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Samsung launches its fastest mainstream SSD yet
Samsung has just launched the 950 Pro, its first consumer SSD that puts vertical NAND (V-NAND) tech into a gumstick-sized M.2 PCI Express device. The result, as you might guess, is speed. The 512GB model, which costs a reasonable $350, can read at 2.5GB/s and write at 1.5GB/s, easily beating the company's last speed champ, the SM951 SSD. It's also Samsung's first mainstream drive to use NVMe (Non-Volatile Memory Express), an interface designed specifically for SSDs to help them sip less power and last longer. As a result, the 512GB model is warrantied to write up to 400TB of data. The drives use Samsung's 2nd-generation 32-layer V-NAND, not the 48-layer chips it recently announced.
SanDisk will help you switch to an SSD for $40
Looking to give your aging computer some new life? Swapping out the hard drive for a new SSD could do the trick, and if you're nervous completing the upgrade yourself SanDisk has a new service to lend a hand. The company's SSD Concierge Service offers live video support (via a mobile device, natch) so that folks of all skill levels are able to make the switch and improve speeds from the comforts of home. The service also includes "all of the tools required to upgrade their laptop successfully" including data migration and installation. If you're looking for some help giving your computer a refresh, SanDisk's virtual guidance can be purchased through Amazon and TigerDirect for $40.
Samsung shows off a 2.5-inch hard drive with 16TB of storage
Hard drives are as ubiquitous as the desktops or they're made for. But as technology evolves, manufacturers continue to make these faster and smaller than ever before. Case in point: Samsung, which has developed the world largest hard drive, packing 16TB of storage in a 2.5-inch format. While the PM1633a (as it's currently named) could be considered an SSD, since there aren't any moving parts inside, there's no doubt it is a good ol' hard drive at its core. The PM1633a, revealed during the Flash Memory Summit in California, is based on Samsung's NAND flash chips -- similar to what you'd find on the its consumer solid-state drives. There's no word on pricing or availability at the moment, but it is more than likely that the PM1633a will end being used for enterprise servers. Hey, we can dream, right?
Samsung's 256-gigabit chip puts multi-terabyte flash drives in your PC
Think that Samsung's 2TB solid-state drives are pretty capacious? They're just the start of something bigger. The Korean tech giant has started manufacturing the first 256-gigabit (32GB) 3D vertical flash memory, doubling its previous capacity record. The new tech should turn multi-terabyte SSDs into practical options for your home PC, and help phone makers cram more storage into tight spaces. You might get more bang for your buck, to boot -- Samsung's manufacturing is 40 percent more productive, so you likely won't pay twice as much for twice the headroom. The company plans to make this 256-gigabit flash through the rest of 2015, so you'll probably see it crop up in a lot of products (from Samsung and otherwise) over the months ahead.
Toshiba's new flash chips hold twice the data
Judging by recent announcements, we're about to enter a golden age of fast, nearly unlimited storage for all the high-res selfies you can shoot. Following an announcement by Intel and Micron last week, Toshiba and partner SanDisk revealed their own 256Gb flash chips. Toshiba already has the smallest flash cells in the world at 15 nanometers, which it stacks in 48 layers to maximize density. The new chips add in 3-bit tech (first used by Samsung) to squeeze even more bytes in, helping it double the storage of chips it announced just a few months ago. The result will be faster and more reliable memory for smartphones, SSDs and other devices.
Samsung brings 2TB solid-state drives to your home PC
You no longer have to bend over backwards to get more than a terabyte of fast, flash-based storage in your home computer. Samsung is shipping 2TB versions of its 850 Evo and 850 Pro solid-state drives, giving you as much capacity as a decent-sized spinning hard drive while maintaining that all-important SSD speed. They're only intended for desktops at the moment (they only use standard SATA connections), but Samsung is promising similarly cavernous models that are specifically designed for the mSATA and M.2 formats used in laptops. Just be prepared to pay dearly for these no-compromise drives right now -- the 'standard' 2TB 850 Evo is officially priced at $800, while the slightly faster, longer-lasting 850 Pro could easily break the bank at $1,000.
Which portable hard drives are worth buying?
With all our computers, phones and cameras, we create a lot of data. And while there are plenty of cloud-based options for storing all the information you generate, many people prefer something they can physically touch. A portable hard drive can give you plenty of control, while still making it possible to carry your data around in your bag. But which drives make it easy to transfer files to them in the first place? And which ones will survive the trips you take them on? We've taken a look at some of the better portable drives available now to find out which ones have the right stuff.
