CES 2018: Mushkin Announces M.2 Drives and More

Today at CES 2018, Mushkin unveiled a large expansion of their product line. The products range from super fast M.2 PCIe storage to external SSD storage solutions and flash drives.  In all, they have announced seven new products that will be rolling out in 2018.

M.2 Storage Solutions

After recognizing the need for high-performance storage in the consumer market, Muskin has partnered with SMI (Silicon Motion) to produce three new PCIe based M.2 drives and one SATA based M.2 drive. They all come with a three-year warranty and a 1.5 Million Hour MTBF and cover a wide range of performance. The top dog, performance-wise would be the Pilot-E a PCIe 3.0×4 based drive with a max sequential read/write of 3.5 GB/s read and 3.0 GB/s write. Moving down the scale we have the Pilot coming in slightly slower with 3.2/1.9 GB/s sequential read/write, the Helix-L at 2.4/1.7 GB/s sequential read/write. Mushkin has also expanded on their  Triactor SSD line up with the inclusion of a SATA M.2 based SSD called the Triactor 3DL M.2 with max sequential read/write speeds of 550 MB/s read and 505 MB/s write. Below is a table which covers additional specifications of these M.2 drives.

Up next a few pictures of the new M.2 drives from Mushkin:

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Carbon EXT SSD

Another first for Mushkin is the Carbon EXT external SSD drive. Sporting a black finish with a brushed gunmetal trim it looks pretty sharp, it’s also compact and easily portable with dimensions of 93mm x 50mm x 13mm which overall is smaller than my cell phone. The Carbon EXT is equipped with a USB 3.1 Gen1 interface (Type “A” and “C” cables are included) with transfer speeds of 450 MB/s sequential read and write and 45k IOPS 4K random read and write.  It uses the Asmedia ASM1153E USB controller and the Silicon Motion SM2258XT SSD controller with low power, shock resistant NAND flash memory. The Carbon EXT is available in 120GB-1TB capacities and carries a three-year warranty.

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SWAP USB 3.1 Flash Drive

The highly versatile and compact SWAP USB 3.1 drive is very interesting. It features USB 3.1 Gen1 type “A” and type “C” interfaces making it perfect for transferring data across multiple devices such as PCs, tablets, and smartphones. With fast transfer rates of 225 MB/s read and 65 MB/s write and a durable, all-metal housing it has the speed and convenience for people on the go. Currently available in 32 GB and 64 GB capacities the SWAP USB 3.1 flash drive also carries a three-year warranty.

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Silverline Makeover

The Silverline DDR4 from Mushkin is getting a facelift this year with a redesigned heat spreader. Cut from aircraft grade aluminum for fast heat dissipation with an ” industrial-yet elegant-gamer look” in Mushkin’s words. The heatsinks diamond cut design looks great and being an economical solution it will fit just about any budget.

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It looks like Mushkin has been very busy over the last year preparing these new product lines. A new external SSD, that nifty little USB 3.1 flash drive, and four new M.2 storage devices which appear to be tailored to different performance/budget segments. You’ll be able to check these out at Mushkin’s website after CES 2018 wraps up.

Shawn Jennings-Johan45