SanDisk Announces X400 Client SSD for OEMs

As CES gets underway, SanDisk is announcing the X400 SSD as the successor to the X300 and X300s and as the higher-performance counterpart to the Z400s. The new X400 will be the flagship of SanDisk’s line of SATA and M.2 SATA SSDs for OEMs, though by the standards of consumer SSDs sold at retail it wouldn’t quite be a high-end SATA drive.

The X300s was the Self-Encrypting Drive variant of the X300, but for the X400 SanDisk is unifying the two by making encryption a standard feature, pending a firmware update due in April to provide full TCG Opal support. The X400 improves performance in most areas, though not by any huge margins. They’re dropping the smallest capacities, leaving 128GB as the starting point, and mSATA is no longer an option. Both changes reflect a lack demand for outdated drive configurations in new product designs. Like the X300, the X400 uses TLC NAND flash and relies on SLC-mode write caching to provide competitive write speeds.

The X400 adds a 1TB M.2 option that SanDisk claims is the first single-sided 1TB M.2 drive. The X400 also adds LDPC ECC to the mix, which probably helped SanDisk increase the warranty period to 5 years.

The SanDisk X400 was sampling to OEMs as of late last year and is now available to OEMs and system integrators in volume.

Samsung Introduces Portable SSD T3

In recent years a new category of portable storage devices has emerged. Based on the same controllers and flash used in 2.5″ SATA SSDs, portable SSDs offer much higher performance and capacities than typical of USB thumb drives. The use of SATA to USB3 bridge chips allows portable SSDs to be used with almost any devices, as opposed to relying on the rare eSATA standard. Most portable SSDs also support the USB Attached SCSI Protocol (UASP) to cut down on the overhead relative to a direct SATA connection. Portable SSDs usually can’t match the performance of their SATA counterparts, but they are closer to the native performance than to normal thumb drive speeds.

At last year’s CES, Samsung introduced their Portable SSD T1, their first foray into this market. This year they’ve got a successor, the Portable SSD T3. Externally, the biggest difference is that the T3 switches to a metal case from the black plastic of the T1. This doubles the overall mass, bringing it up to 51 grams. The T3 also adopts the reversible Type C USB port, replacing the T1’s micro USB 3 Type B port. The T3 includes a Type C to Type A cable.

We don’t have much information on what’s changed internally. The T1 used the same controller and TLC 3D NAND as the 850 EVO. After the launch of the T1, the 850 EVO and Pro product lines gained 2TB models thanks to Samsung’s newer MHX controller, which expanded the amount of RAM that could be accessed and allowed the drives to manage twice as much flash. The Portable SSD T3 introduces a 2TB option so we’re pretty sure it is also adopting the MHX controller for at least that capacity. Like the 850 EVO and Pro, the smaller capacities may be using the earlier MEX and MGX controllers, but that shouldn’t hinder their performance.

The Portable SSD T3 will be available in early March. Pricing has not been announced.

Transcend Announces SuperMLC: Pseudo-SLC SSDs For Industrial Market

Transcend offers one of the broadest ranges of SSDs and flash memory cards, with products for almost every form factor and even some legacy interfaces like IDE. Part of the variety comes from products intended for industrial use, with features such as extended temperature ratings or the use of SLC NAND for improved write endurance and performance.  However, trends in flash memory technology and the SSD market over the past few years have led to SLC products all but disappearing from the market as MLC-based SSDs have demonstrated sufficient performance and durability for even the most demanding enterprise customers. Many of Transcend’s SLC-based products have now been outclassed by their MLC-based counterparts using newer controllers and reaping the performance benefits of higher capacities and more flash chips.

For these reasons, Transcend has announced that their next generation of industrial-grade SSDs will be taking a new approach to providing high durability. What they are calling SuperMLC will consist of premium-binned MLC flash memory that is operated as SLC flash, with only one bit stored in each flash cell instead of two. We’ve seen this sort of pseudo-SLC operating mode used by many TLC-based SSDs and a few MLC drives to provide a small but fast write cache, but we haven’t previously seen this used for an entire drive.

For the cost of halving usable capacity relative to normal two bit per cell MLC, Transcend claims their SuperMLC can provide four times the sequential write speed and an effective Program/Erase Cycle rating of 30,000. Flash manufacturers are increasingly reluctant to disclose specifics of durability, but based on whole-drive endurance ratings and wear indicators we’ve been able to estimate that even the 3D NAND used in Samsung’s 850 Pro consumer MLC drive is only warranted for 6,000 P/E cycles, and most recent planar NAND MLC is rated for around 3,000 P/E cycles. Selective binning often means that enterprise drives have higher durability, but using the flash as SLC is guaranteed to add even more to its endurance.

By starting with the same MLC flash memory used in mainstream SSDs instead of the niche product that is SLC NAND, it’s likely that Transcend will be able to cut costs significantly as they’re buying from a market with much greater supply and MLC dies that don’t make the cut for their SuperMLC products can still be sold in their consumer-grade products.

Transcend plans to introduce SuperMLC drives over the course of 2016. The products announced so far are SSD510K (2.5″ SATA), MSA510 (mSATA), HSD510 (half-slim form factor; essentially a 2.5″ drive PCB that’s only half as long as a 2.5″ drive case), and MTS460 and MTS860 will be two sizes of M.2 (presumably also using a SATA interface rather than PCIe).