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Western Digital (WD) has released a firmware update for its solid-state drives (SSDs) following numerous user complaints of blue screen errors (BSOD) when installing the Windows 11 version 24H2 update. BSOD Issue in Windows 11 24H2 Installation Owners of WD SSDs, especially the WD Black SN770 and WD Blue SN580, have experienced an issue during the Windows 11 24H2 update. When running the operating system or updating it, users faced a crash accompanied by a blue screen error; normal operation of the device or installation of updates was thus impossible. Later, it became clear that the error was caused by the incompatibility of the outdated SSD firmware with the new Windows update, in particular, due to the lack of DRAM in the drives and the use of system memory for caching. New Firmware From WD to Resolve the Issue Western Digital has responded quickly to the issue by releasing a new firmware version that addresses compatibility issues with Windows 11 24H2. The company recommends that all users of WD Black and WD Blue SSDs immediately update the firmware via the proprietary WD Dashboard software before attempting to install Windows 11 version 24H2. It has also been reported that Microsoft may stop access to Windows 11 24H2 for PCs with SSDs without new firmware. #VPS #Windows #WesternDigital #SSD

Microsoft has announced the launch of OpenVMM, a new open-source project for a cross-platform virtual machine monitor (VMM) written in Rust. OpenVMM is modular, cross-platform, and general-purpose, enabling it to operate on various operating systems, including: - Windows - Linux - macOS The project has open-source code licensed under MIT and is available for developers on GitHub at the repository microsoft/openvmm. Support for Diverse Platforms OpenVMM is a versatile tool for virtualization as it supports a wide range of architectures and virtualization APIs. Key supported platforms include: - Windows with WHP (Windows Hypervisor Platform) - Linux with KVM and MSHV (Microsoft Hypervisor) - macOS with Hypervisor.framework There is also the option to use OpenVMM as a (paravisor) within OpenHCL, allowing for virtualization services to be provided from the guest environment itself. Documentation and Resources for Developers Microsoft has prepared detailed documentation for developers, including guides for setting up OpenVMM as a traditional VMM and using OpenHCL as a (paravisor). It includes recommendations for locally building OpenVMM and OpenHCL, making the project accessible to a wide range of developers. With OpenVMM, Microsoft opens new horizons in virtualization. As a result, developers worldwide gain the opportunity to streamline processes and continue working with various guest operating systems. #VPS #Windows #Microsoft #OpenVMM

For all content creators and developers, version 5.2 was released, which greatly improves some of the aspects associated with the management and creation of sites. In addition, version 4.4.9 was released. Updates in Joomla 5.2.0 - Tours concerning new features and improvements. Immediately after the update of version 5.2, a familiarization tour will be launched, and you can also slightly modify such a feature. - Adding the right categories to the menu. To simplify the work with Joomla, you can now add the desired categories in the menu and thus significantly speed up the workflow. - In TinyMCE became available selector SCC. With this feature, it will be much easier to make changes to links, now you do not need to manually style HTML. - Event classes are now available in plugins, with the help of which management becomes easier and development becomes more modular. - Changes have been made to make it easier to work with multilingual sites. It is no longer necessary to duplicate menus for each language separately. - It is now possible to customize HTML templates from the panel. The ability to professionally personalize emails with the addition of the desired logo has a significant impact on the branding of the company. - User-friendly module for displaying content. With a more intuitive module, it becomes much easier to customize the display and filter content according to needs. - Added a new field feature for forms that allows you to display fields and hide them as needed. - There is now support for a wider character set to improve password security. This improvement increases general security. - Some improvements have been made to task management. If a task is not completed, the admin will be instantly alerted. Management and tracking will become much easier. - SEF URL and routing parameters have been upgraded to improve SEO performance. This change will affect the number of unnecessary redirects and duplicates in content. - To speed up work with media files, the media manager has been slightly modified. Now the manager can automatically select the last downloaded file. Thus, media files can be added to an article faster. - To improve security and performance, support for PHP 8.4 has been added. Full compatibility with this version of PHP has a positive impact during the transition of hosting environments. #PHP #Joomla #HTML #VPS

Kioxia, one of the world's leading flash memory manufacturers, has introduced its new XD8 series server SSDs with PCIe 5.0 interface. The new SSDs are expected to improve the performance of data centers and servers themselves due to their high data transfer speed. This line will be the third version of the compact SSDs to be released, which differs from the previous ones by being NVMe 2.0 and OCP 2.5 compliant, making them suitable for use in modern cloud environments. The Kioxia XD8 drives deliver truly exceptional performance, with read speeds of up to 12.5GB/s, write speeds of up to 5.8GB/s, random reads of up to 2.3 million IOPS (almost half the speed of previous generation drives), and a 25% increase in random write speeds compared to the last generation. Kioxia uses in-house memory in the new SSDs, which come in capacities from 1.92TB to 7.68TB. Since heat dissipation is an important issue for high-speed PCIe 5.0 SSDs, the manufacturer also offers several chassis options with heatsinks of 9.5 mm, 15 mm, and 25 mm. The new server SSDs from Kioxia support advanced data protection technologies, including encryption and power failure protection, making them an attractive solution for businesses focused on security and stability. Currently, the company is already supplying customers with trial samples of the new SSDs. #VPS #SSD #server #Kioxia

