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
News, features and guides, 2011–2021
Every card opens the original.
Stories 51 to 100 of 154, newest first.
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.
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.
SSD of the Week – PNY CS2211 XLR8With summer comes more time to play games for many and today we wanted to bring back to light a high quality SATA SSD for our readers who want that extra edge when playing. The CS2211 is manufactured by PNY and is part of their XLR8 line, aka, their top performing gamer/enthusiast class products.
Mangstor Introduces P2P capabilities and 5.4TB model to MX-Series NVMe SSDsMangstor Inc., a leading developer of high performance next generation non-volatile memory storage solutions, today announced that its MX-Series family of NVMe-based PCIe SSDs now features higher capacity 5.4TB models as well as Peer-to-Peer (P2P) capabilities.
Micron Announces Next-Gen NVMe 3D NAND 1100 & 2100 Series Client SSDs – Computex 2016 UpdateToday Micron Technology, Inc. introduced the Micron 1100 SATA and Micron 2100 PCIe NVMe. These are two new solid state drive (SSD) product lines designed to tackle client computing workloads from web browsing and email, to video editing and auto CAD design.
Micron Simplifies Path to Next-Generation All-Flash Data Center with Introduction of Micron Accelerated SolutionsOn Tuesday Micron Technology, Inc. introduced to us new NVMe SSDs for the enterprise market, however, that was just one of many announcements. They also announced the creation of Micron Accelerated Solutions, a set of purpose-built, scale-out solutions for open source and software-defined data centers.
Micron Accelerates Data Center Storage with New NVMe PCIe SSD PortfolioMicron announces a new PCIe solid state drives that leverage the high-performance NVMe protocol. The new Micron 9100 and 7100 PCIe SSDs provide data center customers with purpose-built storage products for implementing an agile, scale-out IT infrastructure.
Samsung 850 EVO SSD With 3rd Gen 48 Layer V-NAND Performance ComparisonOut with the old, in with the new is how the saying goes! Although, in this case, the old really isn’t that old and is still quite bleeding edge technology. This doesn’t stop Samsung though. Today we are going to take a look at the performance of Samsung’s 3rd generation 48-layer 256Gb TLC V-NAND.
SSD of the Week – 960GB MyDigitalSSD BP5e Slim 7 Just $190!Are you interested in getting a 1TB class SSD for dirt cheap? If so, today we stumbled across a great SSD of the Week deal for all our readers.
SSD of the Week – Adata Premier SP550It has been a while since our last SSD of the Week post, but after seeing the current prices of the Adata Premier SP550, we just had to bring it back. The Adata Premier SP550 is an entry-level SSD designed to meet the needs of those who want to upgrade to flash storage, but need to pinch pennies at the same time.
Toshiba’s Client and Enterprise Lineup – CES 2016 UpdateToshiba’s show room was packed with NVMe goodness and a bit more. To start off, while Toshiba does not target the consumer retail market under their name they do target OEM and enterprise customers with their client and enterprise products.
OCZ Showcases RevoDrive 400 and Trion 150 – CES 2016 UpdateAfter a long delay to the convention center today we were finally able to make it to the OCZ showroom where one of their newest products caught us by surprise. Along with the Vector 180 and Trion 100, OCZ showcased their Trion 150.
Kingston Demos E1000 PCIe NVMe SSD Capable of 1.25 Million IOPS and More! – CES 2016 UpdateCES has been quite interesting so far, with many new consumer storage devices on the horizon. This year, however, Kingston hasn’t announced anything new on the SSD front, that is, for consumer storage. They did, however, show off some of their newest enterprise products including the E1000 PCIe NVMe AIC and announced a new client SATA SSD, the KC400.
LaCie Unleashes New 1TB External Chromé SSD and Porsche Design Desktop Drives – CES 2016 UpdateLaCie, the premium brand from Seagate Technology, has just unleashed the fastest USB storage solution on the market at CES 2016! Designed by Neil Poulton the LaCie Chromé is a sleek combination of style and performance. The polished aluminum enclosure attaches to a removable magnetized display stand and the back features magnetized cable management.
SanDisk Release World’s Thinnest 1TB M.2 SSD and Extreme 510 External SSDToday SanDisk unveiled a few products for 2016, among them are a new client SSD and a rugged waterproof external drive. Their client product, the X400, is the first single-sided 1TB SATA M.2 form factor SSD that measures in at a mere 1.5mm height.
Micron’s Future Without Mark Adams – Storage Visions 2016 UpdateOf course Storage visions is where we learn what the future will hold in terms of storage. Right now, who better to look at than Micron about this subject? Just yesterday Micron, one of the biggest players in both the DRAM and NAND, released a press statement entailing that their president Mark Adams has resigned due to personal health reasons.
