Chris Ramseyer

"We have low-cost 10GbE technology ready but user demand is still very low." The Chicken vs. Egg saga continues on as motherboard manufactures slowly bring high-speed Ethernet to consumers. We need more devices to spur early adapters.

Thecus wants you to have a NAS. The company released two low-cost models that decrease the cost of ownership and feature the full software support of ThecusOS 7.

Maxiotek enables 3D NAND with new MX8215 DRAMless SATA controller designed to increase performance at lower price points.

The Phison E8 wins the design for Patriot's new NVMe SSD, Scorch. The PCIe 3.0 x2 design will feature Toshiba 64-layer 3D TLC and take on Intel's mighty 600p in the low-cost NVMe space.

For the first time, Intel talked about the rumored Optane SSD that may come to market under the 900p branding. With a drive in hand, Intel called the drive a "monster" and a "game changer." We certainly agree--if the leaked specifications are accurate.

Toshiba displayed the new XG5 NVMe SSD at Dell World, but only as a nameless working model. Now the company has flipped the notebook over to show us the new XG5. This is the first client SSD with 64-layer BiCS 3D NAND technology.

Crucial pulled out a retail-ready BX300 for us to look at during Computex, and we saw firsthand the magic that will power SSDs in the near future.

In a joint announcement, Western Digital and its subsidiary SanDisk announced their first SSDs with 64-layer NAND technology. The new consumer products utilize BiCS FLASH.

What's the big story from Computex 2017? I can tell you it won't be from storage, but this industry won't go down without a fight. We have the inside scoop on what you will see over the next couple of days. It's time to put the shortage behind us.

Kingston introduced its first client NVMe SSD with up to 290,000 IOPS and 2,700 MB/s performance. The KC series targets system builders and corporate clients and ships with a five-year warranty.

Intel envisions a world with Thunderbolt 3 everywhere. To achieve this goal, the high bandwidth technology will be integrated into the CPU at an undisclosed date, and a new royalty-free license will reduce device costs.

Intel's Optane Memory NVMe SSDs may be small, but they pack a strong punch. Combining three in RAID 0 gives you enough space for a boot drive and some programs.

WD increased the Red and Red Pro offerings to include new 10TB options. The drives are purpose-built for NAS environments where vibration and 24/7 operation intensify disk requirements.

The last of the 3D holdouts is ready to cross over. Projections show that over 50% of all flash shipped in 2017 will be 3D, but that's a conservative estimate for aftermarket SSDs. The new parts may help with the flash shortage.

Cached I/O isn't anything new. Between Microsoft and Intel, consumers have been fed the technology in various shapes and sizes for nearly a decade. With flash performance declining and prices soaring, SSDs are out and HDDs are back, with Optane in front.

Transcend Announces first NVMe SSD based on the Silicon Motion, Inc. SM2260 but the real story comes from a new program mode built into the firmware. This is the first SMI with direct-to-die writes to increase sustained write performance.

We have two Phison E7 NVMe SSD reference designs that we may see in 2017 as retail products. The first features a double dose of DRAM to increase random performance. The second uses MLC flash that is programmed as SLC to boost performance.