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SK hynix is one of the few vertically integrated manufacturers in the flash-based storage market. The company is well-established in the OEM market. A few years back, they also started exploring direct end-user products. Internal SSDs (starting with the Gold S31 and Gold P31) were the first out of the door. Late last year, the company introduced the Beetle X31 portable SSD, its first direct-attached storage product. In February, a complementary product was introduced - the Tube T31 Stick SSD.
The Beetle X31 is a portable SSD with a Type-C upstream port and a separate cable. The Tube T31 is a take on the traditional thumb drive with a male Type-A interface. The size of the Beetle X31 makes the use of a bridge solution obvious. Our investigation into the Tube T31 also revealed the use of the same internal SSD, albeit with a different bridge. Read on for a detailed look at the Tube T31, including an analysis of its internals and evaluation of its performance consistency, power consumption, and thermal profile.
Western Digital this week is previewing the industry's first 4 TB SD card. The device is being showcased at the NAB trade show for broadcasters and content creators and will be released commercially in 2025.
Western Digital's SanDisk Extreme Pro SDUC 4 TB SD card complies with the Secure Digital Ultra Capacity standard (SDUC, which enables up to 128TB). The card uses the Ultra High Speed-I (UHS-I) interface and is rated for speed Class 10, therefore supporting a minimum speed of 10 MB/s and a maximum data transfer rate of 104 MB/s when working in UHS104 (SDR104) mode (there is a catch about performance, but more on that later). WD's SD card is also rated to meet Video Speed Class V30, supporting a minimal sequential write speed of 30 MB/s, which is believed to be good enough for 8K video recording, above and beyond the 4K video market that Western Digital is primarily aiming the forthcoming card at.
For now, Western Digital is not disclosing what NAND is in the SanDisk Extreme Pro SDUC 4 TB SD card. Given the high capacity and relatively distant 2025 release date, WD may be targetting this as one of their first products to use their forthcoming BiCS 9 NAND.
And while not listed in WD's official press release, we would be surprised if the forthcoming card didn't also support the off-spec DDR200/DDR208 mode, which allows for higher transfer rates than the UHS-I standard normally allows via double data rate signaling. Western Digital's current-generation SanDisk Extreme Pro SDXC 1 TB SD card already supports that mode, allowing it to reach read speeds as high as 170 MB/s, so it would be surprising to see the company drop it from newer products. That said, the catch with DDR208 remains the same as always: it's a proprietary mode that requires a compatible host to make use of.
Western Digital has not disclosed how much will its SanDisk Extreme Pro SDUC 4 TB SD card cost. A 1 TB SanDisk Extreme Pro card costs $140, so one can make guesses about the price of a 4 TB SD card that uses cutting-edge NAND.
Nowadays highest-capacity hard drives are typically aimed at cloud service providers (CSPs) and enterprises, but this does not mean that creative professionals or regular users do not need them. To cater to demands of more regular consumers, Western Digital has started shipments of its Red Pro 24 TB HDDs, which are aimed at high-end NAS use for creative professionals with significant storage requirements.
Western Digital's Red Pro 24 TB hard drives come approximately 20 months after their 22 TB model hit retail in 2022, offering an incremental improvement to WD's highest-capacity NAS and consumer hard drive offering. The platform uses conventional magnetic recording (CMR), feature a 7200 RPM rotating speed, are equipped with a 512 MB cache, and use OptiNAND technology to improve reliability as well as optimize performance and power consumption. The HDDs are rated for an up to 287 MB/s media to cache transfer rate, which makes them some of the fastest hard drives around (albeit, still a bit slower compared to CSP and enterprise-oriented HDDs).
Just like other high-end network-attached storage-aimed HDDs, the Red Pro 24 TB hard drives use helium-filled platforms that are very similar to those designed for enterprise drives. Consequently, the Red Pro 24 TB HDD are equipped with rotation vibration sensors to anticipate and proactively counteract disturbances caused by increased vibration and multi-axis shock sensors to detect subtle shock events and automatically offset them with dynamic fly height technology to ensure that heads to not scratch disks.
UPDATE 4/2/2024: Western Digital has notified us that WD Red Pro fully support ArmorCache capability, even though it is not listed in datasheets.
What these drives lack compared Apparently, just like WD Gold and Ultraster 22 TB and 24 TB drives for enterprises and cloud datacenters, WD Red Pro HDDs fully support the ArmorCache feature that provides protection against power loss when write-cache is enabled (WCE mode) and enhances performance when write-cache is disabled (WCD mode).
On the reliability side of matters, Western Digital's Red Pro 24 TB HDDs are designed for 24/7 operation in vibrating environments, such as enterprise-grade NAS with loads of bays, and are rated for up to 550 TB/year workloads as well as up to 600,000 load/unload cycles, which is in line with what Western Digital's WD Gold and Ultrastar hard drives offer.
As for power consumption, the WD Red Pro 24 TB consumes up to 6.4W during read and write operations, up to 3.9W in idle mode, and up to 1.2W in standby/sleep mode.
Western Digital's Red Pro 24 TB (WD240KFGX) HDDs are now shipping to resellers as well as NAS makers, and are slated to be available shortly. Expect these hard drives to be slightly cheaper than the WD Gold 24 TB model.
SK hynix is set to unveil their first Gen5 consumer NVMe SSD lineup shortly, based on the products at display in their GTC 2024 booth. The Platinum P51 M.2 2280 NVMe SSD will take over flagship duties from the Platinum P41 that has been serving the market for more than a year.
Similar to the Gold P31 and the Platinum P41, the Platinum P51 also uses an in-house SSD controller. The key updates are the move to PCIe Gen5 and the use of SK hynix's 238L TLC NAND. Other details are scarce, and we have reached out for additional information.
| SK hynix Platinum P51 Gen5 NVMe SSD Specifications | ||||
| Capacity | 500 GB | 1 TB | 2 TB | |
| Controller | SK hynix In-House (Alistar) | |||
| NAND Flash | SK hynix 238L 3D TLC NAND at ?? MT/s ('4D' with CMOS circuitry under the NAND as per SK hynix marketing) | |||
| Form-Factor, Interface | M.2-2280, PCIe 5.0 x4, NVMe 2.0 | |||
| Sequential Read | 13500 MB/s | |||
| Sequential Write | 11500 MB/s | |||
| Random Read IOPS | TBD | |||
| Random Write IOPS | TBD | |||
| SLC Caching | Yes | |||
| TCG Opal Encryption | TBD | |||
| Warranty | TBD | |||
| Write Endurance | TBD | TBD | TBD | |
Only the peak sequential access numbers were available at the GTC booth, indicating that the drive's firmware is still undergoing tweaks. It is also unclear how these numbers are going to vary based on capacity. Availability and pricing are also not public yet.
This is a significant launch for the Gen5 consumer SSD market, where the number of available options are quite limited. The Phison E26 controller and Micron's B58R NAND combination is already in its second generation (with the NAND operating at 2400 MT/s in the newest avatar), but other vertically integrated vendors such as Samsung, Western Digital / Kioxia, and SK hynix (till now) are focusing more on the Gen4 market which has much higher adoption.
We will update the piece with additional information once the specifications are officially available.
The DNA Data Storage Alliance introduced its inaugural specifications for DNA-based data storage this week. This specification outlines a method for encoding essential information within a DNA data archive, crucial for developing and commercializing an interoperable storage ecosystem.
DNA data storage uses short strings of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) called oligonucleotides (oligos) mixed together without a specific physical ordering scheme. This storage media lacks a dedicated controller and an organizational means to understand the proximity of one media subcomponent to another. DNA storage differs significantly from traditional media like tape, HDD, and SSD, which have fixed structures and controllers that can read and write data from the structured media. DNA's lack of physical structure requires a unique approach to initiate data retrieval, which brings its peculiarities regarding standardization.
To address this, the SNIA DNA Archive Rosetta Stone (DARS) working group, part of the DNA Data Storage Alliance, has developed two specifications, Sector Zero and Sector One, to facilitate the process of starting a DNA archive.
Sector Zero serves as the starting point, providing minimal details necessary for the archive reader to identify the entity responsible for synthesizing the DNA (e.g., Dell, Microsoft, Twist Bioscience) and the CODEC used for encoding Sector One (e.g., Super Codec, Hyper Codec, Jimbob's Codec). Sector Zero consists of 70 bases: the first 35 bases identify the vendor, and the second 35 bases identify the codec. The information in Sector Zero enables access and decoding of data stored in Sector One. The amount of data stored in SZ is small and fits into a single oligonucleotide.