Samsung to Release 750 EVO in US Market, 4TB Consumer SSDs and More – Storage Visions 2016 UpdateIn a quick meeting with Samsung today we learned some interesting things coming up in 2016. Other than the release of the Samsung Portable SSD T3 we’ve mentioned here, Samsung aims to expand the release of the 750 EVO to the United States.
Black Friday SSD Sales 2015 – SanDisk Ultra II @ $0.21/GB and More!Black Friday is finally here and deals are a plenty! Of course, we at The SSD Review are looking after you and have created a guide to help you navigate through this Black Friday’s SSD deals. After checking out Amazon this morning, this is what we found.
SSD of the Week – AMD Radeon R7 Just $0.29/GB!This week we were looking around for the best deal at the ~250GB capacity range of SSDs. Hands down, it turned out to be the AMD Radeon R7. At a low price of just $69.99 it is even cheaper than many of its competitors and delivers great performance! The Radeon R7 is a 2.5″ 7mm form factor, SATA 6GB/s SSD.
OCZ Announces Host Managed SSD Technology in Saber 1000 ModelsToday, OCZ is introducing HMS technology in their Saber 1000 2.5” SATA 6Gb/s SSDs. What is HMS? HMS or Host Managed SSD technology is a new frontier for SSDs and the initiative is referred to as Storage Intelligence.
SSD of the Week – Kingston HyperX PredatorWell, it has been some time since we have reviewed the Kingston HyperX Predator. Back in March we were lucky enough to not only review one of these drives, but also two in RAID 0! The HyperX Predator is currently their top tier storage product.
SSD of the Week – The Samsung 850 EVO Once AgainToday we have a SSD that has been a recurring topic for SSD of the week this year. The Samsung 850 EVO was last covered when the 1TB capacity reached an amazing value of $0.33/GB. This week, however, we are focusing on value of the mid-size capacities along with the recently released 2TB capacity.
SSD of the Week – Is the 2TB CUK Cyclone a Samsung 3D V-NAND, SandForce or JMicron?Okay, so this Week’s SSD of the Week is a bit extraordinary and even leaves us a bit confused. Just when we thought the 2TB SSDs from Samsung had no competition we stumbled across a new 2TB SSD while looking for deals on Amazon! It is called the CUK Cyclone by a seller called Computer Upgrade King.
SSD of the Week – Kingston HyperX SavageFor his week’s SSD of the Week we turn to Kingston, a well-established maker of memory products for over 25 years. Furthermore, Kingston has been the world’s number-one memory module manufacturer for the third-party memory market for over 10 years. Kingston’s HyperX line of products bring forth both the high performance and looks that gamers and enthusiasts demand.
SSD of the Week – Eluktronics Eluktro Pro-X Performance – A Samsung SM951 in Disguise?Well, we are back from this year’s Flash Memory Summit and thought we would get back into gear with a new SSD of the Week. As you all know, the Samsung SM951 is one of the best things since sliced bread in an M.2 form factor.
Phison Announces PS5007-E7 PCIe NVMe Controller and More – Flash Memory Summit 2015 UpdateThe Phison PS5007-E7 PCIe NVMe controller is not something new to us. We have seen it before, first FMS last year and then again at Computex where we saw it on demo delivering 2.7Gb/s read. Finally, at FMS this year they officially announce its availability with it being demoed continuously writing at 1.3GB/s.
JMicron Displays Controller Lineup – Flash Memory Summit 2015 UpdateBack at Computex we weren’t able to cover JMicron’s latest plans and products, but now at FMS we were able to catch a meeting with them. On display was their current lineup of controllers and while not as high performance as some we have been seeing, for them it is about efficiency, stability and driving down cost.
Lite-On Debuts EP2 NVMe M.2 PCIe SSD and More – Flash Memory Summit 2015 UpdateWhile officially announced last week, Lite-on debuted their latest addition to their enterprise SSD portfolio, the EP2. The EP2 is a PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2 NVMe SSD that will be available in capacities up to 2TB! That is right, by utilizing a M.2 110mm form factor, the EP2 will be available in capacities up to 2TB.
PMC Demos New Flashtec NVMe Controllers and NVMe over RDMA – Flash Memory Summit 2015 UpdateThis year at FMS we are not only seeing much more innovation in end storage products themselves, but the entire storage ecosystem as well. Over at the PMC booth there are multiple demos showing how they aim to address the oncoming migration to PCIe in enterprise storage.
