CDRLabs kicks off the New Year with a review of Samsung's 960 PRO SSD. First unveiled at the 2016 Samsung SSD Global Summit in Seoul, this cutting-edge NVMe SSD is powered by the company's new 5-core Polaris controller and is available with up to 2TB of their 48-layer V-NAND flash. Also, thanks to its PCIe Gen 3.0 x4 lane interface, the 960 PRO is capable of delivering up to 3,500 MB/s sequential read and 2,100 MB/s sequential write speeds.

Western Digital Corporation (“Western Digital”) today announced the availability of new WD Black PCIe solid state drives (SSDs), the first WD-branded client PCIe SSDs. The new SSDs complement the recently announced WD Blue and WD Green SATA SSDs, as well as the company’s industry leading family of hard drives for PCs and workstations, providing a full portfolio of WD storage devices for virtually any application.

The WD Black PCIe SSD is a performance PCIe Gen3 x4 NVMe-based SSD that delivers more than three times the sequential read speeds of current SATA SSDs. The 256GB and 512GB capacities make it ideal as a boot drive when paired with a high-capacity hard drive, or as primary storage when building a future-ready PC. Consumers who are using the new WD Black PCIe SSD to boot up, load read-intensive games or applications, or shut down a system may realize a performance improvement of more than 10 seconds when compared to SATA SSDs.

Western Digital Corporation, a global storage technology and solutions leader, today announced its fastest, high-capacity USB flash drive to date with the launch of its high-performance 256GB SanDisk Extreme PRO USB 3.1 Solid State Flash Drive. The new drive delivers the speed, capacity, and reliability of an SSD in the convenient form factor of a small USB flash drive, and is ideal for creative professionals, tech enthusiasts, or anyone who creates and shares massive files.

A game-changer in the USB storage category, the drive is capable of read speeds up to 420MB/s and write speeds up to 380MB/s1. With its unprecedented speeds, you can transfer full-length 4K movie to the drive in less than 15 seconds2. With its USB 3.1 interface, people can rapidly access and move files on the go, without having to worry about a cable. The new drive also features a sophisticated design with a durable aluminum metal casing and a retractable connector for ultimate style and reliability.

Patriot, a global leader in performance memory, SSDs, gaming peripherals and flash storage solutions, today announced the release of two new Type-C USB drives. The Stellar-C Vertical (STC-Vi) and the Stellar-C Pass-Through (STC-Ti) will provide users with high capacity, portable storage solutions for the ever growing Type-C technology.

The Patriot STC-Vi will provide users with an upright solution to minimize obstruction while in use with Type-C smartphones or tablets and provides a low-profile, plug-and-stay, drive for use in notebooks, such as the MacBook®, and desktop PCs. “With the STC-Vi, the new vertically positioned Type-C flash drive, we are giving the consumer something that will mesh well with Type-C mobile devices both in style and portability,” said Meng J. Choo, Patriot’s Flash Product Manager. Available in a range of capacities from 64GB to 128GB, the STC-Vi will have a transfer rate of up to 225MB/s read and up to 25MB/s write for a seamless transfer between devices.