Published work
Technical Analysis
More than 500 reviews, articles, guides and white papers, written to make storage technology legible and useful. 425 carry my byline and are listed below. The rest are white papers, press releases and technology-trend posts I wrote for enterprise SSD and server makers.
The archive
Every byline, 2011–2022
425 bylined pieces from Tom’s Hardware, The SSD Review, TechnologyX and Overclock.net, 40 of them Editor’s Choice reviews. Every card opens the original.
Stories 201 to 250 of 425, newest first.
Crucial BX300 SSD Review (480GB) – Now Featuring 3D MLC NANDIt seems like it was just yesterday that I was holding the Crucial M4 in my hands and I was ready to upgrade my first gen i7 system with my first SSD ever, let alone with the first SATA 6Gb/s SSD ever.
Crucial’s FREE Momentum Cache Works on Any NVMe SSD! – Our First Look at RAM Caching on NVMe SSDsYou heard that right. This is the first time we are exploring RAM caching on an NVMe SSD in this fashion. While many RAM caching softwares exist, no other SSD manufacturer has yet to enable RAM caching for NVMe SSDs in quite the way Crucial has.
Toshiba TR200 SSD Review (240GB/480GB/960GB)If you have been following the storage market over the past year, you may have noticed that OCZ has yet to release any products since the VX500. As a matter of fact, with the NAND shortage, there have been fewer SSD releases across the industry.
Plextor M8Se NVMe SSD Review (512GB)It has been quite some time since we have reviewed a product from Plextor. In September of 2015 we took a look at the M6V, an entry-level SATA based SSD and before it, their flagship M6e Black edition, one of the very first NVMe SSDs in the market in the beginning of 2015. But, as of late, nothing…at least until now.
ADATA Ultimate SU900 SSD Review (512GB) – 3D MLC, But At What Cost?Last year, we reviewed ADATA’s Ultimate SU800. It was the second SSD in the market to utilize Micron’s 3D TLC NAND and paired with an SMI SM2258 controller, it made out to be a fairly good performer. This year we now have the Ultimate SU900 in hand. Just as the name suggests, it does rank above the SU800.
BIOSTAR G330 SSD Review (256GB)BIOSTAR isn’t the first name to come to mind when thinking about SSDs. Even for us, we didn’t even recall ever seeing a BIOSTAR SSD until today. They aren’t entirely new to the game, however. Last year at about this time, they released their first SSD, the G300.
Corsair Neutron NX500 NVMe SSD Review (400GB)Back in February, Corsair released one of the fastest NVMe SSDs into the market, their Force MP500. This SSD delivers more than enough performance to cover the needs of the majority of PC enthusiasts, however, with a rather typical 3-year warranty and fairly high price tag, it was just shy of earning our Gold Seal.
Intel DC P3520 Enterprise NVMe SSD Review (1.2TB) – With 3D NAND Comes ValueJust a few years ago the enterprise SSD market was born and over these few years, we have seen SSDs evolve quite a bit to the point at which they are today.
Team Group T-Force Cardea M.2 NVMe SSD Review (240GB)If you’re a fan of SSDs, you won’t be surprised with the latest thought process that SSDs need to be cooled. As of late, there seems to be a common theme that some type of SSD cooling is better than no cooling at all and, with respect to that thought, I would agree entirely.
Maxiotek MK8115 Controller Preview – MLC & TLC NAND Put To The TestIn May of 2016, we published a report from Computex that described the latest ADATA line and their continued willingness to support a number of SSD controllers within their SSD designs. The report is here. Within their line was a new notebook SSD that was being aimed directly at the consumer with what was expected to be a very low price point.
Kingston DCP1000 Enterprise NVMe SSD Review (1.6TB) – 7GB/s & 1 Mil IOPS in a Single HHHL SSDConsidering that data center SSDs affect so much of what we do everyday in today’s world, their technological marvel is really overlooked. Where the hard drive once filled our largest data centers worldwide, today’s data centers contain SSDs that either complement original HDD implementation, or take the place of hard drives completely.
Kingston DC400 Enterprise SSD Review (800GB/960GB)Enterprise-class SATA SSDs are offered by nearly all the big name SSD manufacturers in the market.
