Crucial has recently announced the BX300 SSD, the latest update to the BX family of value oriented SSDs.

Available in capacities of 120GB, 240GB, and 480GB, the Crucial BX300 now packs the latest Micron 3D MLC NAND. Paired with the Silicon Motion SM2258 controller, the Crucial BX300 sports performance up to 555/530 MB/s sequential reads/writes and up to 95K/90K 4K random reads/writes for the top capacity. Write endurance is rated between 55 to 160TBW depending on capacity.

The Crucial BX300 is now available for $59.99 for the 120GB capacity, $89.99 for the 240GB capacity and $149.99 for the 480GB capacity. All drives come with a 3 year warranty.

At CES 2017, we recently stopped by to speak to our friends at Mushkin to take a quick look at what they’re planning on doing for the upcoming year and so far, it’s looking to be an exciting one. Not only is the memory giant launching a few new storage solutions, it’s also heading into the peripherals market with a great looking keyboard.

First up is the Mushkin Helix PCIe SSD, which is Mushkin’s first M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD. Powered by the Silicon Motion SM2260 in combination with Micron 3D MLC NAND, the Helix has a sequential read speed of 2.5GB/s and a sequential write speed of 1.1GB/s. Random I/O [...]

After officially closing on the SanDisk acquisition earlier this year, it looks like Western Digital is reaping the benefits of the acquisition with the introduction two new SSDs – the WD Blue and WD Green SSD.

The WD Blue SSD is WD’s mainstream offering, similar to what we get from their HDD lineup. Powered by a Marvell 88SS1074 controller paired with SanDisk 15nm TLC flash, the WD Blue is capable of performance up to 545 MB/s sequential reads and 525 MB/s sequential writes. Random read/write performance is expected to reach up to 100K/80K IOPS.

The WD Blue SSD will be offered in capacities of 250GB, 500GB, and [...]

According to a recent press release, ADATA launched their new Ultimate SU800 SSD designed for mainstream consumer applications.

Available in capacities of 128GB to 1TB, the ADATA Ultimate SU800 is a SATA 3 6Gb/s SSD featuring new 3D NAND Flash paired with a SMI (Silicon Motion) controller solution. Performance on the ADATA Ultimate SU800 tops out at 560MB/s sequential reads and 520MB/s sequential writes. Furthermore, the ADATA Ultimate SU800 supports SLC caching and a DRAM caching for additional performance.

For greater reliability, the ADATA Ultimate SU800 also has several key features including LDPC (Low Density Parity Check) ECC, data shaping, and an [...]

Aside from the insanely great performance, shock resistance, and low power consumption, one benefit of SSDs is the ability for them to be extremely compact. As a SSD only requires silicon rather than spinning disks, SSD form factor is really only dictated by how a company chooses to arrange the chips onboard.

As such, we’re starting to see quite a few external SSDs take advantage of this form factor flexibility. One such product is the VisionTek USB 3.0 Pocket SSD which crams a full SSD into a form factor just slightly bigger than your average flash drive.

For FMS 2015, Phison showcased two upcoming controllers. The first and the most interesting is the Phison PS5007-E7 controller. Designed for the next generation of NVMe SSDs, the PS5007-E7 is a PCIe Gen3 x4 controller with full support for NVMe 1.2. As expected, it’ll support all current and upcoming flash from every vendor including 2-bit MLC (MLC), 3-bit MLC (TLC), and 3D NAND. Maximum capacity supported on the PS5007-E7 is 4TB.

Phison claims that the PS5007-E7 support sequential read/write speeds up to 2500/1300 MB/s respectively and random read/write performance of up to 350,000/250,000 IOPS. This makes the Phison PS5007-E7 significantly faster than its [...]

At Computex earlier this year, we got our first glimpse at the Silicon Motion SM2260 controller, but only a few basic details were shared at the time. Silicon Motion promised some additional details at FMS, so we decided to check out their booth to take a look at their next generation controller.

According to Silicon Motion, the SM2260 will be the first turnkey PCIe Gen 3 x4 NVMe 1.2 SSD controller solution. The SM2260 uses a high performance 8 channel design and support pretty much every type of NAND. This includes MLC (2-bit MLC), TLC (3-bit MLC), and upcoming 3D NAND from every major vendor.

The Silicon Motion SM2260 claims a maximum performance [...]

When we look at the SSD market today, there’s two distinct group of consumers. On one hand are the enthusiasts who are willing to pay for the highest performance drives ever produced. These are the guys looking into high end SATA and PCIe drives, but aren’t really a huge part of the total consumer SSD market. On the other hand is the bulk of the SSD market which is filled with entry level and mainstream consumers who just want a cost effective product that can give them a SSD user experience. These are the guys looking for the most cost effective solution possible as most of their time spent on a computer simply revolves around starting up a [...]

At CES earlier this year, Kingston had probably one of the biggest product showings we’ve seen in the past few years. Along with new flash drives, memory cards, and gaming peripherals, Kingston also showed off several new SSDs including their new flagship HyperX Predator PCIe SSD, several new enterprise SSDs, and a new mid-range HyperX SATA SSD, the Kingston HyperX Savage.

After several years of selling the SandForce SF-2281 powered HyperX and HyperX 3K SSDs as the Kingston HyperX SSD lineup, Kingston is now moving to newer controller technologies with the HyperX Predator using Marvell and the HyperX Savage using Phison. Of [...]

As usual, Plextor had a big showing at Computex with a number of upcoming SSDs and new and improved software stack to show off as well.

Quite possibly the biggest showing for Plextor at Computex is the soon to come Plextor M7e PCIe SSD which will succeed the Plextor M6e launched last year. Plextor did show off the M7e at CES earlier this year, but they’ve now a live demo of the SSD in operation along with a new PCIe x4 to M.2 adapter PCB design that lights up the back of the unit to give off that extra “cool” factor.

The Plextor M7e will still be using Marvell’s 88SS9293 PCIe Gen 2 x4 [...]