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Wednesday, May 26th, 2021
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| 12:00p | Western Digital Introduces WD Black D30 Game Drive External SSDs
Western Digital is adding a new external SSD to their WD_BLACK product line: the WD Black D30 Game Drive SSD. The D30 is a bus-powered USB SSD offering up to 900MB/s read speeds, with capacities from 500GB to 2TB. There is also a special version for Xbox console gaming, which changes some of the drive's trim to white instead of black and comes with a one month trial membership of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, but is otherwise functionally identical.
The new WD_BLACK D30 products fit into the WD_BLACK product line between the D10 external hard drive and the D50 Game Dock (Thunderbolt 3) with optional NVMe storage. The D30 also complements the portable drives under the WD_BLACK brand, including the P10 portable hard drive, and the P50 portable SSD that uses USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 to hit speeds of up to 2 GB/s. The WD_BLACK D30 Game Drive SSD is available starting today with an MSRP of $89.99 for the 500GB version. The WD_BLACK D30 Game Drive SSD for Xbox is up for pre-order and will be available next month, with prices starting at $99.99 for the 500GB version. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 12:00p | Western Digital Introduces WD Black SN750 SE SSD: Entry-Level PCIe Gen4
Among several announcements today, Western Digital is introducing a new more affordable PCIe Gen4 SSD under their gaming-oriented WD Black brand (styled WD_BLACK). The new WD Black SN750 SE is not just a refresh of their existing SN750 but instead appears to be an entirely new and different drive. The SN750 SE brings PCIe Gen4 support but in other respects seems to be a downgrade compared to the SN750, and appears to have more in common with the WD Blue SN550. Based on the pictures and the few performance specifications that have been disclosed so far, the SN750 SE looks like a 4-channel DRAMless NVMe SSD, with respectable sequential read throughput but reduced sequential write throughput compared to the original SN750. Random IO performance was not included on the data sheet—not a good sign.
The WD Black SN750 SE is intended to be the more affordable Gen4 alternative to their flagship SN850. The smaller controller, apparent lack of DRAM, and newer NAND flash all combine to make the SN750 SE a significantly lower-power drive than its nominal predecessor, though the more interesting comparison would be against the WD Blue SN550. Write endurance ratings for the SN750 SE match the original SN750, but the 2TB model has gone missing. Pricing starts at $54.99 for the 250GB model, the midpoint between the WD Blue line and the existing WD Black products. The WD Black SN750 SE is now available for pre-order direct from Western Digital, and will be available through retailers and system integrators this summer. This isn't the first time that Western Digital has made a mess of the naming of their WD Black SSDs. The first generation in 2017 was simply the WD Black PCIe SSD. The next year, they released another WD Black SSD that was a huge upgrade: switching from a Marvell controller to their new in-house controller, and from 15nm planar TLC to 64L 3D TLC NAND flash memory—but the branding was confusingly similar, and the best way to tell which generation you were buying was to check if the advertised capacity was 256GB/512GB (old) or 250GB/500GB/1TB (new). In 2018 Western Digital made the most minor of refreshes by releasing the WD Black SN750; the most significant change over its predecessor was the addition of an unambiguous (until now) model number. The hardware was identical and the firmware got only a minor update, and a version with a heatsink was added. That SN750 has been overdue for an update to use 96L instead of 64L TLC, a change which Western Digital made for their OEM drives by replacing the SN720 with the SN730. But the SN750 SE isn't the simple NAND refresh we expected based on its name, nor is it a true successor and upgrade to the SN750. The SN750 SE should make for a great mainstream NVMe drive. Western Digital has an excellent track record for getting good performance from DRAMless NVMe SSDs, and this will probably be enough to leapfrog the recent Samsung 980. But using a name that's so similar to such a different product is a serious disappointment. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 12:01p | Western Digital Unveils Multimedia-Focused SanDisk Professional Portfolio
Western Digital's G-Technology brand is well-known in multimedia production circles with products ranging from portable SSDs to multi-HDD RAID enclosures. As part of its Flash Perspective event today, the company is introducing the SanDisk Professional tag for products sold earlier under the G-Technology brand. In addition to new products targeting the prosumers and production houses, existing products are also getting speed bumps with updates in the USB interface. With increased resolutions and frame rates, content capture on location (as well as post-processing) now deals with huge amounts of data. On the capture side, we have seen multimedia-recording equipment support new card formats such as SD Express, CFast, and CFexpress. These allow capture at speeds exceeding even SATA SSDs, with CFexpress being the current card of choice for professional capture equipment. SanDisk has traditionally played in the consumer market with various memory cards. On the CFexpress side, they have been offering the Extreme PRO lineup - however, the other products in the Extreme PRO category are often meant for the consumer base too. With SanDisk Professional, the company has introduced the PRO-CINEMA CFexpress VPG400 (with a guaranteed 400MBps write speed) for multimedia production houses with the 256GB version carrying a MSRP of $450.
Card readers that integrate into optional card docks are quite popular in the industry, allowing for simultaneous ingestion of content from multiple capture devices. One of the first products in this segment was the Thunderbolt 2-equipped Lexar Professional Workflow HR2, which we reviewed back in 2017. Though Lexar dropped the ball in terms of keeping up with the latest technology, vendors such as ATech Flash Technologies carry products such as the Blackjet TX-4DS. Equipped with a Thunderbolt 3 upstream interface, the TX-4DS supports up to 4 different swappable modules to support a range of physical media (CFast / CFexpress / XQD / Sony SxS / RED MINI-MAG / SDXC / 2.5" SATA / M.2 PCIe etc.). Western Digital has also decided to play in this market - the SanDisk Professional PRO-READER series comes with a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C interface (up to 10 Gbps) and supports different types of cards including CFast ($90), CFexpress ($100), RED MINI-MAG ($200), and CF / SD / microSD ($80).
These readers can also integrate into a 4-bay PRO-DOCK with a MSRP of $500. The Thunderbolt dock (with support for traditional USB-C hosts also) includes additional USB Type-C and Type-A ports.
In terms of product upgrades, the G-DRIVE ArmorLock SSD introduced last year with a 2TB SKU now comes with the SanDisk Professional branding and a 4TB SKU. The G-RAID and G-RAID SHUTTLE products with the enterprise HDDs are also getting updated interfaces to work with both Thunderbolt and USB hosts. The entire product portfolio is expected to hit shelves in June 2021. The G-Technology brand has got significant traction in the professional market. However, SanDisk is better known to consumers moving into the prosumer category and SOHO / SMBs just starting out with video workflows. By retaining the G-Technology product names under the 'SanDisk Professional' tag, Western Digital has managed to create a unified branding for its entire portfolio of products targeting the full spectrum of content capture and post-processing markets. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1:00p | MSI MEG Z590 Ace Motherboard Review: Premium Rocket Lake with TB4 and 4x M.2 Prior to the release of Intel's 11th Generation Rocket Lake processors, motherboard vendors unveiled their ranges of Z590 motherboards ready for the realm of PCIe 4.0. We saw a lot of refreshed models, with the MSI MEG Z590 Ace being one of them. Typically positioned as a bridge between the mid-range and the flagship models, the Ace has offered exceptional features in the past, with slightly fewer bells and whistles of models such as MSI's Godlike, but still plenty to get excited about. The MSI MEG Z590 Ace includes an impressive four M.2 slots, six SATA ports, 2.5 gigabit Ethernet, Wi-Fi 6, and Intel's latest Thunderbolt 4 Maple Ridge controller. Looking to dominate the premium motherboard market segment, we deep dive into the Ace in this review. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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