Storage

The 4-bay Beelink ME Pro NAS has been refreshed, and the new variant comes with the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 470, a powerful Gorgon Point APU. It has a max rated capacity of 132TB, and the launch price is CNY 4,995, about $741.

YMTC breaks into the global NAND top three for the first time, hitting 14% shipment share in Q2 2026 as it edges out Kioxia, albeit its revenue share lags behind volume share.

The Beelink ME Pro lineup now has a two-bay NAS that's powered by the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 470. Compared to the HX 370-equipped variant, there's a notable change in terms of the NPU, and there's support for higher memory clock speeds. The barebone costs CNY 4,795, about $711.

SK hynix approved 54.3 trillion won for new DRAM and NAND fabs on August 7. The first cleanrooms open in December 2028 and June 2029, and the company says it will install equipment only as demand warrants — not a near-term fix for RAM prices.

Fresh comments from memory vendors have added weight to supply-chain claims that much of 2027's DRAM production has already been allocated. As AI servers and HBM consume a growing share of global output, PC and smartphone makers could face tighter memory allocations.

SK Hynix has unveiled the first standard specifications for High Bandwidth Flash (HBF), a new memory tier designed to sit between HBM and SSDs in AI systems. The open standard supports up to 512 GB capacities, bandwidth of up to 3 TB/s and UCIe connectivity.

Apart from robotic vacuums and lawnmowers or humanoid robots, the FCC ban on foreign connected devices includes much more gear. A ban on smart inverters, for instance, could wreak havoc on off-grid and emergency home backup setups.

Kioxia has started shipping the new CM10 Series SSDs to select datacenter customers. Featuring ~92 % higher sequential read and up to ~85 % higher random read speeds over the previous PCIe 5.0 generation, the latest PCIe 6.0 NVMe 2.1 CM10 SSDs leverage ultra-fast BiCS Flash 10 memory chips, making enterprise SSDs an increasingly important component of AI infrastructure.

The Xiaomi NAS, which was recently released in China, has UPS support, and the company has just launched a new power supply for it. It has an 18Wh battery capacity, and there's no need for an additional USB cable. The launch price is CNY 349, about $51.

If successful, Final Fantasy XIV Online could boost MicroSD Express card sales. The new digital-only Switch 2 version will occupy 46% of the Nintendo console’s storage capacity. Gamers also need a monthly subscription when the MMORPG launches on its August 4th release date.

TerraMaster has officially unveiled the D8 Hybrid 2 DAS. Featuring support for up to four hard drives and four NVMe SSDs, the direct-attached storage system can be equipped with up to a whopping 152 TB of storage.

The RAM and storage market has been in turmoil for over a year now thanks to massive demand from the AI industry. Fortunately, it looks like there is light at the end of the tunnel, at least for NAND flash.

SanDisk has quietly launched its compact CZB Series of USB-C flash drives, offering capacities from 64GB to 256GB and read speeds of up to 250MB/s. Starting at $20 in the US, the portable drives target everyday file transfers and backups.

There is another configuration available for the Beelink ME Pro, and this newly added option for the NAS is powered by an Intel Wildcat Lake CPU. It has 10GbE and 2.5GbE ports, marketed storage support of 124TB, and a launch price of CNY 4,719, about $697.

The four-bay Beelink ME Pro 370 has been launched in China alongside its two-bay model. It’s powered by the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370, a high-performance AMD CPU, and supports up to 132TB of storage. The starting launch price is CNY 4,299, about $634.

The Beelink ME Pro is now available with the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370. Its two-bay variant comes with 72TB storage support, and there are 10GbE and 2.5GbE Ethernet ports. The starting price is CNY 3,999 in China, about $590.

Microsoft has restored a 25-year-old account after its handling of a hacking incident triggered widespread online backlash. The case has highlighted concerns about digital ownership, cloud storage and whether users without a large public platform can secure effective support.

Physical media is evolving, even if future PlayStation consoles only support digital games. A British tech guru believes Sony should consider small 3D NAND flash cartridges. This fast, removable storage is expensive at higher capacities, but would address complaints from collectors.

For photographers and videographers, an SD card reader is an essential feature. For most business users, however, it is no longer a deciding factor when buying a laptop. Using the Schenker Connect 15 as an example, we take a look at the transfer speeds you can typically expect from integrated card readers today and whether they are still fast enough for users who actually depend on them.

Global smartphone shipments dropped by 11% in the second quarter of 2026. Smartphone memory prices have surged as chip makers increasingly prioritize the lucrative AI data-center segment. Samsung and Apple are both handling the crisis remarkably well. By contrast, their Chinese competitors are heading downhill fast.

The Beelink ME Pro now has a more affordable 2-bay configuration. It's powered by the Intel Pentium Silver J5005, and it has two M.2 and two SATA slots. The launch price of the barebone NAS is CNY 999, around $147.

Update: Lenovo statement | Up until now, SSDs for laptops have been mostly made by well known names from the US, Korea or Japan, like Samsung, Kioxia or Western Digital. In the midst of the RAM and SSD crisis, a new player has appeared: Notebokcheck has tested a YMTC SSD, which powers a Lenovo ThinkBook 14 laptop.

The DRAM crisis is far from reaching its peak. According to data from Bernstein, memory prices will rise another 43 percent next year before RAM and SSD prices plummet in 2028. However, prices are not expected to fully return to pre-crisis levels.

The DRAM crisis is making not only RAM but also SSDs significantly more expensive. Samsung is now apparently planning a new entry-level SSD in the 990 series, which could be offered at a lower price than the 990 Evo Plus by omitting the DRAM cache and using affordable QLC NAND.

