One of the more interesting demos at CES 2019 is being done by Phison Electronics. What makes it so interesting is that Phison is showing off their next generation PS5016-E16 SSD controller that uses the PCI Express Gen 4 interface. No consumer motherboard has PCIe Gen 4 just yet, so Phison is using PLDA’s Gen4HOST add-in-card. This …more

We’ve reviewed a ton of portable SSDs this year, so when we got the opportunity to review the ADATA HD830 2.5″ External Hard Disk Drive (HDD) we jumped at the chance. The ADATA HD830 series of durable ultra-tough portable HDDs is available in  2TB, 4TB or 5TB capacities for $107.07 shipped, $149.99 shipped and $179.99, …more

Samsung launched a new consumer Solid State Drive (SSD) series today called the Samsung 860 QVO SSD. This SATA III 2.5-inch drive series is available in 1TB, 2TB and 4TB capacities and feature Samsung’s brand new high-density 4-bit multi-level cell (MLC) NAND flash. The Samsung 860 QVO was brought to market to help eliminate the …more

MyDigitalSDSD is the first company to release firmware version 12.1 for drives powered by the Phison E12 controller. We’ve been waiting months for this firmware to be released as it promised to deliver massive performance gains. After testing the MyDigitalSSD BPX Pro 960GB drive with this new firmware build versus the original firmware version 11.0 …more

First 96-Layer SSD – Toshiba XG6 Series Today we are going to take a quick look at the Toshiba XG6, which is a mainstream PCIe NVMe series of SSDs that is aimed at the OEM market. We generally don’t review OEM SSDs since they can’t be purchased in the retail market, but we are making …more

Savage EXO SSD – The First Portable SSD Series From HyperX Today we’ll be taking a look at the HyperX Savage EXO, which is one of the newest USB 3.1 Gen 2 portable SSDs on the market. Inside, HyperX went with a SATA III drive powered by the Marvell  88SS1074 controller paired with 64-layer 3D …more

Have you been one of the many out there that have been looking for a USB to NVMe drive adapter that will allow you to use whatever brand SSD you want and is fully bus powered? The new MyDigitalSSD M2X Portable USB 3.1 Gen 2 M.2 PCI Express SSD External Enclosure Adapter might be what …more

Today we’ll be taking a look at the HyperX FURY RGB SSD. This SATA III 2.5-inch drive series  is available in 240GB, 480GB and 960GB capacities and each has a light bar inside to give your gaming PC a little RGB lighting in a place that most don’t. This is yet another SATA III 6 …more

Our First Time Benchmarking The SM2262EN Controller The Silicon Motion, Inc. (SMI) SM2262 Gen3 x4 NVMe 1.3 high-performance controller has had much success in 2018 thanks to having sequential Read/Write performance up to 3200/1900 MB/s and 4K Random performance is up to 370,000 IOPS! The affordable price of this 8-channel controller along with its solid performance …more

Samsung Portable SSD X5 – Thunderbolt 3 and NVMe SSD For Max Performance Samsung is entering the Thunderbolt 3 market today by unveiling their first-ever NVMe-based portable solid state drive (SSD) – the Samsung Portable SSD X5. The X5 series features speeds of up to 2,800 MB/s read and 2,300 MB/s write, making it an ideal portable storage device …more

HP SSD S600 – A Good DRAM-less SATA Budget Drive? Upgrading from a hard drive to an Solid-State Drive (SSD) is one of the best ways to boost performance in an aging notebook or desktop PC. At one point in time upgrading to an SSD was a costly venture, but prices have drastically fallen in …more

Intel SSD 660p – 1st PCIe QLC SSDs for Mainstream PCs Today we will be looking at the world’s first consumer SSD to feature QLC (Quad Level Cell) NAND Flash. QLC  NAND Flash once seemed so far away, but Intel is rolling out the SSD 660p drive series today. The Intel SSD 660p features an SMI …more

Intel Optane SSD 905P – Fast Storage For Enthusiasts When Intel released the Optane SSD 900P series in Q4 2017 they really upped the ante in the enthusiast storage market with a high-end 3D Xpoint-based drive. The 900P series was aimed at enthusiasts and workstation users that are looking for unmatched performance for desktop PCs. …more

When our friends over at MyDigitalSSD asked if we wanted to review their Pocket Vault eXpress (PVX) Thunderbolt 3 Portable SSD we said send it on over! It boasts wicked fast transfer speeds up to 1,600 MB/s read and 1,000 MB/s write, so if you want blazing file transfer speeds on a super portable drive look …more