ASUS Announces ROG Strix Arion S500 Portable NVMe SSD

ASUS officially announced the ROG Strix Arion S500, the brand’s latest USB-C portable NVMe SSD. The product is the brand’s latest accessory, giving consumer yet another ultra-fast storage option.

Specs-wise, the Strix Arion S500 uses a USB-C 3.2 Gen2 port, capable of maintaining sequential transfer speeds of up to 1050MB/s, while the provided storage is an NVMe Gen3 M.2 SSD, with a capacity of 500GB. Further, the SSD itself uses a Phison controller.

Of course, one of the main selling points of the Arion S500 is its weight: unlike the conventional HDD, this portable storage is made from an aluminium alloy. On top of that, the cover also doubles as a heatsink for the SSD, complete with thermal pads for more efficient heat dissipation.

At the time of writing, ASUS did not specify when the ROG Strix Arion S500 will be available. However, the SSD is already up for pre-order on the brand’s official Lazada and Shopee store pages. Price-wise, the SRP is set at RM559.

Kingston Announces New NV1 NVMe SSD; Starts From RM269

Kingston officially announced its latest SSD entry today, the NV1. The brand’s latest product is an NVMe Gen 3 SSD, designed and catered towards the entry-level market segment.

Specs-wise, the NV1 features relatively lower sequential read and write speeds at 2100MB/s and 1700MB/s, respectively and made for the PCIe 3.0 interface. In addition, this new M.2 2280 NVMe SSD is available in three storage configuration: 500GB, 1TB, and 2TB. Regardless of capacity, all three SKUs will run at the established speeds out of the box.

As we said, while those speeds aren’t as blindingly fast as other PCIe 3.0 SSDs, Kingston isn’t targeting the NV1 towards consumers that demand high-speed and high-performance. Rather, the brand says that its new SSD would better suited for laptops or small form factor PC; provided that the motherboard of the latter is adequately equipped with the necessary M.2 slot and supports the PCIe 3.0.

At the very least. Likewise, Kingston has hinted at the NV1 being utilized as an external storage unit, provided that one has the appropriate enclosure.

The Kingston NV1 is available starting today in Malaysia, with prices starting at RM269 for 500GB, RM489 for 1TB, and RM 939 for the 2TB version. All three models come with a limited 3-year warranty.