Samsung, Micron, and SK Hynix face a federal class-action lawsuit accusing them of colluding to restrict consumer DRAM supply while prioritizing high-bandwidth memory for AI customers, allegedly driving prices up by as much as 700%. The case highlights mounting pressure across the tech sector, with plaintiffs seeking damages and an injunction as rising memory costs ripple through PCs, smartphones, and game consoles.

The Beelink ME Pro with the AMD Ryzen 7 H 255 has been launched in China. This 4-bay NAS has a compact form factor, 10G Ethernet port, and 136TB storage support. The launch price for the barebone is CNY 2,739, about $403.

Sony has announced that starting in January 2028, physical game disc production for all new games releasing on PlayStation consoles will be discontinued.

The first Xiaomi NAS is now official in China, and it has entered the crowdfunding phase with an affordable starting price. Called the Smart Storage, it starts at CNY 2,299, about $338, and there's support for up to 60TB of storage.

Xiaomi has announced its first NAS, which is set to be available for crowdfunding from July 01, 2026, and it's confirmed to be affordable. Just a few days ahead, a fresh leak has detailed the system by sharing the specs of the engineering sample.

ETA Prime’s teardown of Valve’s $1,428 Steam Machine shows a compact SteamOS gaming PC that is moderately serviceable, with accessible storage but more involved disassembly required to reach the RAM.

Framework is upgrading the SSDs of all Laptop 13 Pro pre-orders, giving buyers more storage and lower order costs before shipments begin. However, increasing CPU price increases could raise overall system costs soon.

The first Xiaomi NAS is now official, and in the pre-configured form, it's set to be available with up to 16TB of storage. As for the base config, it will come with 4TB of storage and start at CNY 2,299, about $338.

Samsung has announced the industry's first UFS 5.0 storage chip, achieving sequential read speeds of up to 10.8 GB/s and write speeds of up to 9.5 GB/s — more than double the ceiling on the current UFS 4.1 standard. The chip is also 40% more power-efficient than UFS 4.1 and measures 7.5mm x 13mm x 0.9mm. Mass production is scheduled to begin in Q4 2026 at capacities up to 1TB.

The TerraMaster F4-425 Pro NAS features eight processor cores, 16 GB of RAM, four hard drive slots, and three M.2 SSD slots, all housed in a high-quality aluminum enclosure. With two Ethernet ports and several high-speed 10 Gbit/s USB ports, the NAS is designed to be particularly versatile.

OpenAI's Codex CLI is quietly destroying SSDs. A misconfigured logging sink writes up to 640 TB/year to a local database, which is way more than a typical drive's lifetime endurance. The bug is still open on GitHub.

Apple CEO Tim Cook has admitted in an exclusive Wall Street Journal interview that price hikes for Apple products are coming due to the severe shortage of memory components as AI data centers continue to demand more of these. Impacted products and timing were not revealed.

CheckMag Lexar celebrates its 30th anniversary in 2026. For the celebrations, the storage manufacturer gave us a closer look at its manufacturing capabilities and vision.

SanDisk has unveiled one of the most expensive PS5 storage upgrades yet. The $2960 Optimus GX Pro 850P adds 8TB of space to the console, enough for hundreds of games. The company is receiving blowback after pricing the PlayStation licensed NVMe SSD well above comparable PCIe 4.0 drives.

In June 2026, RAM in Germany already costs more than four times as much as it did a year ago. While prices are no longer rising as quickly as they did over the winter, the DRAM crisis continues to worsen, with 32 GB of RAM already costing well over €300.

Anyone who needs fast, UHS-II-capable microSD cards—for instance, due to new gaming handhelds—will have to pay a lot of money, as our look at the current market shows. However, the significantly faster microSD Express cards are not an alternative either, as they are slower when running in compatibility mode.

SanDisk already announced SDUC cards back in 2024. However, these SD cards never hit the market. Now there is a second attempt. 4 and in some cases 8 TB will be available as microSD and SD cards respectively, split across the Ultra and Extreme series. The new capacities strictly require new readers. Even new SD Express readers cannot handle them.

Following the China launch, Ugreen has now officially launched the NASync DXP GT series NAS. The NASync DXP GT series consists of two models, the DXP4800 GT and the DXP2800 GT. The former features a new black and gold chassis, an AMD Ryzen processor, 8 GB of RAM, dual 10 GbE ports, and support for up to 144 TB of storage.

Ugreen has launched a new 2-bay NAS in the global market with the model number DXP2800 GT. The company’s DXP GT series consists of two models that should offer strong performance and support local AI applications. It’s compact and designed for storing large amounts of data.

Ugreen is working on an SSD with a wide range of visible status information. It even works independently of the operating system, since a small touchscreen is built into the SSD. Ugreen showed us what the company has planned.

QNAP is planning a particularly compact desktop NAS system that still offers a great deal of flexibility. A total of ten drives can be installed, ranging from hard drives, M.2 SSDs to the practical E1.S blades. The system can even be expanded via an SFF-8088 cable.

Minisforum has announced four new products capable of running AI locally. The MS-03 and M2 Pro mini PCs are powered by Intel Panther Lake CPUs, which provide up to 50 TOPS and 180 TOPS of AI compute power respectively, while the fanless S5 and N5 Max NASs provide up to 33 TOPS and 126 TOPS respectively.

Following the unavoidable shift in the Linux ecosystem, OviOS 6 drops SysV and moves to systemd. The list of new features includes a browser-based dashboard, S3-compatible object storage, NVMe over Fabrics, auditd security auditing, Cockpit integration, the ability to run entirely from the system memory via PXE network boot, and more.

There's a more affordable version of the Aoostar WTR Max available, and instead of being powered by an AMD processor, the newer model packs an Intel Core i5 1235U. It retains the 11-bay design, but the RAM support maxes out at 96GB.