You'll soon get 10TB SSDs thanks to new memory tech
SSDs and other flash memory devices will soon get cheaper and larger thanks to big announcements from Toshiba and Intel. Both companies revealed new "3D NAND" memory chips that are stacked in layers to pack in more data, unlike single-plane chips currently used. Toshiba said that it's created the world's first 48-layer NAND, yielding a 16GB chip with boosted speeds and reliability. The Japanese company invented flash memory in the first place and has the smallest NAND cells in the world at 15nm. Toshiba is now giving manufacturers engineering samples, but products using the new chips won't arrive for another year or so.
There's now a super-speed PCIe SSD you can actually buy
Samsung has taken a commanding lead in next-gen SSDs that blow away old-school models, but it finally has some competition. Kingston's HyperX Predator PCIe SSD is now available with read speeds touching 1.4GB/s. That's still a far cry from Samsung's latest SM951 SSD, which reads at a ridiculous 2.2GB/s. But unlike Samsung's OEM-only model, you can actually purchase the Predator PCIe and jam it into your own PC build or laptop. You'll need an M.2 SSD slot to do so (preferably with four PCIe lanes), but if that's missing, Kingston will supply a PCIe slot adapter for an extra ten bucks or so.
MacBook Air's superfast disk speeds come from Samsung SSDs
Lost in the news of Retina-equipped, 12-inch MacBook was the arrival of all-new MacBook Air models with the latest Intel HD6000 graphics and CPUs. Apple also boasted that the 13-inch version has disk speeds "up to two times faster" than the last generation, and thanks to iFixit, we now know why. The bigger model packs a brand new 128GB M.2 x 4 SSD from frenemy Samsung -- which owns the PCIe SSD market at the moment -- giving it a stellar max read speed of 1,285 MB/s.
Samsung's absurdly fast SSD uses virtually no standby power
Samsung has started manufacturing a PCIe (M.2) SSD that pulls off a rare trick -- it'll be the fastest drive your laptop has ever seen, while consuming almost no power in standby mode. The new SM951 SSD succeeds the Korean company's XP941, a drive that can already read data at a mind-melting 1.4 gigabytes per second (GB/s) clip. On newer laptops or desktops, its successor will shame that with 2.15 GB/s read and 1.55 GB/s write speeds (on PCIe Gen 3 tech) using new 10-nanometer-class MLC flash tech. It also sips 50 percent less power and only consumes a negligible two milliwatts in standby mode. The SSDs will come in 128, 256 and 512GB sizes, but only to major laptop and workstation manufacturers to start with. If it follows the XP941's footsteps, however, you'll be able to supercharge your own laptop later on.
CES 2015: OWC's Envoy Pro mini brings SSD performance to a thumb drive form factor
While flash "thumb drives" are convenient, cheap and come in a variety of capacities, they don't exactly thrill users with their speed. Other World Computing yesterday announced the Envoy Pro mini, a USB 3.0 SuperSpeed SSD drive in the form factor of one of the ubiquitous flash drives. The drive, which won the Storage Visions 2015 Visionary Product Award for Mobile Consumer Storage, is packed in a sturdy aluminum enclosure and can be used for storing and transferring data or backing up your Mac. Unlike a traditional USB 3.0 flash drive, you could also probably get away with installing an OS X beta onto the Envoy Pro mini for test purposes since it should be much faster. OWC says that the drive "achieves sustained transfer speeds up to 433 MB/s". The Envoy Pro mini will be shipping in January in two sizes: 120GB (US$119) and 240GB ($199). OWC also announced that the drive will be available soon in a 480GB capacity with price to be determined.
Samsung's first portable SSD packs fast storage for relatively little cash
You don't exactly have a ton of options when it comes to portable solid-state drives. You can get fast performance or high capacity at a halfway affordable price, but rarely both. Samsung thinks it can strike that tricky balance with its first-ever external option, the Portable SSD T1. The USB 3.0 storage is based on the same speedy-yet-cheap V-NAND chips as the 850 EVO drive you might buy for your gaming PC, letting it hold a large chunk of your files without devastating your wallet or slowing down -- it reads and writes at 450 MB/s, or just about desktop-level speeds. The line starts off modestly with a 250GB drive that costs $180, but you can opt for 500GB ($300) or 1TB ($600) if you have a lot of games or movies to carry around. That's still expensive compared to spinning hard disks, but it's a relative steal for the performance. Look for the T1 to hit US stores around mid-January.