Sector One expands on this by including a description of the contents, a file table, and parameters required for transferring data to a sequencer. This specification ensures that the main body of the archive is accessible and readable, paving the way for data retrieval. Sector One contains exactly 150 bases and will span multiple oligonucleotides.
"A key goal of the DNA Data Storage Alliance is to set and publish specifications and standards that allow an interoperable DNA data storage ecosystem to grow," said Dave Landsman, of the DNA Data Storage Alliance Board of Directors. "With the publishing of the Alliance's first specifications, we take an important step in achieving that goal. Sector Zero and Sector One are now publicly available, allowing companies working in the space to adopt and implement."
The DNA Data Storage Alliance is led by Catalog Technologies, Inc., Quantum Corporation, Twist Bioscience Corporation, and Western Digital (though we are unsure whether Western Digital's NAND or HDD division is responsible for developing the specification). Meanwhile, numerous industry giants, including Microsoft, support the DNA Data Storage Alliance.
Source: SNIA
Western Digital had unveiled the SanDisk Professional PRO-BLADE modular SSD ecosystem in mid-2022 to serve the needs of the professional market. Compact and sturdy NVMe drives (PRO-BLADE SSD Mag) swappable across discrete bus-powered enclosures (PRO-BLADE TRANSPORT), and also compatible with a multi-bay reader (PRO-BLADE STATION) have perfectly fit the requirements of multi-user / multi-site workflows in the content capture industry. Read on for a detailed look at the first-generation PRO-BLADE SSD Mags and the PRO-BLADE TRANSPORT enclosure. In addition to the evaluation of the performance consistency, power consumption, and thermal profile, an analysis of the internals is also included.
Now well in the midst of executing its plan to divide itself into separate hard drive and NAND businesses, Western Digital today offered a fresh update on the state of that split, and what the next steps are for the company. With the eventual goal of dividing the company into two independent, publicly traded companies, Western Digital is reporting that they have made significant progress in key transactional projects, and they are also announcing their initial leadership appointments for the post-separation businesses.
Western Digital's separation, announced on October 30, 2023, aims to create two focused companies with distinct product lineups for hard drives and NAND flash memory, respectively, as well as NAND flash memory-based products. This move is expected to speed up innovation and introduce new growth opportunities, according to Western Digital. Meanwhile, with separate capital structures, operational efficiency of the two entities will be higher compared to the united company, the management of Western Digital claims.
Western Digital led the storage industry's consolidation by acquiring HGST, various SSD and flash companies in the early 2010s, and SanDisk in 2016 for NAND flash production. As a result, in late 2010s the company become a media-agnostic, vertically-integrated storage technology company. However, the company faced challenges in growing its revenue. The 3D NAND and SSD markets are highly competitive commodity markets, and as a result they tend to fluctate depending on supply and demand. Meanwhile, demand for HDDs is declining and offseting decreasing unit sales with 3D NAND-based products and nearline hard drives was challenging. Meanwhile, to avoid avoid competition with larger storage solutions providers like Dell, HPE, and IBM — which purchase Western Digital's HDDs, SSDs, and NAND memory — Western Digital had to divest its storage solutions, which presents additional challenges.
As a result, Western Digital's HDD and NAND businesses have acted largely independently since late 2020, when it became apparent that the combined company has failed to become bigger than the sum of Western Digital and SanDisk parts. So far, quite some progress has been made in preparing for the separation, including establishing legal entities in 18 countries, preparing independent financial models, and finalizing preparations for regulatory filings. As a result, the company remains on track to finish the split in the second-half of this year, according to Western Digital.
With regards to post-split leadership, David Goeckeler has been appointed as the chief executive designate for the NAND flash memory spinoff company. He expressed enthusiasm for the NAND business's potential in market growth and the development of new memory technologies.
"Today's announcement highlights the important steps we are making towards the completion of an extremely complex transaction that incorporates over a dozen countries and spans data storage technology brands for consumers to professional content creators to the world’s leading device OEMs and the largest cloud providers," said David Goeckeler, CEO of Western Digital. "I am pleased with the exceptional work the separation teams have done so far in creating a spin-ready foundation that will ensure a successful transition to independent, market-leading companies for our Flash and HDD businesses."
Meanwhile, Irving Tan, currently executive vice president of global operations, will assume the CEO role for the standalone HDD company, which will continue to operate under the Western Digital brand. It is unclear where Ashley Gorakhpurwalla, currently the head of WDC's HDD business unit, will end up, or if he'll even remain with the company at all.
"While both Western Digital's businesses will have the strategic focus and resources to pursue exciting opportunities in their respective markets once the separation is complete, the Flash business offers exciting possibilities with market growth potential and the emerging development of disruptive, new memory technologies," added Goeckeler. "I am definitely looking forward to what's next for the spinoff team."
Silicon Power announced the MS70 and PX10 Portable SSDs in late 2023. The company is well known for offering entry- and mid-range products at compelling price points, but the two products came with plenty of promises in the 1GBps-class category. The MS70 promised high storage density (up to 2TB in a compact thumb drive), while the PX10 targeted power users and professionals with performance consistency as the focus. Read on for a detailed look at the Silicon Power PX10 including an analysis of its internals, value proposition, and evaluation of its performance consistency, power consumption, and thermal profile.
Crucial is unveiling the latest addition to its Gen5 consumer NVMe SSD lineup today - the T705 PCIe 5.0 M.2 2280 NVMe SSD. It takes over flagship duties from the Crucial T700 released last year. The company has been putting focus on the high-end consumer SSD segment in the last few quarters. The T700 was one of the first to offer more than 12 GBps read speeds, and the T705 being launched today is one of the first drives available for purchase in the 14+ GBps read speeds category.
The Crucial T705 utilizes the same platform as the T700 from last year - Phison's E26 controller with Micron's B58R 232L 3D TLC NAND. The key difference is the B58R NAND operating at 2400 MT/s in the new T705 (compared to the 2000 MT/s in the T700). Micron's 232L NAND process has now matured enough for the company to put out 2400 MT/s versions with enough margins. Similar to the T700, this drive is targeted towards gamers, content creators, and professional users as well as data-heavy AI use-cases.
The move to 2400 MT/s NAND has allowed Crucial to claim an increase in the performance of the drive in all four corners - up to 20% faster random writes, and 18% higher sequential reads. Additionally, Crucial also claims more bandwidth in a similar power window for the new drive.
The T705 is launching in three capacities - 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB. Both heatsink and non-heatsink versions are available. Crucial is also offering a white heatsink limited edition for the 2TB version. This caters to users with white-themed motherboards that are increasingly gaining market presence.
Phison has been pushing DirectStorage optimizations in its high-end controllers, and it is no surprise that the T705 advertises the use of Phison's 'I/O+ Technology' to appeal to gamers. Given its high-performance nature, it is no surprise that the E26 controller needs to be equipped with DRAM for managing the flash translation layer (FTL). Crucial is using Micron LPDDR4 DRAM (1GB / TB of flash) in the T705 for this purpose.
| Crucial T705 Gen5 NVMe SSD Specifications | ||||
| Capacity | 1 TB | 2 TB | 4 TB | |
| Model Numbers | CT1000T705SSD3 (Non-Heatsink) CT1000T705SSD5 (Heatsink) |
CT2000T705SSD3 (Non-Heatsink) CT2000T705SSD5 (Black Heatsink) CT2000T705SSD5A (White Heatsink) |
CT4000T705SSD3 (Non-Heatsink) CT4000T705SSD5 (Heatsink) |
|
| Controller | Phison PS5026-E26 | |||
| NAND Flash | Micron B58R 232L 3D TLC NAND at 2400 MT/s | |||
| Form-Factor, Interface | Double-Sided M.2-2280, PCIe 5.0 x4, NVMe 2.0 | |||
| Sequential Read | 13600 MB/s | 14500 MB/s | 14100 MB/s | |
| Sequential Write | 10200 MB/s | 12700 MB/s | 12600 MB/s | |
| Random Read IOPS | 1.4 M | 1.55 M | 1.5 M | |
| Random Write IOPS | 1.75 M | 1.8 M | 1.8 M | |
| SLC Caching | Dynamic (up to 11% of user capacity) | |||
| TCG Opal Encryption | Yes | |||
| Warranty | 5 years | |||
| Write Endurance | 600 TBW 0.33 DWPD |
1200 TBW 0.33 DWPD |
2400 TBW 0.33 DWPD |
|
| MSRP | $240 (24¢/GB) (Non- Heatsink) $260 (26¢/GB) (Heatsink) |
$400 (20¢/GB) (Non- Heatsink) $440 (22¢/GB) (Black Heatsink) $484 (24.2¢/GB) (White Heatsink) |
$714 (17.85¢/GB) (Non- Heatsink) $730 (18.25¢/GB) (Heatsink) |
|
Crucial is confident that the supplied passive heatsink is enough to keep the T705 from heavy throttling under extended use. The firmware throttling kicks in at 81C and protective shutdown at 90C. Flash pricing is not quite as low as it was last year, and the 2400 MT/s flash allows Micron / Crucial to place a premium on the product. At the 4TB capacity point, the drive can be purchased for as low as 18¢/GB, but the traditional 1TB and 2TB ones go for 20 - 26 ¢/GB depending on the heatsink option.
