QLC
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...
Solidigm Announces D5-P5336: 64 TB-Class Data Center SSD Sets NVMe Capacity Records
Advancements in flash technology have come as a boon to data centers. Increasing layer counts coupled with better vendor confidence in triple-level (TLC) and quad-level cells (QLC) have contributed...
18 by Ganesh T S on 7/20/2023Solidigm D5-P5430 Addresses QLC Endurance in Data Center SSDs
Solidigm has been extremely bullish on QLC SSDs in the data center. Compared to other flash vendors, their continued use of a floating gate cell architecture (while others moved...
7 by Ganesh T S on 5/16/2023Solidigm Synergy 2.0 Amplifies P41 Plus and P44 Pro Performance with Custom Driver
Solidigm has been active in the PC client SSD market with the QLC-based P41 Plus and the traditional TLC-based P44 Pro for the high-end market. While introducing the P41...
14 by Ganesh T S on 5/3/2023Solidigm Announces P41 Plus SSD: Taking Another Shot at QLC With Cache Tiering
Although Intel is no longer directly in the SSD market these days, their SSD team and related technologies continue to live on under the SK hynix umbrella as Solidigm...
44 by Ryan Smith on 8/2/2022Crucial X6 Portable SSD 4TB Launches at $490: Phison's U17 Flash Controller Enters Retail
Crucial introduced the X6 Portable SSD last year as an entry-level alternative to their NVMe-based X8 Portable SSD. Launched in capacities of up to 2TB, the X6 adopted a...
1 by Ganesh T S on 3/2/2021How We Test PCIe 4.0 Storage: The AnandTech 2021 SSD Benchmark Suite
Our new SSD test suite is ready, updated and expanded for the latest trends in storage including PCIe 4.0 and QLC NAND.
70 by Billy Tallis on 2/1/2021Phison at CES 2021: New USB SSD Controllers, Adds E21T For Low-End NVMe
At CES 2021, Phison gave us the usual updates on their SSD controller roadmap. The most significant new products coming this year are a pair of USB flash drive...
13 by Billy Tallis on 1/14/2021Sabrent Rocket XTRM-Q USB / Thunderbolt 3 Dual Mode External SSD Review: Yin and Yang
The external storage market has shown renewed vigor in recent years, thanks in part to growth fueled by bus-powered flash-based storage solutions. The introduction of 3D NAND, coupled with...
14 by Ganesh T S on 12/14/2020Mushkin Announces 8TB M.2 SSD: ALPHA Series
Anyone in the market for high capacity 8 TB M.2 drives has so far only had one choice on the market. Today Mushkin is coming in as the second...
26 by Dr. Ian Cutress on 12/8/2020QLC Goes To 8TB: Samsung 870 QVO and Sabrent Rocket Q 8TB SSDs Reviewed
Flash memory prices have been on a downward trajectory for years. A decade ago, this trend was helping SSDs establish a foothold in the consumer market—largely for enthusiasts. Now...
152 by Billy Tallis on 12/4/2020Crucial Portable SSD X6 and X8 2TB Review: QLC for Storage On-the-Go
Bus-powered portable flash-based storage solutions are one of the growing segments in the consumer-focused direct-attached storage market. The emergence of 3D NAND with TLC and QLC has brought down...
22 by Ganesh T S on 10/21/2020Nimbus Data’s New ExaDrive NL: 64 TB of Enterprise Grade QLC in 3.5-inch
Today Nimbus Data, one of the first companies to venture into enterprise flash storage in 2003, is announcing its latest generation ExaDrive product. Following on from the success of...
27 by Dr. Ian Cutress on 8/26/2020USB 3.2 Gen 2 Portable SSDs Roundup - Featuring the Samsung T7 Touch and the SanDisk Extreme Pro
External bus-powered storage devices have grown in storage capacity as well as speeds over the last decade. Palm-sized flash-based storage devices with a Thunderbolt 3 interface are capable of...
38 by Ganesh T S on 1/23/2020AnandTech Year In Review 2019: Solid State Drives
In 2019, flash memory prices have leveled out and have even crept back upward a bit, and new technologies have been slow to roll out, although we are currently...
42 by Billy Tallis on 12/31/2019Western Digital Begins Shipments of 96-Layer 3D QLC-Based SSDs, Retail Products
Western Digital announced this week that it has started shipments of its first products based on 3D QLC NAND memory. The initial devices to use the highly-dense flash memory...
28 by Anton Shilov on 11/1/2019Intel Announces SSD 665p: Denser, Faster QLC NAND
Intel's Memory and Storage Day event today in South Korea was mostly focused on enterprise and datacenter products, but they did announce an upcoming consumer SSD: The Intel SSD...
27 by Billy Tallis on 9/26/2019Micron: Shipments of 3D QLC for SSDs Nearly Double QoQ as Wafer Starts Cut Again
Micron was among the first companies to start mass production and shipments of 3D QLC NAND, so it is not surprising that at present it is among the leading...
11 by Anton Shilov on 6/28/2019ADATA Reveals Ultimate SU630 SSD: 3D QLC for SATA
ADATA has introduced its new entry-level SSD for client PCs. The Ultimate SU630 is the first drive from an independent maker of SSDs based on 3D QLC NAND, which...
14 by Anton Shilov on 11/15/2018SK Hynix Launches 96-Layer 3D NAND and Discloses QLC Plans
SK Hynix this week officially launched its new 96-layer 3D NAND flash memory chips, which feature a new architecture and a faster interface. The NAND has already been qualified...
4 by Anton Shilov on 11/8/2018