WD Black PCIe NVMe SSD Review (512GB) – Does It Live Up To Its Lineage?WD Black hard drives have long been the go-to hard drive for many storage consumers. They satisfy the needs of those looking for fast, reliable storage and although they are priced on the high side, they come with a 5-year warranty, which is hard to beat. However, with the release of so many SSDs into the market, WD had been falling behind.
MyDigitalSSD BPX M.2 NVMe SSD Review (480GB) – An Unmatched ValueMyDigitalSSD isn’t one of the big-name brands you may be used to, but don’t mistake a lack of brand awareness with their quality. MyDigitalSSD has been selling quality products for a while now and we have reviewed quite a few of them over the years. Many of which, have earned our Gold Seal, Editor’s Choice, and Top Value awards.
Micron 5100 MAX & ECO Enterprise SSD Review (960GB/1920GB)By now, if you are an avid reader or haven’t been stuck under a rock for the past 7-8 years, you know what a difference an SSD provides an end user. But, for years now, SSDs have been not only revolutionizing the way we compute in our homes but everywhere else as well.
Corsair Force MP500 M.2 NVMe SSD Review (480GB) – Is The Force Strong With This One?Corsair has a history of releasing high-quality products into the PC market. Whether you are a gamer or an avid PC builder, we’re willing to bet you have had experience with them.
Patriot Hellfire SSD Review (480GB) – Fast & EfficientMost well known for their DRAM and USB drives, Patriot memory isn’t new to offering performance and gamer oriented products. Years ago, they jumped on the SSD bandwagon, but they seemed to fall off at one point or another. As of last two years, however, they hopped back on and they now offer SSDs for every segment of the market.
Phison Demos Entry-level NVMe E8 Controller – CES 2017 UpdateWhen talking about high-performance storage and the controllers that power them, you can be sure that Phison will be in the conversation. Many companies have taken advantage of their E7 NVMe controller to bring out enthusiast class SSDs, such as the Patriot Hellfire, Corsair MP500, and MyDigitalSSD BPX (all of which are in our queue to review).
ADATA Reveals XPG 950 and Demos Latest NVMe SSDs in RAID – CES 2017 UpdateIn December, ADATA announced the first ever SSD to feature Micron’s latest 3D MLC NAND, Ultimate SU900, which is a huge announcement because Samsung will no longer be the only player in the market with 3D MLC NAND ( ie 850 PRO).
WD Unveils WD Black PCIe NVMe SSD – CES 2017 UpdateAfter stepping into the WD suite at CES this year we saw quite the array of storage products. From traditional mechanical disks and NAS storage devices to USB drives and the like, WD has devices for anybody’s needs. Recently we reviewed their first SSD product, the WD Blue SSD and at the same time, they launched the green series too.
Seagate and LaCie Showcase Latest SSD Products – CES 2017 UpdateLaCie, as many of you know, is Seagate’s premier/professional product brand. At CES they have on display their latest product updates, which feature upgraded interfaces and performance improvements. The Rugged Thunderbolt USB-C can connect to USB 3.0-compatible computers as well as to USB-C and Thunderbolt 3 models.
Kingston Reveals World’s Largest Flash Drive and More – CES 2017 UpdateCES 2017 and all the chaos that comes with it has just begun. One of our first booth tours is with Kingston, where they just revealed the world’s largest flash drive, the DataTraveler Ultimate GT.
Intel 600P M.2 NVMe SSD Review (512GB) – Is It THE Budget NVMe SSD to buy?Back in April of 2015 Intel was the first company to release an NVMe SSD into the consumer marketplace. The Intel 750 was the new standard in PCIe performance storage.
Samsung Magician 5.0 Released – Is Less More?SSD toolboxes are quite useful for monitoring your SSD’s health, updating its firmware, and more often than not, have some other features built into them to optimize the operating system and/or boost the SSD’s performance. Almost every company has one, but one company is more well known for theirs over anyone else.
PNY CS2030 M.2 NVMe SSD Review (240GB) – Our First Look at Phison’s E7 ControllerThe PNY CS2030 M.2 NVMe SSD comes out of the blue for us. The day it was released, we were more surprised than anyone. Not a whisper in the world about it had crossed our ears like it normally would. Not even our colleagues knew about it.