There are a number of Gen5 consumer SSDs slated to appear in the market over the next few months using the same 2400 MT/s B58R 3D TLC NAND and Phison's E26 controller (Sabrent's Rocket 5 is one such drive). The Crucial / Micron vertical integration on the NAND front may offer some advantage for the T705 when it comes to the pricing aspect against such SSDs. That said, the Gen5 consumer SSD market is still in its infancy with only one mass market (Phison E26) controller in the picture. The rise in consumer demand for these high-performance SSDs may coincide with other vendors such as Innogrit (with their IG5666) and Silicon Motion (with their SM2508) gaining traction. Currently, Crucial / Micron (with their Phison partnership) is the only Tier-1 vendor with a high-performance consumer Gen5 SSD portfolio, and the T705 cements their leadership position in the category further.
Enlarge / A microSD card of "unknown origin" is soldered onto a USB interface board to serve as makeshift NAND storage. (credit: CBL Data recovery)
When a German data recovery firm recently made a study of the failed flash storage drives it had been sent, it noticed some interesting, and bad, trends.
Most of them were cheap sticks, the kind given away by companies as promotional gifts, but not all of them. What surprised CBL Data Recovery was the number of NAND chips from reputable firms, such as Samsung, Sandisk, or Hynix, found inside cheaper devices. The chips, which showed obvious reduced capacity and reliability on testing, had their manufacturers' logo either removed by abrasion or sometimes just written over with random text.
Sometimes there wasn't a NAND chip at all, but a microSD card—possibly also binned during quality control—scrubbed of identifiers and fused onto a USB interface board. On "no-name" products, there is "less and less reliability," CBL wrote (in German, roughly web-translated). CBL did find branded products with similar rubbed-off chips and soldered cards but did not name any specific brands in its report.
Seagate's financial reports have been indicating imminent mass production of HAMR HDDs for a few years now, and it looks like the wait for these drives to appear in retail is finally at an end. The Seagate Exos product family is getting a 30TB capacity point, thanks to the use of heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) technology. The company talked to the press last week about the Mozaic 3+ platform – their first high-volume HAMR platform – and how it sets the stage for rapid areal density scaling over the next few years.
Seagate's new Exos 30TB HDDs use platters with an areal density of 3TB per platter, and Seagate has plans to scale that up at a rate of up to 20% generation-over-generation in the next few years (compared to the 8% rate that CMR HDD capacities have been growing at in the last decade or so). The company indicated that volume shipments are happening this quarter to hyperscalers. Seagate is observing that the average customer upgrading from a 16TB conventional magnetic recording platform to the new 30TB+ HDDs can almost double the capacity of their server racks in the same footprint, as the new drives are drop-in replacements. This brings TCO benefits, particularly in terms of power consumption. The company is even quantifying that - the Exos X16's average power consumption of 9.44W translates to 0.59W / TB. The new Exos 30TB's equivalent number is a bit higher at 10.5W, but that translates to a 40% power savings on a per-TB basis at 0.35W / TB.
The company stressed upon the fact that HAMR needed a host of other breakthroughs grouped under the new Mozaic 3+ tag in order to achieve the areal density breakthrough enabling the new Exos family. These include:
Areal density gains are primarily driven by smaller grain sizes in the magnetic media. However, legacy magnetic platter media is not stable at very small grain sizes. Along with Showa-Denko, Seagate has developed a superlattice iron-platinum structure with increased magnetic coercivity to allow for precise and stable data recording. The HAMR process requires heating up of the grain in order to alter its state, and Seagate has achieved this using a nanophotonic laser that is vertically integrated into the plasmonic writer sub-system. The reading head has also needed to evolve in order to tap into the smaller grains. All of these advancements work together thanks to a newly developed controller (built on TSMC's 12nm process) that Seagate claims to deliver 3x the performance of existing solutions.
Seagate expects the Mozaic platform to lead to 5TB/platter as early as 2028.
Areal density scaling is one of the key aspects in addressing the HDD capacity issue. One aspect that this scaling has not addressed is the IOPS/TB metric, where SSDs are in a much better place to take advantage of advancements in host interface technology. The Mozaic platform is orthogonal to currently-used HDD technologies such as dual actuators and shingled-magnetic recording. Additional benefits can be gleaned from those, but the IOPS/TB metric scaling is an aspect that needs industry-wide efforts to address to keep HDDs relevant in more application areas.
Seagate works with vendors such as Showa-Denko for the platters and TDK for the recording heads. Some of the Mozaic 3+ innovations have been jointly developed with them. While the exact details of the joint development are confidential, Seagate indicated that they have a time-limited exclusive use for these technological advancements. If, and when, other HDD vendors move to HAMR, it appears that Seagate has a healthy lead to fall back on with respect to these core HAMR platform components. The company is also expecting the Mozaic 3+ technology to address use-cases as as NAS, and video / imaging markets. It is only a matter of time before HAMR moves from Exos to the IronWolf and SkyHawk families.
The network-attached storage (NAS) market had a break-out decade in the 2010s, with a large number of vendors trying to get a slice of the pie. Brands such as EMC / Lenovo and Thecus have fallen by the wayside, and even established storage vendors like Seagate decided to drop out of the market. QNAP and Synology have held firm in the commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) NAS market meant for home users, prosumers, SOHO, and SMB installations. ASUSTOR (backed by ASUS) has also been regularly releasing NAS units since their first product appeared in late 2012. TerraMaster released their first NAS around the same time, but opted to focus more on the direct-attached storage segment throughout the 2010s. The brand has shown renewed interest in the NAS market over the last few years. Despite the cut-throat competition in the COTS NAS market, some Asian vendors are attempting to get a toe-hold after establishing themselves in allied markets. UGREEN, a consumer electronics brand known for its power banks, chargers, USB adapters, and docks has also announced its entry into the NAS market, but we will cover that in a separate article.
Asustor, Buffalo, QNAP, Synology, TerraMaster, and Western Digital are currently the main options available for users looking to purchase a COTS NAS for SOHO / SMB use. Out of these, Buffalo and WD update their hardware options only once every 3 or 4 years. The others have a more regular cadence to their portfolio additions while continuing to maintain software support for the legacy units - sometimes even NAS units released as far as 10 years ago.
CES has usually been a good platform for NAS vendors, allowing them to show their latest and greatest in both hardware and software, and occasionally announce new models. However, the allure has been lost in recent years. It started with Synology and QNAP starting their own conference aimed towards partners / resellers and developers. Eventually, CES became relatively quiet for this market segment. Other business conferences focused on virtualization, security etc. are turning out to be better events for these NAS vendors. Overall, CES is no longer an important show for the NAS market. Having said that, the rest of this piece captures some of the announcements made in the NAS space around the 2024 CES time-frame.
At the 2024 CES, UGREEN made a big splash with the hardware options for their upcoming NASync series. Synology's booth rehashed units that have been around for a major part of 2023. A chuckle-worthy DS224+ (using an ancient Intel Celeron J4125) was also on display. ASUSTOR had a tiny presence in ASUS's suite, and the other NAS vendors gave the show a miss.
ASUSTOR has updated their lineup of Arm-based NAS units for home / personal use, and the units are already available for purchase. The new Drivestor 2 Lite, 2 Pro Gen2, and 4 Pro Gen2 use a new Realtek processor - the RTD1619B. This is a quad-core Cortex-A55 SoC with the CPU running at 1.7 GHz. The Arm Mali-G51 MP3 in the SoC is clocked at 650 MHz. This lineup takes over the Drivestor 2, 4, 2 Pro, and 4 Pro units which had the Realtek RTD1296 (quad-core Cortex-A53 at 1.4 GHz). The increased processing power in the new processor, coupled with a new SDK from Realtek, has now allowed ASUSTOR to bring btrfs support in this lineup.