OCZ Demos Z-Drive 6000 NVMe SSD Dual-Port Performance – Flash Memory Summit 2015 UpdateThis year at FMS it really shows just how close Toshiba and OCZ are based upon their booth location. Right near the entrance you have Toshiba’s grand display, but at first glance the OCZ section is almost impossible to see. After circling back twice, their section finally caught our eye.
SSD of the Week – Transcend SSD370 at $0.27/GB!It has been a bit since our last SSD of the Week where we covered the Eluktronics Eluktro Pro Performance drives. Continuing our coverage of value drives we are taking a look at the Transcend SSD370 today because for a limited time Amazon is offering it at a great price.- Intel and Micron Produce 3D XPoint Memory – 1,000 Times Faster Than NANDIntel Corporation and Micron Technology, Inc., are announcing the first new memory category since NAND flash was introduced in 1989, revealing their 3D XPoint technology. This major breakthrough in memory process technology enables non-volatile memory speeds of up to 1,000 times faster than NAND! Digital data services and connected device growth continues to explode, creating ever-more-massive new data amounts.
Complete Guide To Speeding Up Your PC’s Boot Time – Under 10 Seconds is PossibleAs you know, many people buy SSDs to not only speed up their computing experience, but also speed up the boot time of their machines.
SSD of the Week – 1TB Samsung 850 EVO Just $0.33/GB!We have covered the Samsung 850 EVO in our SSD of the Week before, however, it was to highlight the 500GB capacity.
SSD of the Week – OCZ Vector 180When consumer SSDs were still in their infancy OCZ was quick to fill the market with SandForce force powered SSDs. This quick release of products came at a price. Due to issues with firmware consumers wound up with unreliable SSDs.
SSD of the Week – Crucial BX100In today’s SSD of the Week we look back at Crucial’s new entry-level SSD that we reviewed a couple of months ago, the BX100. This SSD was one of the first value oriented SSDs released following CES.
SSD of the Week – Intel SSD 750 SeriesToday we have something very special for SSD of the Week. A new enthusiast class SSD that outshines any of the same form factor PCIe SSDs. By utilizing the new NVMe (Non-Volatile Memory Express) interface, Intel’s 750 series of SSDs are leagues above the current PCIe interface in efficiency and speed.
SSD of the Week – Portable SSD T1Last week we took a look at the Patriot Ignite, a new contender in the market that offers high capacity and performance for a great price.
Thermaltake Toughpower 1500W Gold PSU Unboxing & OverviewThermaltake has been making power supplies for quite some time. They have models for all segments of the market, from entry level to PSUs that meet even the most extreme enthusiast’s demands. In fact, we’d venture to say, if you’ve been building systems for a while, odds are you’ve used a Thermaltake PSU at one point or another.
SSD of the Week – Kingston SSDNow V300In our last week’s SSD of the Week we covered ADATA’s SP610, a great performing SSD featuring a SM2246EN controller. For this week’s SSD of the Week we have found some great deals on Kingston’s SSDNow V300 SSDs.
New Headset & Peripherals By Turtle Beach – CES 2015 UpdateTurtle Beach had a great booth at CES this year, from live demo floors to private rooms, their set was rockin’! While there we were able to speak with David Lowey, senior director of corporate communications and public relations. He spoke to us about a brand new wireless headset for the Xbox One and their latest move into PC peripherals.
ADATA Shows Off SandForce SF3700 SSD and New TLC SSD – CES Update 2015Last week we were eager to meet with ADATA’s team at CES 2015. In their suite they had not only some new lighting and hard drive products, but some very interesting SSDs on display. One of these is an enterprise M.2 drive featuring a SandForce SF3700 controller.
Patriot Showcases Ignite SSD and More – CES 2015 UpdateCES has been great so far, there are a lot of new products that have been unveiled and we look forward to reviewing everything we can get our hands on. We stopped by Patriot’s suite in the Bellagio to see what they had up their sleeve.
Samsung Discusses Enterprise SSDs – CES 2015 UpdateThis morning at CES Las Vegas, we attended the Bellagio where we met with Ryan Smith, Sr. Product Manager of SSD Marketing, Samsung. We got to take a look not only at their current SSD line up, but what should be coming out over the next year or so.
Samsung SM951 PCIe 3.0 M.2 SSD In Mass ProductionSamsung Electronics Co., Ltd., has recently announced that it has begun mass producing a high-performance, low-powered PCIe M.2 SSD, the SM951. The OEM drive is targeted for ultra-slim notebook PCs and workstations. It is compatible with both PCIe 3.0 and PCIe 2.0 interfaces.
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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