Samsung 960 EVO M.2 NVMe SSD Review (250GB/1TB)Last month we took a look at the best performing SSD, Samsung’s 960 PRO. Packed with Samsung’s latest MLC V-NAND, new Polaris controller, and put together with their engineering expertise, it easily sped off to the top of our charts. Not only that, but it did so without even utilizing their latest NVMe 2.0 driver.
Toshiba OCZ TL100 SSD Review (120GB/240GB)SSDs are state of the art memory components. Over the recent years we have seen the market grow and diversify. With the explosion of TLC SSDs in the marketplace these days it is a race to the bottom more than ever.
ADATA Ultimate SU800 SSD Review (512GB) – More 3D TLC For The MassesThe ADATA Ultimate SU800, despite the name and in contrast to the last ADATA SSD we had reviewed (SX930), is not an enthusiast oriented SSD, rather, it is an entry level/ budget SSD. The SX930 utilized a JMicron controller and enterprise-grade MLC+ NAND.
Samsung 960 Pro M.2 NVMe SSD Review (2TB) – Breathtaking SpeedSize, weight, speed, latency, endurance, power consumption, price, warranty, etc. All these characteristics help to define storage media and are what classify some drives as entry level, others as mainstream, and a for a select few, enthusiast/prosumer.
WD Blue SSD Review (1TB) – WD Steps Into The RingMany of us know Western Digital as one of the largest HDD manufacturers in the market and that they have, for the most part, solely relied on HDD storage sales to become the giant they are today. In recent times they’ve adopted flash into their products.
Toshiba OCZ VX500 SSD Review (256GB/512GB/1TB) – A New MLC Contender In The Recent Sea of TLCThe OCZ Vector has been the top performing SATA SSD from the company for the past few years. Utilizing their proprietary Indilinx controller and most recently, Toshiba’s A19 NAND, they provided for strong performance for mainstream consumers as well as enthusiasts, but it did have its drawbacks in recent times.
Toshiba HK4E Enterprise SSD Review (800GB)What’s this? Another Toshiba HK4 series SSD review? Yes! This time around we are going to take a look at the higher endurance model of the HK4 family, the HK4E. The HK4E is rated for three drive writes per day rather than one like the HK4R.
Crucial MX300 SSD Review (1050GB) – Micron 3D NAND Meets RAID 0Whether it be on cars or computers, enthusiasts are always looking for ways to improve performance, ways to just one up their friends, or even just ways to spend money on their hobby when they have nothing else to do with it. Who doesn’t like having the best of the best at times? We know we sure love it.
LiteOn Demos Open Channel on Protoype U.2 SSD and Unveils EP3 M.2 NVMe SSD – Flash Memory Summit 2016 UpdateFrom the emergence of new flash storage server companies to more participation from the big players in flash, we are seeing FMS grow year after year as more and more gain interest in speedy memory. We see companies delivering break through products and solutions as well as industry wide trends forming.
Phison Displays Next Gen Controllers and More – Flash Memory Summit 2016 UpdateMaking our way over to the Phison booth we were greeted with some new products. First up is the S11T, which will help OEMs and other customers reduce their BOM cost. It is an industrial grade SATA 6Gb/s controller that is DRAM-less. It supports MLC/TLC 2D and 3D NAND. It features their SmartECC, end-to-end data path protection, and SmartZip technologies.
Maxiotek Shows Off Latest DRAM-less Controllers – Flash Memory Summit 2016 UpdateMaxiotek is a new name in the controller industry, but not new to the game. Maxiotek is the result of JMicron’s SSD controller and external enclosure departments splitting. The company is full of engineers and are working hard on delivering reliable controllers to the masses. Here at Flash Memory Summit they have on display quite a few new controller products.
OCZ RD400 Sales Through the Roof – Flash Memory Summit 2016 UpdateSince their acquisition by Toshiba, we have seen the OCZ booth get smaller and smaller at trade shows. This year at FMS, it is narrowed down to a single display. Not only has their booth been shrinking, but we have notices that their naming conventions have been shrinking as well.
