Today, CDRLabs brings you a review of Samsung's new NVMe SSD, the 970 PRO. Designed to meet the needs of enthusiasts, hardcore gamers and professionals, this cutting-edge NVMe SSD is powered by Samsung's new Phoenix controller and is available with up to 1TB of their latest 2-bit MLC V-NAND flash. The 970 PRO is also equipped with a PCIe Gen3 x4 NVMe 1.3 interface and is capable of 3,500 MB/s read and 2,700 MB/s write speeds and a maximum of 500,000 IOPS for both random read and write operations.

Samsung Electronics America, Inc., today introduced the Samsung 970 PRO and EVO, the third generation of its industry-leading consumer solid state drive (SSD) lineup. Having led the market with the first consumer-focused NVMe SSD in 2015, Samsung continues to push the performance barriers with this latest generation of SSDs that are built for tech enthusiasts and professionals so that they can enjoy higher bandwidth for intensive workloads on PCs and workstations.

“Samsung has led the NVMe SSD industry since its inception, and the company continues to define the latest standards of consumer storage with unprecedented performance of the 970 PRO and EVO SSDs,” said UnSoo Kim, senior vice president of Brand Product Marketing, Memory Business at Samsung Electronics. “The 970 series sets a new bar in all aspects for the NVMe SSD market with groundbreaking performance, superior reliability and best-in-class capacity.”

The Samsung 970 PRO and EVO are designed based on the M.2 form factor standard and with the latest PCIe Gen 3x4 lane interface. The 970 series maximizes the potential of NVMe bandwidth, delivering unparalleled performance for processing large volumes of data, including 3D, 4K graphics work, high-end games and data analytics.

QNAP Systems, Inc. today unveiled new TVS-882BR RDX models (including the TVS-882BR-RDX and TVS-882BRT3-RDX) that integrates the Tandberg RDX® QuikStor™ internal SATA 5.25-inch docking station (8813-RDX) for installing removable and portable RDX hard disk cartridges. Compared to standard external hard drives, the Tandberg RDX cartridge features a rugged dust-proof design that protects data for a longer period of time and allows users to easily transfer data with the cartridges.

“QNAP constantly integrates partner backup solutions to our existing NAS solutions. By supporting RDX hard disk backup, the new TVS-882BR RDX models allows users to enjoy longer data protection and the portable cartridges can easily be shared for data exchanging. Coupled with Media Asset Management (MAM) software and a wide range of backup solutions, the TVS-882BR helps improve work efficiency while also providing highly-scalable storage space and powerful hardware that meets the requirements from modern businesses and organizations” said Dan Lin, Product Manager of QNAP.

Enabling new lower levels of total cost of ownership (TCO) for cloud and enterprise customers, Western Digital Corporation today introduced the Ultrastar DC HC530 hard drive – at 14TB, no other CMR (conventional magnetic recording) hard drive in the industry offers a higher capacity. The breadth and depth of big data is driving the universal need for higher capacities across a broad spectrum of applications and workloads. Built on Western Digital’s fifth-generation HelioSeal technology, the Ultrastar DC HC530 drive is designed for public and private cloud environments where storage density, watt/TB and $/TB are critical parameters for creating the most cost-efficient infrastructure.

The data explosion caused by big data, IoT, artificial intelligence, machine learning, rich content and fast data applications is challenging hyperscale cloud data centers and enterprises to efficiently build massive petabyte-scale infrastructures. This ability to cost-effectively scale-up or scale-out is business critical, not only for cloud service providers but for organizations leveraging big data analytics and machine learning in medical, science, agriculture and other fields seeking innovation, discoveries and unique insights, as well as for creating new business models.

Brendan Collins, vice president of marketing, Devices, Western Digital, said, “Our enterprise and hyperscale cloud customers demand reliability with the highest capacities and densities to deliver the lowest TCO for business-critical applications. Having invented, brought to market and delivered five generations of industry-leading innovations in helium technology, and with more than 27 million drives shipped, our ability to maintain high quality and reliability have made us the trusted partner of top-tier cloud providers, Internet giants and OEMs around the world.”

Toshiba Electronic Devices & Storage Corporation (“Toshiba”) today announced six new series of internal hard drives for the consumer market: P300 Desktop PC Hard Drives, L200 Laptop PC Hard Drives, X300 Performance Hard Drives, N300 NAS Hard Drives, V300 Video Streaming Hard Drives, and S300 Surveillance Hard Drives.

The P300 Desktop PC Hard Drive series offers high performance ideal for home and business users and is available with up to 3TB of storage capacity. They operate at 7,200rpm and have built-in shock sensors that detect impacts and reduce vibration during read and write operations, improving tracking accuracy and performance.

The L200 Laptop PC Hard Drive series delivers up to 2TB capacity in 2.5-inch mobile drives and delivers better shock and vibration resistance than 3.5-inch hard drives and works with every major brand of laptop computer. They are also suited for use as external storage. The L200 line-up has a lower power profile than 3.5-inch hard drives, to help optimize the device’s battery life. All models have a built-in shock sensor and ramp loading technology to support reliability.

The X300 Performance Hard Drive series offers up to 10TB capacity and features Toshiba’s cache technology, optimizing cache allocation during read/write to provide high-level real-time performance. Available in a 3.5-inch form factor, the X300 drives operate at 7,200rpm and have a cache memory of up to 256MB. The series delivers extreme performance and robust capacity for creative and professional applications including graphic design, animation, photo and video editing, and PC gaming.

CDRLabs has taken yet another look at Crucial's popular MX500 Series SSD. This time around, we've reviewed the 500GB version of the drive which combines Silicon Motion's SM2258 controller with Micron's second generation 3D TLC NAND to deliver 560 MB/s read and 510 MB/s write speeds. The MX500 also offers a long list of features including AES 256-bit encryption, thermal and power loss protection, TRIM support and active garbage collection. It also comes equipped with Crucial's Dyamic Write Acceleration technology, which uses an adaptable pool of high speed, single-level cell flash memory to enable faster saves and file transfers.

Kingston Digital, Inc., the Flash memory affiliate of Kingston Technology Company, Inc., a world leader in memory products and technology solutions, today announced it is shipping the UV500 family line of SSD products. Available in multiple form factors, UV500 will be Kingston’s first 3D NAND-enabled SSD featuring full-disk encryption. UV500 is powered by the Marvell 88SS1074 controller, and combined with 3D NAND Flash, delivers incredible read/write speeds of up to 520MB/s and 500MB/s, making it 10x faster than a 7200RPM hard drive.

UV500 dramatically improves a system’s overall responsiveness with incredible boot, loading and transfer times; and, with no moving parts is far less likely to fail compared to mechanical hard drives. UV500 protects sensitive data with 256-bit AES hardware-based encryption and supports TCG Opal 2.0. It is available in three different form factors (2.5″, M.2 2280, mSATA) to accommodate any client system. UV500 is perfect as a boot drive or for primary storage as it is available in 120GB, 240GB, 480GB, 960GB and 1920GB capacities.