Articles about Storage

There are many companies producing quality solid state drives these days in various capacities, speeds, and form factors. SATA variants are perfectly fine, but NVMe models are significantly faster. With all brands considered, one company's offerings have stood out among the rest thanks to speed and reliability -- Samsung. Remarkably, the wildly popular company's storage drives are competitively priced too, making them an absolute no-brainer.

Today, Samsung launches its latest solid state drive. The "980 NVMe SSD" as it is called, is notable for not having added DRAM. Wait, isn't that normally a bad thing? For most drives, yes, but in this case, no. You see, the 980's use of Host Memory Buffer technology will make sure this drive has the performance consumers have come to expect from Samsung -- along with reliability and affordability too.

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Every once in a while, storage card manufacturers will release cards that are branded for gaming. People often wonder if there is anything different about these cards that can actually benefit gamers. The answer is largely no. A storage card that is designed for gaming is really just marketing hype. With that said, there is nothing wrong with these cards, although they can carry a premium price.

Today, Lexar launches the PLAY microSDXC UHS-I Card for Nintendo Switch and mobile gaming devices such as Android phones and tablets. It should be a great choice for a Raspberry Pi too. This card has a beautiful red color and comes in capacities up to 1TB. Believe it or not, despite its gaming branding it really isn't overpriced. In fact, you can score one of these cards for less than $22.

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If your camera only uses SD cards, you are basic AF. Look, there is nothing wrong with being basic -- I am definitely in that group. However, if you are a hardcore photographer with high-end equipment, your storage should be CFexpress (Type B, particularly) if your camera supports it. Why? It is insanely fast, as it uses the PCIe interface. And yes, speed matters when you need to transfer a lot of photos or videos.

Of course, the downside of these new faster cards is they are more expensive. Thankfully, value-focused company Transcend has launched a new CFexpress 820 Type B Memory Card that is available now. In addition, the manufacturer has released the new RDE2 USB CFexpress card reader.

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Solid state drives are one of the best computing innovations in years, as they provide a huge performance boost without breaking the bank. By simply upgrading from a mechanical hard drive to an SSD, your computer will feel brand new. Best of all, SSD manufacturers are not resting on their laurels, but instead, continually pushing performance boundaries.

Currently, PCIe Gen 4 NVMe SSDs are all the rage with enthusiasts, and today, CORSAIR launches two new models -- the MP600 CORE and MP600 PRO. There is even a "Hydro X Edition" variant of the latter, which utilizes water-cooling to reduce temperatures.

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There are a lot of companies manufacturing 2.5-inch SATA solid states drives these days. For the most part, these drives are relatively all the same. They have similar speeds and performance, so you should just choose whatever brand costs the least, right? Whoa there, cowboy -- not so fast. Don't forget about reliability! You should always stick to drives from reputable companies. After all, speed doesn't matter if your data gets lost forever...

There are several trustworthy brands on the market, but none are more respected than Samsung. For years now, Samsung solid state drives have proven to be fast and reliable. And today, the company launches its latest SSD. Called "870 EVO," this 2.5-inch SATA drive promises improved performance over its predecessor -- up to 560/530 MB/s read/write. Best of all, it can be had in capacities up to 4TB.

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Having 1TB of storage in a tiny memory card may not be so incredible to consumers these days, but to me, it is still quite amazing. Hell, many computers -- including the newest Apple MacBook Air and Mac mini -- have just 256GB of storage by default. So yeah, having 1TB of storage in an SD card is impressive.

Now, PNY launches its 1TB PRO Elite SDXC flash memory card, and photographers should be very excited. Not only does it offer a lot of storage capacity, but it is very fast too.

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Solid state drives continue to get faster, with PCIe 4.0 variants leading the pack nowadays. Of course, most PCs don't have PCIe 4.0 support, so these ultra-fast drives are reserved for enthusiasts and those with brand new computers.

If you have such a cutting-edge PC, you will probably want to get a PCIe 4.0 SSD to maximize your performance. True, it is largely for bragging rights and benchmarks -- you probably won't notice a difference in actual use -- but still, you might as well go for the best if the difference in price isn't totally obscene.

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It was damn near a year ago when we told you about the Western Digital WD Blue SN550 NVMe SSD. This drive was very fast thanks to its PCIe 3.0 interface. In fact, the drive could achieve an impressive 2,400 MB/s read. It was a no-nonsense SSD that provided excellent performance at a competitive price. For instance, the 1TB model can be had here for under $100.

Unfortunately, that 1TB variant was the top capacity, with the other two being 250GB and 500GB. What if you needed more than a terabyte of storage? Thankfully, starting today, the WD Blue SN550 NVMe SSD now comes in 2TB -- double the previous top capacity.

