-state drives and other memory products, recently increased its stake in Phison, an independent designer of NAND flash controllers. The investment will help Phison to fund development of SSD controllers better suited for Kingston. Kingston will acquire 10.4 million shares of Phison …
Read More »Seagate and Micron ink strategic SSD pact
Micron Technology and Seagate Technology have signed a strategic partnership agreement. Under the terms of the pact, Seagate will build solid-state drives based on NAND flash memory produced by Micron, whereas the latter will be able to use the former’s enterprise storage IP, which will be beneficial for both companies. …
Read More »OCZ Challenge update: 1x ARC 100 dies at 322TB
Regular readers will know of the challenge submitted to KitGuru by OCZ – to kill 5 of their ARC 100 Solid State Drives. If you need a recap, then head back to this original page posted on December 10th. The drives all passed the warranty figure of 300TB on 3rd …
Read More »OCZ Challenge update: All 5 ARC 100 SSD’s hit 300TB mark
Regular readers will know of the challenge submitted to KitGuru by OCZ – to kill 5 of their ARC 100 Solid State Drives. If you need a recap, then head back to this original page posted on December 10th. The drives all passed the warranty figure of 200TB on 23rd …
Read More »Seagate: We will refresh entire HDD and SSD lineup this year
Seagate Technology, one of the top makers of hard disk drives, said this week that it would introduce an unprecedented amount of new products this calendar year. The company’s management naturally did not provide any details, but expect the manufacturer to release better solid-state drives as well as higher capacity hard …
Read More »Western Digital: More and more PCs use SSDs instead of HDDs
For years manufacturers of hard disk drives have been saying that SSDs were too expensive for mainstream PCs. However, at present chief executive officer of Western Digital Corp. has to admit that more and more personal computers utilize solid-state drives instead of HDDs. Moreover, this trend will strengthen this year …
Read More »Apacer: 256GB SSDs will cost less than $70 in the second half of 2015
General manager of Apacer Technology is confident that the price of 256GB solid-state drives will drop below $70 in the second half of the year. Other industry experts agree with the high-ranking executive and believe that low price of 256GB SSD will greatly help them to boost market share in …
Read More »OCZ Challenge update: All 5 ARC 100 SSD’s hit 200TB mark
Regular readers will know of the challenge submitted to KitGuru by OCZ – to kill 5 of their ARC 100 Solid State Drives. If you need a recap, then head back to this original page posted on December 10th. The drives all passed the warranty figure of 100TB on 10th …
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