Tests show modern SSDs can handle a thousand years of use
Most heavy data users can't wait for the day when hard disks, with their fragile, spinny parts, are put out to pasture for good. But just how much better are SSDs? Despite any horror stories you may have heard, the answer is a lot, according to tests on recent models by The Tech Report. It forced six drives -- including Kingston's HyperX 3K, Samsung's 840 Pro and Intel's 335 series -- to continuously write and rewrite 10GB of small and large files. Four drives bit the dust prior to hitting the petabyte mark (though still far, far past their specified limits), often after their SMART systems moved thousands of bytes from failing flash sectors.
Samsung wants to kill hard drives with new high-efficiency SSDs
For the first time, Samsung has starting producing SSDs using (wait for it) 3-bit multi-level-cell, 3D Vertical NAND flash memory, better known as TLC V-NAND. So, who in the actual hell cares? You might, if you're planning on buying an SSD or computer soon. Samsung's current V-NAND technology has resulted in models like the 850 Pro SSD, which topped all benchmarks and has a 10-year guarantee. But combining V-NAND with 3-bit tech has more than doubled wafer yields, which should result in even cheaper, faster and higher-capacity SSDs. The disks aren't on sale yet, but there's a good chance that one of the first available will be Samsung's recently leaked 850 EVO.
Paranoid? You can destroy this SSD simply by texting it
In the age of Snowden and the NSA, no method of data protection is apparently too kooky for consideration. Exhibit 'A' is a new SSD drive from a company called SecureDrives (after the break). It has features like you'd expect like 256-bit hardware level encryption and 2-factor authentication, but that's just a warm-up. The pièce de resistance is the ability to erase the GSM-enabled drive by sending a text, causing the NAND flash storage to fragment in an unrecoverable way. The self-destruct process can also be triggered if someone tries to block the drive's GSM signal, tamper with it, remove it from your computer or try the pin code too many times. All of that should keep your Bitcoin stash safe, but first you'll need to part with a lot of them -- the top-end Autothysis128t drive runs £1,027, or about $1,650.
IBM wants to kill the hard drive it invented
Saving files to memory is something that's supposed to be mostly invisible for the end user. We don't need to think about it; it just has to work. But whether it's a solid-state or hard disk drive, conventional storage solutions have their limitations -- namely, speed, rewritability and durability. A team at IBM Research's Almaden facility in California has a cure for all of that and it's called "racetrack memory."
AMD is preparing to enter the SSD business
With all the computing components AMD makes already, it's still hard to believe the company has yet to explore the solid-state drive space. But that's about to change soon -- it looks like AMD's finally ready to get into the business of making SSDs. Not surprisingly, the chip maker is bringing its new SSD line to market under the renowned Radeon R7 brand, perhaps hoping that becomes an incentive for potential customers. These solid-state drives, which AMD says are geared toward PC gamers, will be available in 120GB, 240GB and 480GB flavors, while the advertised read and write speeds appear to be on par with similar offerings from competitors like Samsung. Unfortunately, it's not easy to compare any further, since AMD won't be announcing the price of its Radeon R7 SSDs until they launch "later this year." [Image credit: Associated Press]
Engadget giveaway: win a 960GB Extreme PRO SSD courtesy of SanDisk!
Looking to optimize your gaming PC or breathe new life into last year's laptop? A high-performance SSD should probably be in your bag of tricks. Recently, SanDisk improved its own offerings in that area with its new Extreme PRO SSD. This solid state drive amps up responsiveness, leveraging the company's nCache Pro Technology to handle heavy workloads -- especially graphic intensive ones. That's why SanDisk has provided us with one of its top of the line 960GB models for one lucky Engadget reader this week. With nearly 1TB of space, the drive has tons of room for games, files and big applications, while keeping things flowing with read/write speeds over 520MB/s. And it's compatible with any PC, laptop or game console that can handle a 2.5-inch SATA drive. All you need to do is head down to the Rafflecopter widget below for up to three chances at winning this super-charged SSD. Winner: congratulations to Richard J. of Kaysville, UT.
Get all the flash storage you could ever want with the new Drobo Mini
If you're a creative type who needs a ridiculous amount of storage, there's a good chance you're already familiar with Drobo storage arrays. With today's launch of the Drobo Mini with SSD, the company is upping the speed of its compact storage offering in a big way, with a price to match it. The new SSD-equipped Drobo Mini boasts a performance increase of up to 80%, according to the company, and comes in three sizes, starting at 1TB. 2TB and 4TB options are also available, and prices come in at US$1,199, $1,799, and $2,999, respectively. For Mac users, a big draw for the new Mini is its dual Thunderbolt ports -- along with one USB 3.0 -- which would seem to make it the perfect companion for something like a new Mac Pro. Of course, if you happen to be a MacBook devotee, the Mini's portable nature would also make it a fine option.
