October 30th, 2018 by Lyle Smith
QNAP TS-332X NAS Review
The QNAP TS-332X is the second model of the company's multifaceted 3-bay NAS family, featuring three M.2 SSD slots and support for RAID5. Like all QNAP consumer devices, the TS-332X seems simple on the outside. However, the new NAS comes equipped with a comprehensive range of useful features. This includes SSD Caching, Auto Tiering, a 10GbE SFP+ port and three M.2 SATA 6Gb/s SSD slots, all of which help to make this an integrable device for new businesses and SMB environments looking for a NAS solution.
October 30th, 2018 by Adam Armstrong
Excelero Announces NVMesh 2
Toady Excelero announced the latest edition of its software-only storage solution, NVMesh 2. Excelero states that NVMesh is the lowest latency block storage platform with the new version to only improve upon this. According to the company, NVMesh 2 will make it easier for enterprises and service providers to deploy shared NVMe storage at local performance across a far wider range of network protocols and applications.
October 29th, 2018 by Lyle Smith
In The Lab: Netstor NP631N M.2 NVMe to PCIe Host Adapter
The Netstor NP631N is a PCIe 3.0 m.2 adapter that brings m.2 SSD compatibility to just about every desktop and server, and does so while delivering up to 32Gbps in performance via any PCIe x4, x8, and x16 slot. M.2 adapter cards are a great way for users to get the speedy NVMe performance if they don`t have a modern motherboard with a built-in M.2 slot. They're also handy for those looking to install more than one M.2 drive, as most new consumer-grade motherboards only have one or two slots available. In the enterprise space, M.2 adapters bring cost-effective boot-drive alternatives to servers without taking a front-mount slot and offer higher performance than other alternatives.
October 29th, 2018 by Adam Armstrong
IBM To Acquire Red Hat
Over the weekend IBM announced that it would be acquiring Red Hat for $34 billion. I believe this is the largest tech acquisition of 2018 and perhaps the largest software acquisition to date. The acquisition will make IBM the largest Hybrid Cloud Provider in the world.
October 26th, 2018 by Michael Rink
Veeam Announces Integration with NetApp HCI
Veeam announced that Update 4 of Veeam Backup & Replication, expected later this year, will add native storage integration with Element Software,the storage operating system that powers NetApp HCI and SolidFire. Veeam first joined NetApp's Alliance program four years ago, in 2014. Since then they've been steadily increasing support and integration. Earlier this month the two companies worked together to allow NetApp to resale Veaam Availability Solutions.
October 26th, 2018 by Adam Armstrong
Oracle Announces AMD EPYC Instances
During Oracle Open World 2018 in San Francisco, Oracle announced, through collaboration with AMD, a new set of instances. Oracle and AMD will provide a new “E” series of compute instances on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. The new instances leverage AMD’s EPYC CPUs to bring higher core count, memory bandwidth, I/O bandwidth, advanced security features, and value. The first instance available is the Compute Standard E2 platform.
October 25th, 2018 by Adam Armstrong
Lexar Announces 512GB A2 microSD Card
Lexar announced the largest A2 microSD card yet with the 512GB Lexar High-Performance 633x microSDXC UHS-I card. The card is ideal for high-end smartphones and mobile devices. Lexar will be demoing the card at PhotoPlus Expo held at Javits Convention Center in New York City, New York, from October 25th - 27th.
October 25th, 2018 by Adam Armstrong
Western Digital Expands Its Surveillance Storage & Analytics Portfolio
Western Digital Corp (WDC) announced that it has expanded its portfolio for surveillance with new storage and analytics options. The company has expanded the capacity of the previously announced WD Purple SD cards to 256GB. WD is also introducing a new 3D NAND UFS-Based EFD for Surveillance, what they claim to be an industry first, and the Western Digital Device Analytics for gathering information from the new surveillance devices.
October 25th, 2018 by Michael Rink
Mesosphere Kubernetes Engine Enters General Availability
Today, Mesosphere announced the general availability of Mesosphere Kubernetes Engine (MKE) as part of the update to 1.12 for Mesosphere DC/OS. Mesosphere Kubernetes Engine delivers pure Kubernetes-as-a-Service on multi-cloud and edge with resource pooling. We covered it in September 2017 when the beta was initially released. Mesosphere’s distributed cloud operating system (DC/OS) aims to deliver any software technology “as-a-Service” across multi-cloud, datacenter, and edge.
October 24th, 2018 by Michael Rink
NetApp Unveils Cloud & HCI updates
NetApp (NASDAQ: NTAP) today announced a new verified architecture for Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform on NetApp HCI, updates to Trident, its automated provisioner solving the persistent storage challenge for containers, as well as enhanced flexibility for DevOps on both NetApp Cloud Volumes for Google Cloud Platform and NetApp Cloud Volumes for AWS.
The Liqid Element AIC is an extreme performance, high capacity PCIe SSD, incorporating four m.2 NVMe SSDs and a PCIe switch in a HHHL package. It is designed to handle performance-demanding workloads and offer full compatibility with existing systems that support NVMe devices. Available in the half-height half-length standard form factor, the Element sports a Gen 3.0 x8 PCIe interface that utilizes the latest NVME protocol. The Element has both Data Center and Enterprise models available, with capacities up to 15.40TB and 12.80TB, and offers incredible performance up to 1.25M IOPS or 7GB/s in bandwidth.
The Memblaze PBlaze5 910 is a high-performing NVMe SSD designed to significantly enhance application performance. Equipped with 64-layer 3D NAND, the PBlaze5 features massive single-disk capacity up to 15.36TB, which is 40% more than previous models. Memblaze indicates that this will allow their new SSD to increase rack density in storage server applications, saving space and lowering energy costs. Adding ever more energy efficiency to data centers, the 910 series is also reported to increase performance by 38% per watt and supports 16 power mode settings, ranging from 10W to 25W.
The Dell EMC SC5020 fits with Dell EMC's midrange storage portfolio and is available in a range of configurations including HDD, SSD and hybrid. Billed as a flexible workhorse for SMBs, the SC5020 doesn't drop features/functionality to be price competitive. In fact, in terms of capabilities, the SC5020 is on par with the 
Today Samsung released its own take of quad-level cell (QLC) NAND with the 860 QVO SSD. Samsung continues to do its own thing, even with naming conventions, and refers to the technology as 4-bit. The 860 QVO is aimed at maintaining Samsung’s 3-bit performance while lower the costs and thus creating a more efficient and cost-effective product. 
During their Step Ahead event in Beijing, Memblaze launched a new series of 500 NVME drives as well as an expansion of its 900 line to 910 and 916. We will be looking at the 910 series in this review. The new 910 drives are offered in two form factors and leverage 64-Layer 3D NAND, which allows the drives to come in capacities as high as 16TB. This higher density can lead to denser racks or rack consolidation in the data center.
The AMD Radeon Pro WX 8200 is a GPU solution designed for professionals who work with high-end graphics applications such as design, manufacturing, media and entertainment. It is also ideal for those who do their gaming on a notebook. Last year, we looked at a range of professional graphics cards, including high-end (
