Western Digital Corp. today 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. Western Digital expects meaningful commercial volumes of BiCS3 in the first half of calendar 2017.

“The launch of the next generation 3D NAND technology based on our industry-leading 64 layer architecture reinforces our leadership in NAND flash technology,” said Dr. Siva Sivaram, executive vice president, memory technology, Western Digital. “BiCS3 will feature the use of 3-bits-per-cell technology along with advances in high aspect ratio semiconductor processing to deliver higher capacity, superior performance and reliability at an attractive cost. Together with BiCS2, our 3D NAND portfolio has broadened significantly, enhancing our ability to address a full spectrum of customer applications in retail, mobile and data center.”

Seagate Technology plc, today unveiled a first-of-its kind, high-capacity drive that can help data centers more easily accommodate exponential data growth, while still maintaining high levels of computing power and performance. The two terabyte (TB) version of its Nytro XM1440 M.2 non-volatile memory express (NVMe) Solid State Drive (SSD) is the highest-capacity, enterprise-class M.2 NVMe SSD available today, making it well suited for demanding enterprise applications that require fast data access, capacity and processing.

As the latest addition to the Seagate Nytro SSD product line, the 2TB Nytro XM1440 M.2 NVMe SSD is designed to accelerate enterprise data access, with twice the density of prior M.2 NVMe environments. Optimized for read-intensive and mixed workloads, its high capacity and small form factor are ideal for today’s cloud and enterprise data center environments, where speed and processing power in a small footprint are increasingly important. The drive can help meet the needs of demanding enterprise applications including online transaction processing, high-performance computing and big data analytics. It also helps manage storage growth with deduplication and compression, allowing data centers to easily create more virtual machines instantly without having to add additional servers — enabling today’s data centers to more easily manage their ever-expanding storage growth.

Crucial, a leading global brand of memory and storage upgrades, today announced additional capacities of the Crucial MX300 solid state drive (SSD). Built for speed and loaded with advanced features, the new drives deliver an immediate increase to system performance.

With read speeds up to 530 MB/s and write speeds up to 510 MB/s on all file types, the Crucial MX300 enables users to boot up almost instantly, load programs with ease, and accelerate demanding applications. The drive is engineered with Micron® 3D NAND technology, resulting in an endurance rating of up to 220TB total bytes written by leveraging larger NAND cells to deliver top-notch performance and prolong endurance.

ADATA Technology, a leading manufacturer of high performance DRAM modules and NAND Flash products, today unveiled the SE730, SC660, and SV620 external SSDs. The three are compatible with Windows, Mac OS, and Android, thus bringing solid state storage expansion and convenience to the majority of notebooks, ultrabooks, desktops, and even media boxes and game consoles. From the USB Type-C SE730 with its IP68 dust and water proofing to the cost-effective SC660 and SV620, each offers at least four times the performance of an external mechanical drive while consuming far less power (excellent for portable device batteries), operating in total silence, and ensuring vastly better shock resistance. The drives are ideal for mobile or stationary scenarios. They use carefully-sorted and certified controllers and memory chips, undergoing rigorous ADATA testing. Likewise, PCB production and enclosure assembly meet demanding ADATA standards, backed by a 3-year warranty. The SE730 and SV620 launch today while the SC660 will release in August.

SE730: presenting the most compact USB Type-C external SSD in the world
Embodying ADATA innovation and dedication to premium products, the SE730 packs read/write performance up to 500MB/s in a super-compact form factor that weighs a mere 33g. The smallest external SSD with a reversible USB Type-C connector in the world at the time of writing, the SE730 supercharges data transfers with USB 3.1 Gen 2. Its sandblasted metallic enclosure and robust build mean it carries official IEC IP68 dust and water proof qualifications, as well as military-grade shock proofing. The SE730 offers the ultimate in external SSD style, performance, and mobility, weighing less than a golf ball and fitting easily in the palm of a hand.

Seagate Technology plc, a world leader in storage solutions, today unveiled a new portfolio of 10TB high capacity drives dubbed the Guardian Series. Purpose-built to help customers better manage and move the huge amounts of digital data they consume and create, the 10TB Seagate BarraCuda Pro desktop drive, Seagate IronWolf for NAS applications and Seagate SkyHawk for surveillance introduce new brand names and imagery and represent the most complete 10TB portfolio in the industry. The Guardian Series features industry leading technology that raises the bar on features, speed and capacity for use across a wide range of markets, including personal, creative and design computing, online gaming, small- and medium-sized businesses and large-scale surveillance systems.

“Consumers and organizations today face a similar challenge -- what to do about the massive deluge of data and video they confront every day,” said Matt Rutledge, senior vice president of Client and Consumer Storage at Seagate. “Whether it’s dominating in the latest game, producing compelling multimedia content, mining data to help create new apps and business services, helping to protect people and places around the world against new threats, and more, the Seagate Guardian Series is designed to preserve your most critical data and move it where it’s needed fast so you can make the most of it. By incorporating powerful new features and capabilities, our 10TB products also make it easier for everyone to create, consume and use data.”

Samsung Electronics, the world leader in advanced memory technology, today unveiled the industry’s first removable memory cards based on the JEDEC Universal Flash Storage (UFS) 1.0 Card Extension Standard, for use in high-resolution mobile shooting devices such as DSLRs, 3D VR cameras, action cams and drones. Coming in a wide range of storage capacities including 256, 128, 64 and 32 gigabyte (GB), Samsung’s UFS cards are expected to bring a significant performance boost to the external memory storage market, allowing much more satisfying multimedia experiences.

“Our new 256GB UFS card will provide an ideal user experience for digitally-minded consumers and lead the industry in establishing the most competitive memory card solution,” said Jung-bae Lee, senior vice president, Memory Product Planning & Application Engineering, Samsung Electronics “By launching our new high-capacity, high-performance UFS card line-up, we are changing the growth paradigm of the memory card market to prioritize performance and user convenience above all.”

Today, CDRLabs brings you a review of Plextor's first TLC NAND-based SSD, the M7V. Designed to meet the needs of cost-conscious consumers, this new entry-level SSD is powered by Marvell's 88SS1074B1 controller and is available with up to 512GB of Toshiba's 15nm TLC NAND flash. To overcome the technical limits of TLC NAND, the M7V is equipped with Plextor's new PlexNitro cache acceleration technology, which optimizes performance without taking up any space on the drive. The M7V also has many of the same features found on Plextor's higher end SSDs. In addition to the company's PlexTurbo SSD RAM caching solution, the drive offers support for its PlexCompressor and PlexVault technologies.