As mobile content and applications grow increasingly sophisticated, Western Digital Corporation is transforming the mobile experience with new industry-leading mobile solutions designed to enable consumers to better capture, share and enjoy rich content on their devices. At Mobile World Congress, the company is releasing the world’s fastest UHS-I flash memory card, the 400GB SanDisk Extreme UHS-I microSDXC card, and demonstrating the future of flash memory card technology with Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIe)-enabled cards, designed to deliver the performance required for the next wave of data and content-intensive applications.

Whether it’s exploring a new world in an immersive virtual reality app, or capturing 4K footage on a smartphone or drone, consumers can count on Western Digital to deliver even more robust mobile flash memory technology that offers them a premium experience on their favorite device.

The company’s new 400GB SanDisk Extreme UHS-I microSD card is designed to help consumers move their high-quality content faster than ever. At 160MB/s, the new card is more than 50 percent faster than current SanDisk Extreme UHS-I microSD cards. The card is able to reach this unprecedented speed by leveraging Western Digital proprietary technology. The card will also feature the A2 specification to help launch and load apps at blazing speeds.

Addressing the needs of a growing landscape of Internet of Things (IoT) and Fast Data applications at the edge, Western Digital Corporation today announced two new NVMe SSDs – Western Digital PC SN720 and Western Digital PC SN520 – powered by a new NVMe storage architecture, scalable for a range of emerging implementations, from IoT and edge computing to mobile computing systems.

The new Western Digital NVMe client architecture and product portfolio will enable manufacturers of IoT devices, computing devices such as thin and light, 2-in-1 and embedded PCs and monitoring systems to enable the capture and transformation of the massive quantities of data in real-time at the edge of smart city, smart home and personal data environments. Cisco GCI estimates that nearly 850 zettabytes (ZB) will be generated by all people, machines and things by 2021. With the advent of high-bandwidth technologies like 5G, augmented reality and facial recognition, new applications can benefit from the exceptional performance, power efficiency and capacity of NVMe and Western Digital 3D NAND to deliver an optimal user experience.

CDRLabs has taken an in depth look Plextor's latest PCIe SSD, the M9Pe. Optimized for high-level PC gaming, this M.2 form factor drive is powered by Marvell's 88SS1093 "Eldora" controller and is available with up to 1TB of Toshiba's 64-layer BiCS3 3D TLC NAND flash. To compensate for the slow write speeds typically associated with TLC NAND, the M9Pe uses Plextor's exclusive PlexNitro cache acceleration technology to optimize performance without taking up any space on the drive. The M9P is also equipped with a PCIe Gen3 x4 NVMe 1.2 interface to provide higher bandwidth and lower latency than SATA SSDs.

Sonnet Technologies today announced that the new 1TB version of its popular Fusion Thunderbolt 3 PCIe Flash Drive is now shipping. A rugged, pocket-size solid-state drive (SSD) storage device with a Thunderbolt 3 interface, the Mac- and Windows-compatible drive is equipped with 1TB of NVMe flash storage and leverages the 40Gb/s bandwidth of Thunderbolt 3 to deliver data transfer speeds up to 2600 MB/s.

The Fusion Thunderbolt 3 PCIe Flash Drive was designed for pro users requiring ultimate performance in a truly portable storage device, unencumbered by the need for an AC power adapter. The storage device connects to any compatible Mac or Windows computer, or at the end of a Thunderbolt 3 device daisy chain, with its 0.5-meter Thunderbolt 3 (40Gbps) cable. Based on the latest PCIe Gen 3 flash memory technology, the Fusion Thunderbolt 3 PCIe Flash Drive is more than five times faster than 6Gb/s SATA SSDs and USB 3 SSD drives.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the world leader in advanced memory technology, today announced that it has begun mass producing the industry’s largest capacity Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) solid state drive (SSD) – the PM1643 – for use in next-generation enterprise storage systems. Leveraging Samsung's latest V-NAND technology with 64-layer, 3-bit 512-gigabit (Gb) chips, the 30.72 terabyte (TB) drive delivers twice the capacity and performance of the previous 15.36TB high-capacity lineup introduced in March 2016.

This breakthrough was made possible by combining 32 of the new 1TB NAND flash packages, each comprised of 16 stacked layers of 512Gb V-NAND chips. These super-dense 1TB packages allow for approximately 5,700 5-gigabyte (GB), full HD movie files to be stored within a mere 2.5-inch storage device.

QNAP Systems, Inc. today unveiled the quad-core Intel-based 2-bay TS-253Be and 4-bay TS-453Be. With a PCIe expansion slot, the functionality of both NAS can be expanded to meet application needs, including M.2 SSD caching and 10GbE connectivity. The TS-x53Be also features HDMI output and 4K H.264/H.265 transcoding to provide a greater multimedia experience while its snapshots function helps protect data against potential ransomware threats.

"With the PCIe slot, the TS-x53Be series allows for extending NAS functionalities, including adding SSD caching and 10GbE connectivity, which provides great long-term potential for the NAS,” said Jason Hsu, Product Manager of QNAP. “For users who require a professional storage that can help streamline workflows and provide a great multimedia experience, the TS-x53Be series is the ideal choice with a reasonable price,” Hsu added.

Silicon Power (SP), a leader in performance memory solutions, today released the P32A80 and P32A85 PCIe Solid State Drives, a pair of leading high-performance and long-lasting devices in an already robust pool of SSDs.

For the New Creators Starting Out
The highly functional P32A80 and P32A85 are the ideal SSD solutions for high-end systems that are ready for a new level of performance and responsiveness. SP launches its first ever PCIe SSD, with designers in mind looking for large image rendering and intensive graphic editing capabilities, enterprises demanding high speed file transfer, fast boot-ups, and launches, and also musicians needing high volume recording and music library loading performance. Calvin Ho, one of Silicon Power’s Product Managers adds:

“We’re setting ourselves up to be the leading expert in PCIe trends and to deliver the most excellent performance and quality choice for our channel partners and customers who enjoy cutting-edge technology toys.”