BiCS
Western Digital's FMS 2024 demonstrations included a preview of their upcoming PCIe 5.0 x4 M.2 2280 NVMe SSDs for mobile workstations and consumer desktops. The Gen 5 client SSD market has been dominated by solutions based on Phison's E26 controller. The first generation products launched with slower NAND flash, while the more recent ones have exceeded the 14 GBps barrier by utilizing Micron's 2400 MT/s 232L 3D TLC. Western Digital has been conservative over the last year or so by focusing more on the mainstream / mid-range market in terms of new product introductions (such as the WD Blue SN5000, WD_BLACK SN770M, and the WD Blue SN580). Their SSD lineup is due for an update with Gen 5 drives being sorely missed. The SSDs...
Western Digital Starts Shipments of Client SSDs Based on 96-Layer BICS4 3D NAND
Western Digital has been continuing to ramp up production of its 96-layer BICS4 3D NAND, and the company has already been using this flash memory for various retail storage...
10 by Anton Shilov on 5/1/2019Toshiba Announces Fourth-Generation BGA SSD with 96L 3D NAND
Toshiba has announced the fourth iteration of their OEM client NVMe SSD that is delivered as a single BGA chip package containing both the SSD controller and the NAND...
0 by Billy Tallis on 1/8/2019The Seagate BarraCuda (500GB) SSD Review: Getting Back In The Game
Seagate has been one of the top names in the storage industry for decades, but it's almost exclusively for their hard drives. The company has been largely absent from...
39 by Billy Tallis on 12/7/2018The Corsair Force MP510 SSD (960GB) Review: A High-End Contender
The Corsair Force MP510 isn't the first retail Phison E12 drive to hit the shelves but it's the first one to hit our testbed. The Phison controller paired with...
43 by Billy Tallis on 10/18/2018Corsair Launches Force Series MP510 NVMe SSD
Today Corsair is launching the Force Series MP510 as their new high-end M.2 NVMe SSD. The MP510 is a big improvement over the preceding MP500, replacing the Phison E7...
12 by Billy Tallis on 10/16/2018Toshiba Memory and Western Digital Open Fab 6 and New Memory R&D Center
Toshiba Memory and Western Digital on Wednesday officially opened up their new Fab 6 and Memory R&D Center. Both facilities are located at their Yokkaichi operations site that now...
6 by Anton Shilov on 9/20/2018Phison: PS5012-E12 Controller in Mass Production, 20+ SSDs Incoming
Phison and its partners have been absent from the high-end SSD market in the past couple of years. This is partly because its memory supplier, Toshiba, was somewhat late...
14 by Anton Shilov on 9/7/2018The Toshiba XG6 1TB SSD Review: Our First 96-Layer 3D NAND SSD
For the second year in a row, Toshiba is the first to ship a new generation of 3D NAND. The new XG6 NVMe SSD for OEMs otherwise changes little...
32 by Billy Tallis on 9/6/2018Lite-On Demos Its First ‘Ruler’ EDSFF SSDs: CNEX Labs Controller, Up to 80 TB Capacity
Lite-On has demonstrated its first SSD that comes in EDSFF ‘ruler’ form factor, showing off the new drive at FMS earlier this month. The drive uses a controller from...
10 by Anton Shilov on 8/24/2018Toshiba Announces XL-Flash Low-Latency 3D NAND
At Flash Memory Summit today, Toshiba announced a new variant of 3D NAND flash memory, XL-Flash. Made with the same basic process as their 96-layer BiCS4 3D NAND...
3 by Billy Tallis on 8/7/2018Toshiba Begins to Construct New BiCS 3D NAND Fab in Iwate Prefecture
Toshiba Memory Corp. this week held a groundbreaking ceremony for its new BiCS 3D NAND flash memory fab, which is located in Japan's Iwate prefecture. Toshiba anticipates construction to...
7 by Anton Shilov on 7/25/2018Toshiba Announces XG6 NVMe SSD With 96L 3D NAND
Toshiba is introducing their first SSD using 96-layer 3D NAND flash memory. The new Toshiba XG6 is an update to their XG5 client NVMe SSD for the OEM market...
9 by Billy Tallis on 7/23/2018The Phison E12 Reference Design Preview: A Next-Gen NVMe SSD Controller
Phison's latest NVMe SSD controller will soon power a new generation of high-end consumer SSDs that may bring great performance and power efficiency to a cheaper price bracket than...
28 by Billy Tallis on 7/18/2018The Kingston A1000 NVMe SSD Review: Phison E8 Revisited
Kingston's first low-end NVMe SSD is the A1000, using Toshiba's latest 64-layer 3D TLC NAND and the Phison E8 controller. The price isn't quite down to SATA SSD levels...
26 by Billy Tallis on 7/2/2018The Toshiba RC100 SSD Review: Tiny Drive In A Big Market
The Toshiba RC100 is an NVMe SSD in the smaller-than-usual M.2 2242 form factor and making use of the NVMe Host Memory Buffer to improve the performance of this...
62 by Billy Tallis on 6/14/2018Toshiba Memory to Build New Fab to Produce BiCS 3D NAND
Toshiba Memory Corp., which is set to become independent from Toshiba in a few days, has announced their intention to start construction of a new BiCS 3D NAND fab...
7 by Anton Shilov on 5/29/2018The Plextor M9Pe NVMe SSD Review: Teaching An Old Chip New Tricks
The M9Pe is Plextor's first NVMe SSD to use 3D NAND, replacing the previous flagship's planar MLC with Toshiba 3D TLC NAND but keeping the same aging Marvell controller...
15 by Billy Tallis on 5/24/2018GIGABYTE Launches Its First SSDs: Phison PS3110 S10 with Toshiba’s 3D TLC
Despite growing demand for SSDs in the recent years, the four leading makers of motherboards have largely stayed out of this market, despite the significant leverage they normally have...
14 by Anton Shilov on 5/11/2018The MyDigitalSSD SBX SSD Review: NVMe On The Cheap
The MyDigitalSSD SBX is one of the first SSDs to use a controller designed for low-end NVMe SSDs. The combination of the Phison E8 controller and Toshiba's 64-layer 3D...
46 by Billy Tallis on 5/1/2018The Plextor M8V SATA SSD Review: Toshiba 3D TLC In a Mainstream Drive
Today we're taking a look at Plextor's M8V SSD. This is their latest entry-level SATA SSD and the first SATA drive from Plextor to use 64-layer 3D TLC NAND...
8 by Billy Tallis on 3/20/2018