Samsung T7 Portable SSD Review: Blazing Fast, Portable Storage

Earlier this year, Samsung unveiled the privacy-minded Portable SSD T7 Touch. This external USB-C storage device delivered high capacities up to 2TB and impressive read-write speeds over USB 3.2 Gen 2. Its headlining feature, however, was an integrated fingerprint reader to effortlessly unlock the drive’s AES 256-bit encryption. Not everyone needs this one-touch access to their files though, and would prefer a more straightforward external storage solution. For these users Samsung has released a non-touch variant of the T7 to shed some cost, but keep the rest of the goodness intact. Samsung...

Samsung SSD 980 Pro Review: Blazing Fast PCIe 4.0 Storage

by Marco Chiappetta - Tue, Sep 22, 2020

We first caught a glimpse of the Samsung SSD 980 Pro all the way back at CES in early January. The highly-anticipated drive was tucked away in a display case in Samsung’s massive booth on the show floor, but other than the branding, some early claimed performance data, and the fact that drive had a native PCIe 4.0 interface, details were scant. All that changes today, though. We’ve gotten our hands on a couple of shiny, new Samsung SSD 980 Pro drives – in 250GB and 1TB flavors – and are finally able to give you the full scoop. The Samsung SSD 980 Pro series of solid state...

ADATA Falcon And Swordfish SSD Reviews: Affordable NVMe Storage

by Ben Funk - Thu, Jul 30, 2020

By now, everyone with even the vaguest of interest in PC technology can tell you how much snappier solid state drives are than even the fastest of spinning disks of yesteryear. There have been some interesting wrinkles recently, like ultra-high speed drives that ride the PCI Express 4.0 bus, but in test after test, regardless of drive type, just having a modern SSD offers enough of a boost to make an older PC feel new again. Similarly, it's basically a necessity to slap an SSD like one of the ADATA drives we'll be showing you here, into a new system build to not make any big sacrifices in responsiveness....

Kingston DC1000M SSD Review: Big, Fast NVMe Storage

by Marco Chiappetta - Fri, Jul 10, 2020

Kingston recently released its DC1000M series of solid-state drives for data center applications, capped off by a massive 7.68TB model. The DC1000M series leverages a hot-pluggable U.2 (2.5”, 15mm) form factor, that’s compatible with U.2 backplanes and the drives target mixed-use, data-intensive workloads, including Cloud computing, web hosting, high-performance computing (HPC), virtual infrastructures, and AI and deep learning applications. There are four drives in the initial Kingston DC1000M family, bookended by a 960GB model and the aforementioned 7.68TB behemoth. We’ve got...

Samsung SSD 870 QVO Review: Terabytes Of Solid State Storage

by Marco Chiappetta - Tue, Jun 30, 2020

Although much of the excitement in the solid state storage market revolves around the latest, bleeding-edge NVMe-based drives, there is still a massive need for SATA-based solutions. Not only are there a myriad of legacy systems ripe for upgrades that rely on SATA, but owners of current-gen systems often want more affordable, higher-capacity -- but still fast -- solid state storage to pair with their NVMe boot drives. Samsung has traditionally been a leader in the space, with a succession of popular drives over the years. The newest members of the family, the Samsung SSD 870 QVO we’ll be...

Sabrent Rocket NVMe 4.0 SSD Review: Premium, Fast Storage

by Ben Funk - Tue, Apr 14, 2020

It's been nine months since AMD unleashed its Zen 2 processors and, more importantly as it related to this article, the X570 chipset with its PCI Express 4 connectivity, into the world. In the time since then, there hasn't been a torrent of extra-fast flash released by all that many storage vendors; even at launch, we only had Gigabyte's Aorus PCIe 4 SSD on hand to test. Considering that Gigabyte's drive could far outstrip the bandwidth available in PCI Express 3.0 x4 drives, while putting up some solid IOPs figures, it seems that those who feel a need for speed would want these drives, assuming...

Crucial X8 Portable SSD Review: Fast, Value-Priced Storage

by Chris Ledenican - Fri, Mar 06, 2020

Over the last few years the USB connectivity has gone through some major changes. We've been through USB 3.0, USB 3.1, and now USB 3.2. And that's not even taking into account all the different generations that were released. Like USB 3.1 Gen 1, USB 3.2 Gen 1, USB 3.2 Gen 2, and now USB 3.2 Gen 2x2. Oh, and don't forget, Gen 4 is coming soon as well. If just going through the names is enough to make your head spin, try keeping track of all their respective bandwidth and throughput specs.  The reason we wanted to start with the USB interface is because there's going to be a handful of people...