Despite using the same SoC, the Lite model differentiates itself from the Pro model by opting for half the RAM, and restricting itself to a 1 GbE LAN port (compared to the 2.5 GbE in the Pro ones). Two USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A ports in the Pro models are placed by a USB 2.0 port in the Lite model. There are two drive bays, but the drives themselves are not hot-swappable. ASUSTOR is promoting the transcoding performance of the new performance and portraying the Drivestor 2 Lite as a capable NAS for Plex and their own 'LooksGood' application.
The Pro Gen2 models have hot-swappable bays. In addition to the hardware configuration updates, ASUSTOR is promoting a different set of applications such as Portainer (Docker) compared to the Lite model. The differences in the specifications are brought out in the table below.
| ASUSTOR 2024 Drivestor Lineup | |||
| Model | Drivestor 2 Lite | Drivestor 2 Pro Gen2 | Drivestor 4 Pro Gen2 |
| ID | AS1102TL | AS3302T v2 | AS3304T v2 |
| SoC Platform | Realtek RTD1619B (4x Cortex-A55 @ 1.7 GHz / Arm Mali-G51 MP3) |
||
| RAM | 1 GB DDR4 (Soldered) | 2 GB DDR4 (Soldered) | |
| OS Storage | 8GB eMMC | ||
| Internal Storage / Bays | 2x 3.5" SATA | 4x 3.5" SATA | |
| I/O Ports | 1x USB 3.2 Gen 1 1x USB 2.0 |
3x USB 3.2 Gen 1 | |
| Network Ports | 1x RJ-45 (1 GbE) | 1x RJ-45 (2.5 GbE) | |
| Power Adapter | 65W (External) | 90W (External) | |
| Dimensions and Weight | 165mm x 102mm x 218mm / 1.14 kg | 170mm x 114mm x 230mm / 1.6 kg | 170mm x 174mm x 230mm / 2.2 kg |
| Price | $175 | $269 | $339 |
ASUSTOR has moved to the same platform adopted by Synology for the DS223 and other 23-series personal / home NAS models, keeping pace with the processing power offered by the competition. The introduction of btrfs support in this lineup now brings easy snapshots (and a bit of ransomware protection) to ASUSTOR's customers at an affordable price point.
TerraMaster recently updated their entry-level x86 NAS lineup for SOHO / SMB setups. This segment was served last year by the 423 series based on Jasper Lake (Celeron N5095). The 424 series utilizes Alder Lake-N. With Intel promoting an octa-core configuration as a Core i3 in this series, TerraMaster is also launching a 424 Pro utilizing the Core i3-N300.
The specifications of the three units are summarized in the table below.
| TerraMaster 424 NAS Series (Alder Lake-N) | |||
| Model | F2-424 | F4-424 | F4-424 Pro |
| SoC Platform | Intel N95 (4x Gracemont @ up to 3.4 GHz / Intel UHD Graphics) |
Intel Core i3-N300 (8x Gracemont @ up to 3.8 GHz / Intel UHD Graphics) |
|
| RAM | 1x 8 GB DDR5-4800 SODIMM (Expandable to 1x 32 GB) | 1x 32 GB DDR5-4800 SODIMM | |
| Internal Storage / Bays | 2x 3.5" SATA 2x M.2 2280 Gen3 x4 NVMe |
4x 3.5" SATA 2x M.2 2280 Gen3 x4 NVMe |
|
| I/O Ports | 1x USB 3.2 Gen 2 (Type-A) 1x USB 3.2 Gen 2 (Type-C) |
||
| Network Ports | 2x RJ-45 (2x 2.5 GbE) | ||
| Power Adapter | 40W (External) | 90W (External) | |
| Dimensions and Weight | 222mm x 119mm x 154mm / 2.2 kg | 222mm x 179mm x 154mm / 3.4 kg | |
| Price | $380 | $500 | $700 |
The TNAS operating system (TOS) is currently at 5.1, with the release of TOS 6.0 in the near future. Being a comparatively new entrant to the NAS world, the OS and mobile applications lack the polish of the offerings from established vendors, but the good news is that things can only improve from here. The hardware itself is quite capable, and the new 424 series is the first Alder Lake-N-based COTS NAS that we have seen for purchase. Terramaster had earlier experimented with a 10 GbE NAS using Apollo Lake, though it was unable to saturate that interface. The company seems to have opted for a more cost-effective platform with Alder Lake-N in the 424 series.
QNAP remains busy throughout the year, regularly announcing hardware with the latest and greatest from Intel / AMD / ARM-based SoC vendors. The company also takes pride in updating different 'plugins' / first-party applications for their QTS / QuTS Here operating systems to increase their usefulness. Similar to Synology, the focus is slowly shifting more towards business users as a majority of their recent announcements have been related to their ZFS-enabled QuTS Hero-running NAS units.
At the 2023 CES, the company had teased their first consumer-focused hot-swappable all-flash NAS with M.2 / E1.S SSD support. The TBS-h574TX reached retail in late 2023, and QNAP uploaded a comprehensive video detailing the usage and features of the unit last month. After participating in the launch webinar prior to that, my expectations were tempered a bit. In the year since its teaser, the E1.S form-factor has not taken off as expected. Instead, we saw vendors like Solidigm and Micron focus on the traditional 2.5" form-factor with U.2 and U.3 SSDs. E1.L is making more sense for rackmount machines requiring very high storage density, but the general market trend seems to be more towards U.2 / U.3 for both consumer and SMB / SME on-premise usage. 2023 also saw the launch of 64TB-class U.2 / U.3 SSDs, and this form-factor seems widely available for purchase.
We believe that the M.2 form-factor in the NAS is better suited for caching and/or non-hot-swappable storage, while U.2 / U.3 makes more sense for hot-swappable units. QNAP pioneered the all-flash consumer NAS with the TBS-464 and ASUSTOR's Flashstor series made additional options available. The TBS-h574TX brings hot-swap into the picture, but some of the drawbacks of the designs still remain. For example, none of the SSD slots get the full four-lane capability, even though they physically accept x4 SSDs. QNAP contends that this is enough to saturate the 10GbE link, but that seems like a trade-off best avoided when it is possible to use the network port along with Thunderbolt (acting in IP mode with only 10 Gb capability per port) to have a 30 GbE up / 30 GbE down configuration. Single-slot occupancy can't deliver full performance in that configuration. In any case, QNAP believes their video production house customers will still find this unit delivering better performance than other options currently available in this form-factor, and they may be right on the practical front.
At $1200, this Raptor Lake-based system is not particularly cheap. Despite using an embedded part (Core i3-1340PE) which comes with in-band ECC support from Intel, QNAP doesn't have that enabled in the system (hopefully it is something that can be addressed in a future update). Overall, this product seems like a missed opportunity for QNAP in the all-flash consumer NAS market.
Moving on to the latest hardware introductions, QNAP is focusing more on ZFS-enabled NAS units now. The company recently introduced two rackmount units based on the Ryzen 7000 series, and their specifications are summarized in the table below.
| QNAP TS-h77AXU-RP Series (Ryzen 7000 Series) | ||||
| Model | TS-h1277AXU-RP-R5-16G | TS-h1277AXU-RP-R7-32G | TS-h1677AXU-RP-R7-32G | |
| Platform | AMD Ryzen 5 7600 (6C/12T Zen 4 @ up to 5.1 GHz / AMD Radeon Graphics) |
AMD Ryzen 7 7700 (8C/16T Zen 4 @ up to 5.3 GHz / AMD Radeon Graphics) |
||
| RAM (ECC UDIMMs Supported) | 1x 16 GB DDR5-5200 UDIMM (Expandable to 4x 32 GB) | 1x 32 GB DDR5-5200 UDIMM (Expandable to 4x 32 GB) | ||
| Internal Storage / Bays | 12x 3.5" SATA 2x M.2 2280 Gen5 x2 NVMe |
16x 3.5" SATA 2x M.2 2280 Gen5 x2 NVMe |
||
| I/O Ports | 2x USB 3.2 Gen 2 (Type-A) | |||
| Network Ports | 4x RJ-45 ([2x 2.5 GbE] + [2x 10GBASE-T]) | |||
| PCIe Expansion Slots | (Slot 1 + Slot 2): (Gen4 x4 + Gen4 x4) or (N/A + Gen4 x8) Slot 3: Gen4 x4 |
|||
| Power Supply | 550W x2 | |||
| Dimensions and Weight | (2U) 88.65mm x 432.05mm x 511.3mm / 13 kg | (3U) 131.32mm x 482.09mm x 550.93mm / 15.64 kg | ||
| Price | $3299 | $3999 | $4699 | |
All models utilize 5GB of flash storage with dual-boot OS protection. ZFS support brings in deduplication and other features important for enterprise deployments. These are some of the first NAS units to support Gen5 M.2 SSDs (albeit, with x2 links), and QNAP advises use of their own heat-sink on them for use in these rackmounts. The redundant power supply configuration is also important in the use-case scenarios for these units, and the available expansion slots allows end users / IT administrators to add 25GbE network cards or SAS / SATA storage expansion cards as required. GPU pass-through is also supported, which can help specific virtualization setups where the VM and associated storage setup run on the same server block.