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Having the ability to expand or add storage to a device is quite amazing, so it is sad that many phone manufacturers are removing that option. Sure, some Android smartphones still have microSD slots, but many do not -- including Google's own Pixel phones. Of course, Apple has never offered this option with its iconic iPhone.

If you do have a smartphone, tablet, camera, drone, or other device that utilizes microSD, I have some really exciting news. Today, Lexar launches some blazing fast new cards that won't break the bank. Called "SILVER Series," this line of 1066x microSD cards comes in capacities ranging from 32GB to 512GB.

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A digital camera without a storage card is like a car without gas -- pretty much useless. You need a memory card to store the photos and videos you take, and most cameras don't come with any onboard storage these days.

There are no shortage of SD cards (Amazon is littered with them), but you should always make sure you are purchasing one made by a reputable company. Don't recognize the brand? Don't buy it. You don't want to lose your valuable data when that cheap card dies prematurely.

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Western Digital makes damn good storage products, and its WD_BLACK line is probably its most intriguing. While primarily designed for gamers, WD_BLACK is also a great choice for enthusiasts that crave high performance and elegant designs.

Today, Western Digital unveils a trio of new WD_BLACK gaming NVMe SSD products, and all three look incredible. There is the SN850 which is a PCIe Gen 4 NVMe SSD, the AN1500 PCIe Gen 3 NVMe SSD Add-in card, and the drop-dead gorgeous D50 Game Dock NVMe SSD -- a Thunderbolt 3 docking station with integrated NVMe SSD.

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You can never go wrong by purchasing SanDisk storage products. From memory cards to solid state drives, they are consistently excellent. Not only are the drives often quite fast, but more importantly, they are extremely reliable too. While not the only company making great flash storage products, I try to only use SanDisk SD cards in my camera when taking family photos -- the content is too important to lose.

SanDisk's Extreme and Extreme PRO Portable SSDs are quite popular thanks to their high-end performance and durable housings, and today, the company launches the next generation. Designated as "V2," both the Pro and non-Pro drives feature 256-bit AES hardware encryption and IP55 ratings for both water and dust resistance. SanDisk says both feature drop protection of up to 3 meters.

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Want to know a secret? Solid state drives can get hot. Very hot, actually. Super-fast M.2 drives in particular can generate quite a bit of heat, so sometimes, manufacturers will put heatsinks on them. Are these heat spreaders "snake oil" rather than something truly useful? Believe it ort not, no. Not only will a heatsink help the drive to last longer, but it can improve performance too. You see, when the drive gets hot, its read and write speeds can throttle down. By adding some metal to pull away some of the heat, your drive can perform better when under heavy load.

Today, ADATA launches its latest solid state drive, and it is a speed demon. Called "GAMMIX S70," this NVMe PCIe Gen4x4 M.2 2280 SSD is being released under the company's XPG brand, which is designed for gamers and enthusiasts. The drive is so insanely fast, that ADATA has put an absolutely massive heatsink on it. The company calls it "CoolArmor," and it claims the "terraced" design will allow it to provide superior cooling. While I don't doubt it will do a great job keeping heat at bay, I do worry that its huge heatsink may make it impossible to fit inside some computers -- it could end up impeding the installation of other components, such as a GPU. You can, of course, forget about putting it into any laptop.

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USB flash drives are "old hat" in 2020, right? Yes and no. True, they are no longer particularly interesting, but they are still quite necessary for some people. While cloud storage has largely made them irrelevant to the average consumer, there are still many cases where one is necessary. I like to use them for operating system installations, for instance -- I keep Windows and Linux install drives at the ready. Believe it or not, many businesses and education institutions still rely on USB flash drives too.

For whatever reason, I still have a big place in my heart for USB flash drives, so when a new  model is announced, I get interested. Transcend has released a new such drive, and while it looks fairly unremarkable, it is worth noticing for its impressive speed and build quality. Called "JetFlash 920," it uses the USB 3.2 Gen 1 interface, which is just a fancy way of saying USB 3.0. With that said, it can do up to 420MB/s read and 400MB/s write -- not bad at all. It also features an aluminum body for improved cooling and durability. Unfortunately, it does utilize a cap to protect the USB-A connector -- I prefer capless designs as there is no cap to lose. A cap is hardly the end of the world, however.

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When it comes to storage, consumers typically need to choose between a solid state drive for speed and a mechanical hard disk drive for large capacity. Over the years, however, SSDs have gotten bigger capacities, but for the most part, they still trail HDDs in that regard -- particularly in the consumer market..

Today, TEAMGROUP launches a new consumer solid state drive that offers the best of both worlds. Simply called "QX," this 3D QLC SATA 2.5-inch SSD offers an insane 15.3TB capacity. Before you get too excited, you should know the price -- it costs nearly $4,000.

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