flash
Crucial entered the portable SSD market relatively late, with their X6 and X8 PSSDs being the mainstay for many years. Based on QLC NAND, they were marketed for read-intensive use-cases, though the generous amount of SLC cache ended up delivering good write performance too for mainstream consumers - particularly in the X8. Recently, the company also started focusing on the prosumer / power users market with the launch of the X9 Pro and X10 Pro. Based on Micron's 176L 3D TLC NAND, these drives came with guaranteed write speeds. Earlier this week, the company launched a successor to the Crucial X8 in the same form-factor as that of the recently launched X9 Pro and X10 Pro. The new USB 3.2 Gen 2 Crucial X9 PSSD...
Crucial X9 Pro and X10 Pro High-Performance Portable SSDs Announced
Crucial's X6 and X8 Portable SSDs have been attractive budget options for the mainstream consumers looking to purchase high-capacity direct-attached storage drives. The company has been delivering some industry-firsts...
8 by Ganesh T S on 7/25/2023Transcend ESD310C Dual-Interface UFD Review: Silicon Motion Powers Portable SSD in a Thumb Drive
Transcend recently introduced the ESD310C portable SSD in a thumb drive form-factor. A compact device with both Type-A and Type-C USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbps) interfaces, the ESD310C...
28 by Ganesh T S on 6/22/2023Kioxia BG6 Series M.2 2230 PCIe 4.0 SSD Lineup Adds BiCS6 to the Mix
Kioxia's BG series of M.2 2230 client NVMe SSDs has proved popular among OEMs and commercial system builders due to their low cost and small physical footprint. Today, the...
2 by Ganesh T S on 5/22/2023Samsung Updates PRO Plus UHS-I Memory Cards with Improved Speeds
Samsung has been marketing SD and microSD cards for a few years now under the PRO Plus lineup in the UHS-I category. We looked at the 2020 lineup in...
26 by Ganesh T S on 4/11/2023OWC Envoy Pro Mini Review: SSD in a Thumb Drive Exceeds Expectations
OWC has been a key player in the storage industry over the last few decades, particularly for Apple users. Their lineup of portable flash-based direct-attached storage devices has a...
19 by Ganesh T S on 3/2/2023Kingston DataTraveler Max UFD Series Review: New Type-A Thumb Drive Retains NVMe Performance
Kingston's new products in the portable flash-based external storage space have met with good market reception over the last year or so. Two products in particular - the Kingston...
17 by Ganesh T S on 7/11/2022Samsung MUF-256DA USB-C Flash Drive Review: Thumb-Sized Performance Consistency
Portable SSDs have seen great demand over the last few years. Advancements in flash technology and controllers has resulted in compact drives delivering blistering speeds. These advancements have also...
20 by Ganesh T S on 7/6/2022CES 2022: OWC Expands Atlas Series with CFexpress Offerings
OWC is introducing a number of CFexpress products as part of their 2022 CES announcements today. The new Atlas Pro and Atlas Pro Ultra CFexpress cards join the Atlas...
1 by Ganesh T S on 1/4/2022Next Gen NVMe SD Card Review: The SM2708 Controller Serves it Hot and Fast
Flash-based removable media has a host of use cases in products ranging from content capture devices to portable game consoles. Behind the standards of these is the SD Association...
43 by Ganesh T S on 9/9/2021CES 2021: Western Digital's Portable SSDs Get Capacity Upgrades: 4TB of TLC for $680
Western Digital markets portable SSDs under different brands, catering to different market segments. The flagships in each brand make use of of very similar platforms - a M.2 NVMe...
3 by Ganesh T S on 1/11/2021Sabrent Rocket Nano Rugged IP67 Portable SSD Review: NVMe in a M.2 2242 Enclosure
Portable bus-powered SSDs are a growing segment of the direct-attached storage market. The ongoing glut in flash memory (and the growing confidence of flash vendors in QLC) has brought...
11 by Ganesh T S on 10/30/2020Samsung PRO Plus and EVO Plus SDXC UHS-I 128GB Memory Cards Capsule Review
Samsung had last revamped their SDXC cards lineup back in 2014 to delineate them into the standard, PRO, and EVO categories. Since then, the company slowly phased out the...
21 by Ganesh T S on 10/14/2020ADATA External and HP Portable SSDs Review: Featuring the ADATA SE800 and HP P700
Portable flash-based storage solutions are one of the growing segments in the direct-attached storage market. The emergence of 3D NAND with TLC and QLC has brought down the cost...
13 by Ganesh T S on 9/24/2020China Develops High Capacity QLC 3D NAND: YMTC at 1.33 Tb
Yangtze Memory Technologies Co. (YMTC) has announced that it's developed its new 128-layer 1.33 Tb QLC 3D NAND memory chip, the X2-6070. The new chip is based on its...
64 by Gavin Bonshor on 4/13/2020Western Digital Demonstrates 8TB Portable 20 Gbps SSD, Announces Dual-Connector 1TB Thumb Drive
Western Digital has a history of showcasing cutting-edge technological advancements in the consumer electronics space at CES every year. In 2019, a 4TB thumb drive was demonstrated, and this...
12 by Ganesh T S on 1/6/2020Seagate Expands External Flash Storage Lineup with FireCuda Gaming SSD and BarraCuda Fast SSD
Late last year, Seagate had launched the FireCuda Gaming Dock, a 4TB external hard drive / Thunderbolt 3 dock with a Titan Ridge controller. It stood out in the...
13 by Ganesh T S on 1/6/2020Kioxia: 3D Stacked Storage Class Memory, like 3D XPoint, Isn’t the Future
One of the key battlegrounds of the next decade is going to be storage: density, speed, and demand. Naturally all the major players in the space want to promote...
23 by Dr. Ian Cutress on 12/30/2019Samsung EVO Plus microSDXC UHS-I 512GB Memory Card Capsule Review
As content capture devices are recording ever-higher bitrate videos and higher resolution photos, high capacity memory cards are increasingly in demand. Everything from smartphones to game consoles to PCs...
11 by Ganesh T S on 5/10/2019SanDisk's Mainstream Extreme PRO Portable SSD Goes NVMe
At CES 2019, Western Digital demonstrated a number of direct-attached flash solutions. Out of all the showcased items with imminent retail availability, one deserves separate mention. Under the SanDisk...
8 by Ganesh T S on 1/8/2019