In software news from QNAP, the company is also promoting its machine-learning based drive failure prediction tool that uses a cloud-based engine beyond the traditional SMART readouts. It uses a third-party engine and requires a license purchase for use on more than one disk per NAS. QNAP is also touting its SSD anti-wear leveling features (QSAL) as a differentiating aspect of its QuTS ZFS operating system. These types of value-additions may help QuTS go head-to-head against options like TrueNAS.
After Samsung's earlier product page snafu, the company is officially launching their next-generation mainstream client SSD today. The 990 EVO will be available in both 1TB and 2TB capacities, and offers an interesting mix of both PCIe Gen 5 and PCIe Gen 4 support by allowing up to 2 lanes of PCIe connectivity at Gen 5 speeds, or up to 4 lanes at Gen 4 and below.
The release of the 990 EVO marks the return of the EVO SSD brand after it was quietly put aside during the 980 generation, when Samsung's sole non-PRO drive was the vanilla 980 SSD. Consequently, Samsung's own performance comparisons for the new drive are against the most recent EVO, the 970 EVO Plus, though similar to how the vanilla 980 was effectively the 970 EVO successor, in many ways this is the successor to the 980.
The drives are available immediately from Samsung. The company has set the retail prices of the drives at $125 for the 1TB model, and $210 for the 2TB. These are stiff prices for a drive debuting in the highly-competitive mainstream SSD market, though admittedly not unusual for a Samsung drive launch.
Our original story (with updated technical specifications) follows as below:
Originally Published: 01/09/2024
Samsung's launch of the 990 EVO M.2 2280 SSD appears to be imminent, as official product pages with specifications went live in certain regions a few days back before getting pulled down.
The most interesting aspect the 990 EVO is not the claimed speeds, but the fact that it can operate in either Gen 4 or Gen 5 modes with different number of lanes. The recently launched mobile platforms from both AMD and Intel use Gen 4 lanes for the storage subsystem. However, with progress in technology it is inevitable that this will move to Gen 5 in the future. In the meanwhile, thermal constraints in mobile systems may prevent notebook manufacturers from going in for desktop Gen 5 speeds (8 - 14 GBps). An attractive option for such cases would be to move to a two-lane Gen 5 implementation that would help in retaining the same Gen 4 x4 bandwidth capability, but cut down on the BOM cost by reducing the number of pins / lane count on the host side. It appears that Samsung's 990 EVO is a platform designed with such a scenario in mind.
PCIe PHYs / controllers have backward compatibility, and the 990 EVO's SSD controller incorporates a 4-lane Gen 5 controller and PHY. During the training phase with the host, both the link bandwidth and lane count can be negotiated. It appears that the SSD is configured to advertise Gen 5 speeds to the host if only two lanes are active.
Samsung appears to be marketing only 1TB and 2TB capacities of the 990 EVO. Based on the product photos online, the models appear to be single-sided units (making them compatible with a wider variety of mobile platforms). The flash packages appear to be 1TB each, and the EVO moniker / advertisement of Host Memory Buffer support / controller package markings in the product photos points to a DRAM-less SSD controller - the Piccolo S4LY022. The quoted performance numbers appear low for a 176L / 236L V-NAND product. TechPowerUp believes that these SSDs are using an updated V6 (133L, termed V6 Prime) with better efficiency and yields compared to the regular V6.
| Samsung 990 EVO Specifications | ||||
| Capacity | 1 TB | 2 TB | ||
| Controller | Samsung S4LY022 Piccolo | |||
| NAND Flash | Samsung Updated 6th Gen. V-NAND (133L 3D TLC) | |||
| Form-Factor, Interface | Single-Sided M.2-2280, PCIe 4.0 x4 / 5.0 x2, NVMe 2.0 | |||
| Sequential Read | 5000 MB/s | 5000 MB/s | ||
| Sequential Write | 4200 MB/s | 4200 MB/s | ||
| Random Read IOPS | 680K | 700K | ||
| Random Write IOPS | 800K | 800K | ||
| SLC Caching | Yes | |||
| TCG Opal Encryption | Yes | |||
| Warranty | 5 years | |||
| Write Endurance | 600 TBW 0.3 DWPD |
1200 TBW 0.3 DWPD |
||
Samsung is also touting much-improved power efficiency, with transfer rates being 2 - 3x per Watt compared to the 970 EVO. The Piccolo controller's 5nm fabrication process and the V6 Prime's efficiency improvements have a significant say in that aspect.
Pricing and concrete launch dates for the 990 EVO are not available yet. The delta in specifications for the 1TB and 2TB models will be updated in the table above once the drives are officially announced. The 1TB model is priced at $125 and the 2TB version at $210. Both SKUs are available for purchase today.
LaCie's portable storage drives have enjoyed a fan following, particularly among creative professionals valuing both performance and product design / appearance. After Seagate's acquisition, the brand has continued to cater to this segment with new products. The company has both USB 3.2 Gen 2 and Thunderbolt 3 SSDs under the LaCie brand, and is adding a new 2 GBps-class Rugged Mini SSD today.
The USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 (20 Gbps) ecosystem has been gaining traction recently after the launch of a number of low-cost portable SSDs based on native controllers. The new LaCie Rugged Mini SSD belongs to the same category, albeit with a slight premium for the product design. The PSSD is available in four capacities - 500GB, 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB. The company sampled the 2TB version to put through our direct-attached storage test suite.
Read on for a comprehensive look at the performance profile and value proposition of the LaCie Rugged Mini SSD, with a particular focus on how Seagate differentiates the product from others using the same NAND / UFD controller combination.
Seagate's IronWolf Pro lineup of hard drives for network-attached storage units has consistently offered good value for money, particularly at the highest capacity points. I purchased two 22TB IronWolf Pro drives for production deployment late last year. As part of the burn-in testing prior to actual deployment, they were put through our evaluation routine for direct-attached storage drives in both internal and external (Thunderbolt 3 DAS) modes. Read on for a look at the performance you can expect from the drive in standalone, RAID 0, and RAID 1 modes.
NAND flash technology has seen rapid advancement in recent years. This has resulted in the capacity limits of SSDs and thumb drives getting pushed up regularly. Companies like Kingston had innovated in the late 2010s to deliver 1TB and 2TB thumb drives. They were overpriced and over-sized for their product class at that time. However, interest in this category has been sparked again by the introduction of high-performance native UFD controllers and the appearance of cost-effective high capacity NAND dies. Silicon Power and Transcend recently released 2TB thumb drives based on the Phison U17 and Silicon Motion SM2320 native UFD controllers respectively. Read on for a comprehensive analysis of the performance profile and value proposition of the Silicon Power MS70 in its 2TB avatar.
When the USB4 specification emerged several years ago, it was quickly positioned as a less expensive alternative to the Thunderbolt 3 technology which ruled the market of high-performance direct-attached storage (DAS) devices and docking stations. Since then, we've seen multiple USB4 docks hit the market, but USB4 DASes and SSDs are still rare. Thankfully, the situation began to change in the recent weeks, as multiple vendors have finally begun releasing their own USB4 SSDs and external drive enclosures.
Adata announced its first SE920 External USB4 SSD back in August 2021, but it only started shipping these drives in October. Adata's SE920 External SSDs offer capacities of 1 TB or 2 TB, along with a sequential read speed rating of up to 3.8 GB/s as well as a sequential write speed of up to 3.7 GB/s when working with a USB4 host. Otherwise, the drive is rated for 3.20 GB/s on Thunderbolt hosts, due to the greater overhead of the Thunderbolt protocol.