Samsung T7 Touch SSD Review: Fast, Secure Portable Storage

by Marco Chiappetta - Tue, Mar 03, 2020

Samsung has been at the forefront of the solid-state storage market for a number of years now. We’re not just talking about its mainstream internal SSDs either, which have been popular amongst enthusiasts. Samsung offers a wide array of solid-state storage solutions, ranging from miniscule microSD cards, all the way on up to monstrous, high-capacity enterprise-class drives meant for big-iron servers. The company has also put considerable focus into its an array of portable storage solutions, to cater to a wide range of users. We’ve shown you many of Samsung’s portable SSDs in...

Addlink S70 SSD Review: Speedy, Affordable NVMe Storage

by Ben Funk - Mon, Dec 23, 2019

Addlink isn't a particularly well-known manufacturer in the PC storage space, but the company has been in the business for a little over a decade. Online shops carry all sorts of flash memory products from Addlink, from micro SD cards to PCI-Express 4.0 solid state drives, and all points in between. However, just because you may not be as familiar with a certain brand or product doesn't mean it's not worth paying attention to. At the risk of giving away the conclusion in the first paragraph of this review, we dare say that Addlink's S70 M.2 SSD is one of those situations. As you'll see in the features...

Kingston KC2000 NVMe SSD Review: Competitive Pricing And Performance

by Marco Chiappetta - Thu, Sep 26, 2019

Kingston recently expanded its portfolio of solid state drives, with a new family of products targeting high-performance desktop and workstation applications. The Kingston KC2000 series of drives feature a PCI Express Gen 3.0 x 4 controller, 96-layer 3D TLC NAND flash memory, and boast of peak transfer speeds north of 3GB/s. The drives are offered in an array of capacities, ranging from 250GB all the way on up to 2TB, and they support a number of security-conscious features as well. All told, the Kingston KC2000 series drives try to cater to a myriad of use cases, from mainstream consumer desktops,...

Asura Genesis Xtreme SSD Review: Speedy NVMe With RBG Bling

by Marco Chiappetta - Fri, Sep 06, 2019

Now that SSDs and their components have been substantially cost-reduced and essentially gone mainstream, there are more and more players in the space. What was once a market reserved for but a few top-tier semiconductor manufacturers, is now increasingly crowded by new, lesser-known third-party companies looking to capitalize on the increasing demand for super-fast storage. One such company is Asura Technology. Asura was founded less than a year ago, and has developed a high-end, NVMe SSD with a handful of interesting features, targeted specifically at gamers and performance enthusiasts -- the...

Toshiba BG4 SSD Review: Mini But Mighty NVMe Storage

by Marco Chiappetta - Wed, Aug 14, 2019

Toshiba announced its next-generation BG4 solid state drive all the way back at CES in early January of this year. The diminutive, little Toshiba BG4 isn’t about the latest and greatest in bleeding-edge SSD storage performance or pushing the envelope in terms of throughput. However, it does still represent a significant step forward in regard to power and performance in the smallest of form factors – you’ll see exactly what we mean in a couple of the photos below. The 1TB Toshiba BG4 we will be showing you here is essentially a single-chip solution, cable of multi-gigabyte per...

Kingston DC500 SSD Review: High Capacity Enterprise Storage

by Marco Chiappetta - Tue, Jul 16, 2019

Kingston has been a dedicated stalwart of the memory, storage, and peripheral markets for many years. The company’s products target virtually every type of user, from entry-level first-time PC builders to seasoned sysadmins. The products we’ll be showing you here today, the Kingston DC500R and DC500M solid state drives, target the latter type of user, in need of reliable, high-capacity SSD storage for enterprise and data center applications. At first glance – of both their physical design and specifications -- the Kingston DC500R and DC500M drives appear to be similar. The ‘R’...

Samsung SSD 970 EVO Plus 2TB Review: Burly, Speedy NVMe Storage

by Marco Chiappetta - Wed, Jun 26, 2019

A few months back, Samsung launched its SSD 970 EVO Plus series of solid state drives, which featured the company’s latest TLC NAND flash memory and an updated firmware optimized for higher performance. When the line-up initially arrived, capacities up to 2TB were announced, but only the 250GB – 1TB models were made available. The highest-capacity, 2TB Samsung SSD 970 EVO Plus has just arrived, however, and we got the chance to take one for a spin. At its core, the 2TB Samsung SSD 970 EVO Plus is virtually identical to the other drives in the line-up, save for a larger DRAM cache and,...

WD Black SN750 NVMe Heatsink SSD Review: Speedy And Cool

by Marco Chiappetta - Tue, Jun 04, 2019

A few weeks back, we took a look at the WD Blue SN500 SSD. That solid state drive is an affordable NVMe M.2 option, that’s targeted at mainstream systems and budget-constrained users. The WD Blue SN500 offers the benefits of NVMe, with pricing that is in-line with legacy SATA devices. The drive we’ll be looking at today, however, the WD Black SN750 SSD with Heatsink, takes things in a completely different direction. The WD Black SN750 SSD with Heatsink targets enthusiasts and gamers, and offers much higher performance in some scenarios. It is also priced higher, but not exorbitantly...

