WD

5-Bit PLC SSDs Not Coming Until 2025, or Later: Western Digital

Home News (Image credit: Western Digital) Both Intel and Toshiba have become increasingly confident in their projections for the debut of PLC flash, which packs in five bits per cell to reduce SSD pricing, but Western Digitial recently downplayed the feasibility of PLC SSDs before 2025. WD says this type of memory will only become viable… Read more

Sky Dirt: Backblaze Introduces Cloud-Based Chia Farming

Home News (Image credit: Shutterstock) Chia is heading to the cloud. Backblaze today announced that Chia Coin farmers can upload their plots to its B2 cloud storage platform for $5 per TB per month. A quick primer on Chia: It’s supposed to be more environmentally friendly than Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other cryptocurrencies because it uses… Read more

Intel Offers $2 Billion for RISC-V Chip Startup SiFive: Bloomberg

Home News (Image credit: Intel) According to Bloomberg’s sources, Intel has offered $2 billion for startup chip designer SiFive, though neither company has officially acknowledged the offer. SiFive is the leading designer of chips based on the open source RISC-V architecture that has coincidentally attracted much more interest in the wake of Nvidia’s ongoing acquisition… Read more

Chia Demand Prompts WD, Seagate to Ramp Up HDD Production

Home News (Image credit: Toshiba) Demand for hard drives skyrocketed recently because of Chia cryptocurrency farming, causing major HDD shortages and sending retail prices to record highs. In a bid to meet the demand for hard drives, Seagate and Western Digital are ramping up production of their high-capacity HDDs by essentially cranking up their existing production… Read more

Western Digital’s Latest WD_Black SSDs Target Consoles, Affordable PCIe 4.0

Home News (Image credit: WD) While in-person Computex has been canceled, companies still have new product to roll out, and today Western Digital adds a trio of new drives to its gaming-focused WD_Black line. There are a pair of D30 Game Drives targeting next-gen consoles, with one model aiming for the PlayStation 5 market, and… Read more

Phison PS5018-E18 Controller With Micron 176L TLC Preview: Unleashing the Beast

Home Features (Image credit: Tom’s Hardware) Page 1 of 3: Features and Specifications Phison’s PS5018-E18 is a high-performance PCIe 4.0×4 NVMe SSD controller that has flooded the market in many of the newest and fastest-performing SSDs. It offers up very fast sequential performance but has been outshined in random responsiveness by top picks like Samsung’s… Read more

Phison E18 + Micron 176-Layer NAND Preview – Faster than Samsung 980 Pro

Introduction If you’ve been following the SSD space at least a little bit, you definitely know Phison. An SSD controller vendor that started with low-performance budget chips, Phison has improved tremendously since and is now offering solutions that rival the fastest controllers available. Phison was founded in 2000 in Taiwan and is shipping hundreds of… Read more

Chia Coin Won’t Drive Up Most HDD Prices, Analysts Claim

Home News (Image credit: Toshiba) Financial analysts believe that while hard disk drive pricing has spiked in recent weeks due to Chia coin mining and will continue to be higher than usual for a while, average HDD prices will not get considerably higher than they are today as there is extraordinary demand for specific models… Read more

Gigabyte Aorus Gen4 7000s M.2 NVMe SSD Review: Nanocarbon Cooled for Speed

Our Verdict Gigabyte Aorus Gen4 7000s is a high-performance, premium-priced M.2 NVMe SSD that keeps cool under any workload due to its sleek pre-installed heatsink. For + Competitive performance + Attractive design + Effective cooling + AES 256-bit encryption + 5-year warranty and high endurance ratings Go to page: Features and Specifications Today, we have… Read more

G-Technology ArmorLock Encrypted NVMe SSD Review: Your Phone is the Key

Our Verdict G-Technology’s ArmorLock Encrypted NVMe SSD is ready for almost any condition or abuse and comes with secure, always-on 256-bit AES-XTS hardware encryption. For + Competitive 10 Gbps performance + AES-XTS 256-bit hardware encryption + Rugged design + 5-year warranty Against – Single 2TB capacity – Bulky size – Costly Go to page: Features… Read more

Lenovo P620 Threadripper Pro 3975WX Review

AMD’s Threadripper consumer HEDT processors continue to be praised strongly for their excellent compute performance and connectivity options. But what if you want more than 256GB of memory? What if you want your RAM to run in 8-channel mode? What if you want more than 64 PCIe Gen 4 lanes? Well… that’s where Threadripper Pro… Read more

Corsair One a200 Review: Liquid-Cooled Ryzen and RTX 3080

Our Verdict With a Ryzen 9 5900X and an RTX 3080, both liquid-cooled for quiet operation in a compact case, Corsair’s One a200 is easy to recommend–if you can afford it and find it in stock. Just know that your upgrade options are more limited than larger gaming rigs. For + Top-end performance + Space-saving,… Read more

Patriot Viper VP4300 M.2 NVMe SSD Review: Killer Looks, Fast Performance

Our Verdict Patriot’s Viper VP4300 is a high-end PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD with all the features and performance you could want from an enthusiast-grade SSD, but you’ll pay a premium for the privilege. For + Included heatsink and graphene label + Appealing aesthetics + AES 256-bit hardware encryption + Large hybrid SLC cache +… Read more

Adata XPG Gammix S70 M.2 NVMe SSD Review: Big Heatsink, Hot Performance

Our Verdict Adata’s XPG Gammix S70 is fast and features almost everything you could want from a high-end PCIe Gen4 NVMe SSD, but the heatsink is a bit restrictive and not quite as refined as our current best picks. For + Very fast sequential performance + High endurance + AES 256-bit hardware encryption + Black… Read more

WD Black SN850 M.2 NVMe SSD Review: Top-Tier Storage for Gamers and Pros (Updated)

Our Verdict With a robust design and major improvements to nCache 4.0, WD’s Black SN850 is among the most responsive drives we’ve seen. If you’re after the absolute best performance, we pick the 2TB WD Black SN850 over the 2TB Samsung 980 Pro. For + Competitive performance + Large, fast-recovering dynamic SLC cache + Attractive… Read more