One interesting feature of the Adata SE920 External USB4 SSD is that it comes with a 'telescoping' case that allows to activate its internal fan for better heat dissipation. Such design allows to better ensure consistent performance under high loads, which is set to be particularly useful when transferring large volumes of data. Meanwhile, like other modern SSDs, the SE920 uses pseudo-SLC caching, which means that it demonstrates its maximum performance only while there is spare SLC-cache.
Adata's drive looks like a very decent product overall, and it's priced very competitively with other high-performance drives on the market, with Adata charging around $150 for the 1 TB version and $200 for the 2 TB version.
Meanwhile, for the DIY crowd that wants to build their own USB4 SSDs, standalone USB4 enclosures are finally available as well. OWC's Express 1M2 enclosure is based on the ASMedia ASM2464PD USB4/Thunderbolt to NVMe bridge, and is compatible with virtually any NVMe M.2-2280 SSD.
The enclosure supports sequential read/write speeds of up to 3,151 MB/s, as well as capacities up to 8 TB (the largest M.2 2280 drive capacity currently available). Mindful of how warm modern, high-end SSDs can get, the enclosure's case acts like a huge heat sink, helping to keep those increasingly toasty SSDs cool.
On paper, OWC's Express 1M2 DIY enclosure does not reach speeds quite as high as Adata's SE920 SSD, so the extra capacity and ability to throw in any M.2 SSD you have lying around are the main selling points of the device. Pricing, on the other hand is a higher hurdle; OWC is charging $119.99 for the Express 1M2 enclosure on its own, and $219.99 for the enclosure with pre-installed 1 TB SSD.
Although OWC's DIY USB4 SSD enclosure seems a bit overpriced, good news is that the company is not alone selling such devices. Stardom also has its UBOX-B4BP USB4 SSD enclosure that has the same feature set (e.g., compatibility with almost any M.2-2280 SSD and latest PCs), but it is slightly larger and its rated performance figures are up to 2,920 MB/s for writes and up to 3,214 MB/s for reads.
The enclosure allows building external USB4 storage solutions of up to 8 TB (and larger when such drives become available) that can work with both new and old PCs. Interestingly, Stardom has included a second USB-C connector on the enclosure solely for power purposes, allowing it to be used with an external power adapter if a host can't provide enough bus power on its own.
Stardom yet has to start selling its its UBOX-B4BP USB4 SSD enclosure in the U.S. and Europe, but in Taiwan the product costs NT$3,990 ($120 without VAT), which is not exactly cheap.
Micron has been on a roll lately with new product introductions despite the downturn in the flash market. The company is currently the only NAND manufacturer shipping products based on 200+L 3D TLC in volume. Thanks to the advantage of higher bit density and rapid maturity in yields, Micron has better leeway in pricing and margins compared to its peers. As a result, we have had multiple 232L product launches in the enterprise (Micron 6500 ION), OEM (Micron 2550), and consumer (Crucial T700, Crucial T500) segments over the last year. In addition to higher bit density, the 232L 3D TLC NAND also delivers significant bandwidth improvements with its 6-plane architecture.
Micron is launching the 3500 NVMe SSD series today. It is the first PCIe Gen4 x4 232L 3D TLC NAND OEM drive in the market. Micron develops SSD platforms for client systems and markets them under the Crucial brand name for direct purchase by end-users. The company has also been releasing the same platforms under the Micron brand for OEMs and system integrators. Obviously, the validation cycles and OEM qualification requirements dictate a slightly different approach to the firmware compared to what is put into the Crucial drives. As a result, the advertised specifications may differ slightly for the same hardware platform based on the target market. The 3500 NVMe SSD utilizes the same hardware as the recently-released Crucial T500 - Micron's 232L 3D TLC NAND behind the Phison E25 controller operating in 4-channel mode, with the NAND configured for 2400 MT/s and dedicated DRAM on the drive for the flash translation layer (FTL).
Almost all of the key selling points of the Crucial T500 transfer themselves to the Micron 3500 NVMe SSD. These include class-leading bandwidth numbers saturating the Gen4 links and DirectStorage support. The peak reads are at 7 GBps instead of 7.4 GBps, but that is due to the nature of the systems dictated by OEM qualification requirements. Endurance numbers are the same as the T500's, but the warranty period is only 3 years (compared to the T500's 5 years). This actually translates to a higher DWPD rating for the drive, and is a typical demand of the OEMs who qualify these drives for use in their systems. The SSD's power consumption numbers and wake times from sleep are also geared for Intel's Project Athena certification - an aspect that is important for OEMs delivering high-performance notebooks. The target market for the 3500 NVMe SSD is high-end workstations and gaming systems. As a result, Micron's marketing numbers have focused on benchmarks such as SPECwpc storage (part of the SPECworkstation suite). We are looking forward to confirming the claims with our own hands-on evaluation in the near future.
The launch of the Micron 3500 NVMe SSD has enabled the company to cater to the entire range of OEM client systems requiring Gen4 NVMe drives. The entry-level Micron 2400 series with 176L QLC NAND is meant for the cost-sensitive market, while the Micron 2550 moves to 232L 3D TLC with the previous-generation Phison controller. Both drive families are available in multiple M.2 form-factors. The 3500 NVMe SSD fills up the flagship role. With high-end computing systems being the target, the drive will be available only in the M.2 2280 form-factor. It is surprising that a 4TB drive is not available at launch, given that high-end systems are typically hungry for storage capacity. Hopefully, that is a hole in the product stack that Micron will be able to fill in both the Crucial T700 and Micron 3500 NVMe SSD families sometime next year.
Once the domain of external, bus-powered hard drives, these days the market for external storage has been almost completely consumed by portable SSDs. Rapid technological advancements in NAND flash technology (including the advent of 3D NAND) has allowed their capacity to eclipse 2.5-inch HDDs, all the while multiple improvements in host interface speeds (such as the move from USB 2.0 to 3.0, and onwards to 3.2 Gen 2 / Gen 2x2 / USB4) has made portable SSDs faster and more reliable than the hard drives they replace. All of which has helped to make portable SSDs the go-to solution for external storage, both big and small.
For our latest storage buyer's guide, we've rounded up some of the best portable SSDs we've looked at in the past couple of years. What's hot, what's not, and what's a good deal while still offering reasonable performance? We break that down and make our picks for the best portable SSDs on the market today.
— Article en partenariat avec Leviia —
Vous connaissez la règle d’or de la sauvegarde, la fameuse 3-2-1-1-0 ?
Trois copies de vos données, sur deux supports différents, dont un hors site et un autre airgapped avec une vérification régulière et zéro erreur à l’arrivée.
Eh bien, aujourd’hui, je vais vous montrer comment mettre en place ceci avec le service Object Storage (S3) de Leviia en utilisant Veeam.
Leviia sera donc utilisé pour la copie hors site dans cette stratégie de sauvegarde, ce qui est parfait puisqu’ils proposent toutes les fonctionnalités de sécurité dont on a besoin pour notre stockage objet, à savoir du versioning, le erasure coding, du locking, et bien sûr de la double authentification (2FA). Je vous explique tout ça en détail dans ma vidéo.
Longtemps adepte d’Amazon S3 pour mes backups, j’ai dû me rendre à l’évidence : entre l’augmentation des tarifs et le stockage de mes données aux États-Unis, il était temps de chercher ailleurs. C’est alors que j’ai découvert Leviia, un prestataire français offrant à la fois un Drive pour gérer vos documents et un service de stockage Object Storage (S3) idéal pour vos sauvegardes.
J’ai testé Leviia et, franchement, c’est le jour et la nuit comparé à la concurrence. Leur interface utilisateur est d’une simplicité remarquable, rendant la création de buckets et la mise en place de sauvegardes en Object Storage (S3) accessibles à tous. Même pour un non-technicien, la migration depuis AWS S3 vers Leviia est un jeu d’enfant, réalisable en quelques secondes grâce à une compatibilité totale.
Adopter Leviia, c’est aussi faire un choix éthique en faveur de la souveraineté numérique. Toutes les données sont stockées en France, un vrai plus pour ceux qui se préoccupent de la confidentialité de leurs informations.
Leviia, c’est la combinaison d’une excellente performance, d’un prix attractif et d’un niveau de sécurité de haut vol. Pour le tarif, ils sont à 5,99 € / To par mois, ce qui est 80% moins cher qu’Amazon et moins cher que Wasabi.