Samsung 883 And 983 DCT SSD Review: Enterprise Class Storage At Consumer Prices

by Marco Chiappetta - Wed, May 15, 2019

Enterprise-class solid state drives used to be rare beasts that commanded heavy price premiums over their more common, consumer-oriented counterparts. As leading SSD and flash memory manufacturers have evolved their processes and technologies, however, availability and pricing for many enterprise-class solid state storage solutions have dropped dramatically. Whereas enterprise SSDs that target mission-critical workstations or data centers used to cost many times that of a consumer SSD, that is no longer the case for some products. Samsung's 883 and 983 DCT drives we’ll be showing you...

WD Blue SN500 SSD Review: NVMe Performance, Dirt Cheap

by Marco Chiappetta - Fri, May 10, 2019

WD’s Blue family of solid state drives has historically been comprised of nothing but SATA-based offerings, but the company recently updated the line-up with some brand-new NVMe-based drives. The WD Blue SN500 we’ll be showing you here today is the first Blue-branded NVMe SSD from the company, and as has been the case with many of WD’s “Blue” products, it is aggressively priced and pushes NVMe into more mainstream territory. The WD Blue SN500, however, does not target the high-end of the NVMe market; that is the WD Black family's job. As you’ll see in the WD...

Intel Optane Memory H10 Review: Hybrid SSD Storage Acceleration

by Marco Chiappetta - Mon, Apr 22, 2019

Intel announced its Optane Memory H10 back during the Consumer Electronics Show, early this year. Just in case you missed the initial announcement, the company's Optane Memory H10 is a new class of products from Intel that combines 3D Xpoint memory technology and QLC (quad-level cell) 3D NAND flash on a single M.2 device. The goal for the product is to offer the benefits of 3D Xpoint and Optane Memory in conjunction with the affordability and speed of a QLC-based NVMe SSD in a single device. Initially, these hybrid drives will find their way into utlrabooks or small form factor systems that may...

Crucial P1 SSD Review: Nimble NVMe Storage For Pennies Per Gig

by Marco Chiappetta - Thu, Apr 18, 2019

Like a handful of other recently-released solid state drives that feature QLC (quad-level cell) NAND flash memory, the Crucial P1 series is designed to be a relatively high-performing, but still affordable storage option, versus legacy SATA-based solutions. When it initially arrived, the Crucial P1’s MSRPs didn’t necessarily reflect this design goal, but now that availability has ramped and street prices have settled, the Crucial P1 could represent a significant upgrade for users still hobbling along with slower storage or planning a new, budget-friendly build, and it won't break the...

Samsung EVO Plus 512GB MicroSD Card Review: Speedy Device Storage

by Chris Goetting - Fri, Apr 05, 2019

The humble SD card has evolved in a number of ways since its introduction two decades ago. While early SD cards could hardly store more photos than a roll of film, modern cards may offer the capacity to contain hours of high-quality HD video. SD cards have also become commonly used as boot drives for lightweight operating systems, powering everything from Raspberry Pi's to server hypervisors. SD Cards, and MicroSD cards in particular, can also be useful for expanding the storage of cell phones and even laptops. Samsung introduced its blazing fast EVO Plus UHS-I MicroSD cards last year, featuring...

Intel Unleashes 56-Core Xeon, Optane DC Memory, Agilex FGPAs To Accelerate AI And Big Data

by Marco Chiappetta - Tue, Apr 02, 2019

Intel is launching its latest salvo of data-centric products today, targeting a wide range of workloads and applications. You may think that means a fresh batch of powerful Xeons are on the way – and you’d be correct but there's more. Today marks the official arrival of Intel’s Cascade Lake, many-core 2nd Generation Xeon Scalable Series Processors, but the company is also announcing or launching a plethora of adjacent products including new FPGAs, innovative network controllers, a new server chassis platform, and Optane DC Persistent memory. And along with those powerful Xeon...

ADATA XPG SX8200 Pro SSD Review: Strong Performance, Aggressive Price

by Marco Chiappetta - Thu, Mar 21, 2019

When we evaluated the original ADATA XPG SX8200 SSD last year, we found the drive to be a solid value that offered good performance for the money. So, when ADATA mentioned that it had an updated version of the XPG SX8200 available for review that should perform even better, we were eager to check it out. The aptly named ADATA XPG SX8200 Pro is similar to the original drive in many ways, but incorporates a new controller and firmware that cranks performance up a few notches and adds some new features. The ADATA XPG SX8200 Pro’s main features and specifications are outlined in the table below....

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