Kingston Displays World’s Fastest 2.5” U.2 SSD – Flash Memory Summit 2016 UpdateSo many products at FMS revolve around delivering the most performance you could image. While we were impressed with the many server storage solution providers, we are always more focused on the SSD manufacturers and devices themselves, which is why we went over to speak with Kington to see what they had at their booth this year.
Transcend Demos SuperMLC and New Products – Flash Memory Summit 2016 UpdateMany vendors at FMS this year are introducing evolutionary products and Transcend is no different. While at their booth we spotted them demonstrating the performance of their SuperMLC NAND. SuperMLC was originally developed to deliver industrial customers the high performance and reliability that SLC offers, but at a lower, more cost effective price point.- Liqid SSDs and Software Enable 50GB/s and 10 Million IOPS Performance – Flash Memory Summit 2016 UpdateLiqid is a newer SSD solutions company that revolves around making innovative and disruptive technology for the bare-metal cloud to enable hyperscale agility to the masses. What does this mean? Well, through their reference SSD designs and software architecture they are able to deliver what is some of the best performance we have seen at FMS 2016 so far.
Microsemi Provides the Industry’s Highest Density, Lowest Power PCIe SwitchMicrosemi, has announced today that they are now offering a new PCIe Gen3 Switch, its Switchtec PFX PCIe switch. The Switchtec PFX PCIe switch provides for the the industry’s highest density and lowest power for data center, defense, communications, and industrial applications.
Toshiba’s ZD6000 Dual Port NVMe SSD Powers DDN IME14K All-Flash Application and File System Accelerator SoftwareToshiba, has just announced that their ZD6000-series NVMe SSDs will now be featured in DDN’s latest servers to provide for the capacity, quality, and reliability needed for the latest application acceleration and burst buffer technologies. Their collaboration enables the DDN IME14K to deliver redundancy, low latency, and game changing performance at the application layer, providing impressive compute ROI.
Corsair Neutron XTi SSD Review (480GB)It has been nearly two years since we have reviewed the Corsair Neutron XT. At its release it was the first SSD we analyzed with the Phison S10 controller and after putting it through the paces, we were quite impressed with its performance at first show.
WD Announces World’s First 64 Layer 3D NANDThis week Western Digital Corp. announced that it has successfully developed its next generation 3D NAND technology, BiCS3, with 64 layers of vertical storage capability. Pilot production of the new technology has commenced in the Yokkaichi, Japan joint venture facilities and initial output is expected later this year.
Crucial Expands MX300 Line With More Capacities & Form FactorsJust a month after we reviewed the Limited Edition 750GB model, Crucial is now announcing the release of more capacity options for the MX300 family. It is now available in 275GB, 525GB, the original 750GB, and 1TB.
Kingston SSDNow UV400 SSD Review (480GB)Today we are going to look into the performance of yet another entry level SSD. This trend, to offer entry level products, is very strong now and since TLC NAND is readily available, almost every manufacturer out has one of these cost effect drives in their portfolio.
Samsung 850 EVO SSD Review (4TB) – Bigger than Ever!!!Samsung is a force to be reckoned with in the SSD market. With such a large share, they are the biggest player there is. This allows them to push the boundaries of what products they can deliver and when. In today’s case, Samsung has just released another update to their 850 EVO line, this time it is huge.
Micron 9100 MAX Enterprise NVMe SSD Review (2.4TB)It has been quite some time since Micron has released a new PCIe SSD into its product portfolio. With the many new NVMe products being released in the market, it was about time Micron caught up, and not only did they catch up, their latest drives look to be some of the best out.
Samsung EVO Plus microSDXC UHS-I Card Review (256GB) – So Much V-NAND!Released earlier last year, the Samsung EVO Plus line of microSD cards has been quite a success. In light of this, Samsung has decided to continue the momentum and push boundaries by expanding the capacity availability.
Toshiba HK4R Enterprise SSD Review (1920GB)SATA SSDs are all the rage in data centers. Unlike their PCIe bothers, these SATA SSDs don’t often need to have high endurance figures and lightning fast IOPS performance. Instead, they typically just need to be cheap, reliable, and what is becoming more important lately, high capacity.
From my author pages at Tom’s Hardware and The SSD Review, as of November 4, 2026. TechnologyX is offline, so its cards open the Internet Archive copies.
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