D’ailleurs, les données sont chiffrées et stockées dans trois data centers distincts, garantissant ainsi leur intégrité même en cas de sinistre.
Dans cette nouvelle vidéo, je vous montre comment mettre en place une sauvegarde S3 de Leviia en utilisant Veeam, en respectant la règle 3-2-1-1-0. Vous verrez que sécuriser vos données n’a jamais été aussi simple.
Et pour plus d’informations, n’hésitez pas à visiter le site de Leviia. Si vous hésitez, je vous invite quand même à tester leur service puisqu’ils proposent un essai gratuit sans engagement. Que demande le peuple ?
Et n’oubliez pas de vous abonner à ma chaîne YouTube pour ne rien manquer de mes prochaines vidéos !
Western Digital is announcing today that it has begun volume shipments of its 24 TB hard drives based on conventional magnetic recording (CMR) to its full customer base. In addition, the company started to ramp up production of its 28 TB HDDs featuring shingled magnetic recording (SMR) that will be used by select customers.
The new lineup of 3.5-inch 7200 RPM hard drives includes Western Digital's Ultrastar DC HC580 24 TB and WD Gold 24 TB HDDs, which are based on the company's energy-assisted perpendicular magnetic recording (ePMR) technology. Both of these drives are further enhanced with OptiNAND to improve performance by storing repeatable runout (RRO) metadata on NAND memory (instead of on disks) and improve reliability.
The company is also preparing their Ultrastar DC HC680 SMR 28 TB hard drive, which relies on shingled ePMR and OptiNAND.
When it comes to performance, the new hard drives are a tad faster than predecessors due to higher areal density. Meanwhile, per-TB power efficiency of Western Digital's 24 TB and 28 TB HDDs is around 10% - 12% higher than that of 22 TB and 26 TB drives, respectively, due to higher capacity and more or less the same power consumption. For CSPs and hyperscalers, the main value advantage of the new 24 TB drives is their higher capacity, which enables up to 612 TB of raw storage per rack using 102-bay 4U chassis.
All three models feature 10 platters and largely re-use the company's current enterprise-grade platform for multi-drive environments, which was introduced over a year ago. The platform traditionally features a top and bottom attached motor as well as RV sensors to ensure consistent performance in vibrating multi-HDD chassis. The latest Ultrastar HDDs are generally being aimed at cloud service providers, hyperscalers, and large enterprises, whereas WD Gold are going primarily to VARs, enterprises, enterprise-grade NAS, and small businesses that need to store loads of data.
Western Digital is shipping WD Gold 24 TB hard drives through their distribution channel, so expect them to hit the market shortly. The Ultrastar DC HC680 and HC580 HDDs are now in the qualification phase with select CSPs, hyperscalers, and OEMs. They are also available for enterprises that deploy these devices internally. It looks like WD is just shipping the SATA versions of these drives initially, as the company is separating noting that that the SAS versions of the Ultrastar DC HC680 and HC580 HDD will be available in the first quarter of 2024.
"With these new offerings, Western Digital is once again proving that hard drives are not just keeping pace, they are forging a path forward, ensuring that data-intensive applications of today and tomorrow have a strong foundation to build on while the industry prepares for HAMR," said Ed Burns, research director of HDD and storage technologies at IDC. "We are seeing strong momentum for Western Digital’s SMR HDDs and believe that SMR adoption will continue to grow as their new 28TB SMR HDD offers the next compelling TCO value proposition that cloud customers cannot ignore."
The market for portable SSDs (PSSDs) has seen rapid growth over the past decade. Samsung is one of the active tier-one flash vendors in the space, with their popular T-series PSSDs servicing a range of target markets in terms of performance and price. Today, the company is introducing a new category in PSSDs - high-capacity flash storage limited to entry-level speeds. The company is using QLC flash for this purpose. While this is not the first PSSD in the market to use QLC flash (and it will definitely not be the last), the company is not repeating the mistakes of its predecessors by promising the moon. Instead, the company's first product in this category - the T5 EVO Portable SSD - is limited to USB 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps) speeds. Making up for this entry-level speed specification, Samsung is launching three different capacity points for the T5 EVO PSSD - 2 TB, 4 TB, and 8 TB. Can limiting QLC PSSDs to 5 Gbps deliver a better user experience? Read on for an analysis of the performance and value proposition of the 8 TB variant of the T5 EVO PSSD for direct-attached storage workloads.
The portable SSD market has seen rapid growth over the last decade. Almost all of the tier-one NAND flash manufacturers have jumped in with multiple offerings, presenting consumers with a wide variety of choices for different budgets and performance requirements. Crucial (Micron's consumer-facing brand) alone has introduced three new products in this category this year - the X9 Pro (1 GBps-class TLC), X10 Pro (2 GBps-class TLC), and the X9 (1 GBps-class QLC) PSSDs. Micron provided us with an opportunity to evaluate the X10 Pro across all available capacity points. Read on for a detailed analysis of the performance profile and value proposition of each X10 Pro SKU.
Hidden deep in Seagate's financial report released late last month was a brief roadmap update for the company's heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) technology. As noted in the latest update, Seagate is now planning to begin mass production of its 32 TB HAMR in early 2024, which is a slight delay from what the company announced early this year. Meanwhile, the company expects to start production of 40+ TB HDDs in about two years' time.
"Qualification and revenue ramp plans for our 30-plus terabyte products remain fully on track with high-volume ramp starting early in calendar 2024," said Dave Mosley, chief executive of Seagate, during conference call with financial analysts and investors. " These drives deliver capacity starting at 30 terabytes and offer customers the same flexibility to adopt either CMR or SMR configurations to further boost aerial density into the mid-30TB range."
As noted back in October, Seagate's Exos X24 series of HDDs will help set the stage for HAMR-based hard drives, as the latter will keep using the same 10-platter platform – albeit with new platters as well as write heads with lasers to heat the media surface. Those Exos drives will use 10 2.4 TB perpendicular magnetic recording disks and will begin shipments in the first half of calendar 2024. Around the same time — in early calendar 2024 — Seagate plans to start volume ramp of 32 TB HAMR HDDs.
Even with the volume ramp and enviable capacity, Seagate is only expecting to sell a modest number of HAMR HDDs in the first quarters of their availability. The company believes that it can move around one million units in the first half of 2024, though the firm does not disclose whether the number is limited by its ability to produce the drives, or by demand from customers who need to qualify such products before deploying them in their datacenters.
"We will start our HAMR revenue fairly strongly in the first six months of the calendar 2024," said Gianluca Romano, chief financial officer of Seagate. "We think we have about a million unit as opportunity to be sold."
Another interesting disclosure found in the document is that Seagate intends to start producing HAMR-based HDDs featuring 4+TB platters within the next two years, which would have them arriving sometime in late 2025 or early 2026. This is somewhat is behind the company's optimistic schedule revealed a few years back, which anticipated 50+TB HDDs in calendar 2026. Though it's arguably a more realistic schedule that's in line with the development cadence thus far, especially given how development and deployment of hard drive proceeds these days.
Another noteworthy thing is that Seagate's brief roadmap update does not mention HDDs with more than 10 platters. Meaning that the company seems to be done adding platters to gain additional capacity, at least for now. Perhaps, the company believes that increased areal density that is enabled by HAMR will enable it to offer competitive capacities and it does not need to throw in any additional disks. Or maybe installing over 10 HAMR platters is risky from yields point of view as of now, so the company prefers not to mention such a technological option.
Source: Seagate (via StorageNewsletter)
Western Digital has announced its decision to split its hard disk drive and NAND memory businesses, creating two separate public companies. According to the company, the change is aimed at refining the focus and operational efficiency of each business segment. The separation, planned to be tax-free, is slated for completion in the second half of 2024, subject to necessary approvals and customary conditions.
Western Digital believes that this separation will allow each business unit — hard disk drives and NAND flash memory — to refine their strategic directions, focusing on unique market opportunities and technological innovations. By becoming independent entities, they can operate with enhanced efficiency, each with its own capital structure, allowing for more targeted and agile decision-making processes, according to the company's official rationale. This move is seen as a way to bolster each unit's position in the market, driving long-term success through focused strategies and operational efficiencies.
The decision follows a comprehensive strategic review, where various alternatives were evaluated to enhance organizational value and operational efficiency. As a result, Western Digital's board of directors decided that spinning off the company's flash memory business makes a lot of sense. Meanwhile, the company's announcements does not detail how exactly Western Digital plans to split product lineups and whether the new flash venture will retain all flash-based product lines (e.g. SSDs, flash drives), or will mostly focus on production of NAND memory.
"Our HDD and flash businesses are both well positioned to capitalize on the data storage industry’s significant market dynamics, and as separate companies, each will have the strategic focus and resources to pursue opportunities in their respective markets," said David Goeckeler, CEO of Western Digital. "We have already laid important groundwork by building market-leading portfolios and enhancing the operational efficiency of each business, including the creation of separate flash and HDD product business units and separating operational capabilities over the past several years. Additionally, we now have strong product, operational, and financial leadership in place to execute this plan successfully. Each business is in a solid position to succeed on its own, and the actions we are announcing today will further enable each company to drive long-term success in the years to come."
Western Digital obtained its NAND operations when it acquired SanDisk in 2016. Along with NAND production facilities, Western Digital got rather vast software and flash controller operations, which greatly expanded its market opportunities. Meanwhile, some of those operations were eventually merged, which somewhat reduced the company's abilities to address certain market segment. As a result, the separation is viewed as an important step in enhancing each business's ability to capitalize on market-specific growth opportunities and technological advancements.
Western Digital feels that the timing of the separation is right as industry conditions are improving, and sees it as a crucial move to unlock and enhance shareholder value further. The company remains open to exploring additional strategic opportunities that may arise, aiming to optimize the value of both the HDD and flash investments and assets. These additional strategic opportunities possibly include the acquisition of Kioxia, Western Digital's NAND partner that co-owns the company's flash memory fabs. Meanwhile, SK Hynix, another investor of Kioxia, is against the buyout by Western Digital, reportedly vetoing an offer as recently as last week. A combined Western Digital + Kioxia would form the world's largest maker of NAND flash, making it a formidable rival for the South Korean company.
Crucial is unveiling its latest addition to its Gen4 consumer NVMe SSD lineup today - the T500 PCIe 4.0 M.2 2280 NVMe SSD. It takes over flagship duties from the Crucial P5 Plus in this category. The company had started to put focus on the high-end consumer SSD segment earlier this year with the launch of the T700 Gen5 NVMe SSD - it was one of the first to offer more than 12 GBps read speeds. The company is now introducing a T-series drive in the Gen4 segment with similar flagship credentials - sequential read and write speeds of 7400 / 7000 MBps.
The Crucial T500 is one of the first consumer SSDs to utilize the Phison E25 controller launched last year. The Micron 232L 3D TLC NAND in the SSD has been in mass production for a few quarters now, allowing the company to price the product competitively. Similar to the T700, this drive is targeted towards gamers, content creators, and professional users. While PCIe 5.0 SSDs are slowly getting introduced into the market, Gen4 units are still a sweet spot in terms of system compatibility, price, and performance for many use-cases.
The T500 is launching in three capacities and two variants - a heatsink and non-heatsink one. The 500GB version comes in a non-heatsink SKU only, while the 1TB and 2TB ones come in both variants. Crucial is promising a 4TB version next year. The company indicated that the heatsink SKUs is low-profile enough to be be used in the PlayStation 5.
Phison has been pushing DirectStorage optimizations in its high-end controllers, and it is no surprise that the T500 advertises the use of Phison's 'I/O+ Technology' to appeal to gamers. Given its high-performance nature, it is no surprise that the E25 controller needs to be equipped with DRAM for managing the flash translation layer (FTL). Crucial is using Micron LPDDR4 DRAM (1GB / TB of flash) in the T500 for this purpose.
| Crucial T500 Gen4 NVMe SSD Specifications | ||||
| Capacity | 500 GB | 1 TB | 2 TB | |
| Controller | Phison PS5025-E25 | |||
| NAND Flash | Micron 232L 3D TLC NAND | |||
| Form-Factor, Interface | Single-Sided M.2-2280, PCIe 4.0 x4, NVMe 2.0 | |||
| Sequential Read | 7200 MB/s | 7300 MB/s | 7400 MB/s | |
| Sequential Write | 5700 MB/s | 6800 MB/s | 7050 MB/s | |
| Random Read IOPS | 800K | 1150K | 1180K | |
| Random Write IOPS | 300K | 600K | 1200K | |
| SLC Caching | Static / Dynamic (up to 20% of user capacity) | |||
| TCG Opal Encryption | Yes | |||
| Warranty | 5 years | |||
| Write Endurance | 300 TBW 0.33 DWPD |
600 TBW 0.33 DWPD |
1200 TBW 0.33 DWPD |
|
| MSRP | $90 (18¢/GB) | $120 (Non-Heatsink) (12¢/GB) $130 (Heatsink) (13¢/GB) |
$170 (Non-Heatsink) (8.5¢/GB) $180 (Heatsink) (9¢/GB) |
|
Flash pricing is quite low, with the memory industry being caught up in one of its downturns currently. While this has not been kind to the revenue numbers for the NAND flash / DRAM vendors, it has translated to excellent launch pricing for even flagship SSDs such as the Crucial T500 - starting from as low as 8.5¢/GB for the 2TB non-heatsink SKU.
Seagate on Wednesday introduced its Exos X24 family of hard drives, it's highest capacity series of drives to date. The new family is comprised of both conventional magnetic recording technology (CMR) and shingled magnetic recording (SMR) models, with the CMR drive topping out at 24 TB, while SMR brings the peak capacity up to 28 TB. Both are, as of now, the highest-capacity HDDs in their respective segments. But perhaps the most important technological development with the Exos X24 lineup is that it uses a platform that will be largely re-used for the upcoming HAMR drives.
The Seagate Exos X24 3.5-inch helium-filled hard drive family includes 12 TB, 16 TB, 20 TB, and 24 TB models, which are built using up to 10 2.4 TB platters. Seagate's platters feature perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) and heads utilizing two-dimensional magnetic recording (TDMR) technology (to minimize adjacent track interference and ensure reliable reading at high track pitch densities). In addition, Seagate offers a sole 28 TB SMR version of the Exos X24 to select cloud customers who can self-manage shingled recording in their datacenters.
Seagate's Exos X24 HDDs operate at a spindle speed of 7200 RPM and feature a segmented 256 MB cache (check out all of its specifications in tables below). The family's 2.4 TB platters have an areal density of 1260 Gbit/inch2, allowing for a peak sustained transfer rate of 285 MB/s, which is in line with previous-generation HDDs (which is a bit surprising as typically higher areal density enables higher transfer rates). The entire Exos X24 range offers up to 168/550 random read/write IOPS (4K, QD16), which is again in line with previous-generation drives.
Seagate plans to make the Exos X24 HDDs available with either a SATA 6 Gbps or a dual-port SAS 12 Gbps interface to cater to varying customer needs.
As for power consumption of Exos X24, it ranges from 6.3W (idle) to 8.9W (max) for SATA versions and from 6.5W (idle) to 9.8W (max) for the SAS SKUs. Exos X24 HDDs are also adaptable to meet the diverse needs of major clients, supporting PowerBalance technology, which offers data centers the ability to harmonize power usage with IOPS performance. Additionally, they feature PowerChoice technology, optimizing power consumption during periods of inactivity.
| Seagate Exos X24 - Metrics of Interest | |
| Rated Workload (TB/yr) | 550 |
| Max. Sustained Transfer Rate (MBps) | 285 |
| Random Read/Write 4K QD16 WCD (IOPS) | 168/550 |
| Areal Density | 1260 Gbit/inch2 |
| Rated Load / Unload Cycles | 600K |
| Unrecoverable Read Errors | 1 in 10E15 |
| MTBF (Hours) | 2.5M |
| Power (Idle / Active) (W) | SATA: 6.3W - 8.9W | SAS: 6.5W - 9.8W |
| Warranty (Years) | 5 |
| Datasheet | |
The enterprise-focused drives otherwise check all of the usual boxes for this market segment, including vibration resistance and RV sensors. The drives are rated to handle workloads up to 550 TB/year, with a 5 year overarching warranty.
Seagate said it had commenced shipping of qualification Exos X24 drives to select customers, and the production drives are slated to be widely available for channel distribution in December.
Finally, and most interesting of all, the company has also revealed that the 10-platter helium-sealed platform will be significantly re-used for the company's upcoming heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) hard drives. Those drives will be available in capacities up to 32 TB, with Seagate set to ramp up production in early 2024.
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