The Windows 11 24H2 update is causing unexpected problems with certain models of Western Digital NVMe SSDs. Users are reporting blue screen of death (BSOD) errors occurring with WD Black SN770 and WD Blue SN580 drives. These models lack built-in DRAM and use system memory for data caching via Host Memory Buffer (HMB) technology. The issue lies in the incorrect allocation of memory for HMB, where these SSDs may use up to 200 MB of system memory, resulting in a conflict that triggers the BSOD. Typically, SSDs use 64 MB of system memory, although some may require more. There is a temporary fix using the Windows Registry Editor to limit the HMB memory allocation to 64 MB. Here’s how: 1. Open REGEDIT. 2. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\StorPort. 3. Create a subkey named HmbAllocationPolicy (if it doesn't exist). 4. Set the DWORD value for this key to 0 (disable HMB) or 2 (64 MB). 5. Restart your computer. This workaround may also help users with other SSD models until an official update is released by Microsoft or Western Digital. The issue is being discussed on WD forums, but no official solution has been announced yet. #VPS #server #Windows #SSD

At the Advancing AI event, AMD CEO Lisa Su announced several important innovations for the corporate market. Among them are the new Ryzen AI Pro 300 processors, powerful Instinct MI325X AI accelerators, and EPYC 9005 server chips for data centers. The Ryzen AI Pro 300 processors for corporate laptops are built on 4nm technology and are based on Zen 5 and Zen 5c cores. They offer up to 12 cores and clock speeds of up to 5.1 GHz. A standout feature of the new chips is the integration of the second-generation AI engine (NPU) based on the XDNA architecture, capable of performing up to 55 trillion operations per second (TOPS) in INT8 format. This makes them ideal for large language models (LLM) and other intensive corporate tasks. AMD's new AI accelerators are also impressive. The Instinct MI325X will compete with Nvidia's solutions, offering performance of up to 9.2 petaflops in FP4 calculations. The next model, MI355X, scheduled for 2025, will feature 288 GB of HBM3e memory, surpassing competitors in several key areas. For data centers, AMD introduced the new EPYC 9005 series of server processors. The Turin Classic models offer up to 128 cores, while Turin Dense supports up to 192 Zen 5c cores. These processors support DDR5-6400 and PCIe 5.0, delivering 17% more instructions per clock (IPC) compared to their predecessors. There’s also a significant performance boost in high-performance computing (HPC) and AI tasks. Continuing to pressure Intel, AMD is making bold moves toward capturing 40% of the server processor market. #AMD #EPYC #processors #CPU #server

In early October, Fujitsu and Supermicro announced a joint project to produce energy-efficient servers based on Monaka processors with ARM architecture. Monaka is a processor from Fujitsu that is designed for AI systems. It is advertised that this processor will be twice as energy efficient as similar chips from competitors that are going to be released by 2027. Initially, Monaka processors were focused on air cooling, but cooperation with Supermicro led to a reduction in the size of the servers and their subsequent transition to liquid cooling. The production of servers is planned to start in 2027 with the production of Monaka chips, which will have up to 144 cores, as well as 12 channels of DDR5 memory, and PCIe 6.0 interfaces with CXL 3.0. Supermicro and Fujitsu also plan to launch water-cooled server systems for HPC, generative AI, and sustainable data centers. Monaka's combination of liquid cooling and energy efficiency will be able to meet the demand for computing power in data centers. Currently, due to the influence of AI and the specific power consumption of modern processors, data centers cannot fully meet the high-performance needs of businesses and organizations. Supermicro and Fujitsu hope that the use of ARM architecture in combination with liquid cooling can offer a better server solution than the current ones. As part of the cooperation, Fujitsu and Supermicro will combine their experience and capabilities to create servers. The latter, in turn, will provide customers with customization options, allowing them to choose system components that are suitable for their specific workload. #VPS #Fujitsu #Supermicro #server #DDR5

On October 7, 2024, the stable version of Python 3.13 was released, bringing many significant innovations, including an experimental JIT compiler, a mode without the Global Interpreter Lock (GIL), and an updated interactive interpreter based on PyPy. These improvements aim to enhance the performance and usability of the language. Python 3.13 will be supported for a year and a half, followed by security updates for an additional three and a half years. One of the key new features is the experimental JIT compiler, which significantly accelerates program execution. To enable JIT in CPython, a build option --enable-experimental-jit has been added, requiring the installation of LLVM. This compiler operates on the Copy-and-Patch architecture, replacing bytecode with machine instructions in real time. Another addition is the ability to build CPython without GIL. This feature, activated by the --without-gil option, enables parallel code execution on multi-core systems, addressing lock issues in multithreaded environments. However, disabling GIL slightly decreases performance for single-threaded programs, offset by gains in multithreading. Another important improvement is the updated interactive interpreter, borrowing features from PyPy. It now supports multi-line editing, colored tracebacks, interactive help, and other enhancements for more convenient coding. Python 3.13 also includes improved handling of local variables in functions and introduces a new typing.TypeIs annotation, and implements other notable changes, including an enhanced version of the mimalloc memory allocation library. This release marks a significant step forward in Python's development, boosting its performance and opening new possibilities for multithreading and interactive programming. #Python #CPython #VPS #server

Samsung is actively implementing the 2nm process, striving to catch up with competitors. According to Business Korea, the installation of equipment for 2nm chip production has already begun at the S3 plant in Hwaseong. - In the first quarter of next year, the facility will be able to process up to 7,000 silicon wafers per month. - In the second phase, in the second quarter of 2025, Samsung plans to upgrade its S5 factory in Pyeongtaek to produce 1.4nm chips. It is expected that this line will produce up to 3,000 wafers per month. To bridge the technological gap, the 3nm chip production line in Hwaseong is also being upgraded, and by the end of 2024, it will be capable of producing 2nm products. The company's strategic goals include the mass production of 2nm chips starting in 2024 and transitioning to 1.4nm technology by 2027. Despite its leadership in memory chip and smartphone component manufacturing, Samsung faces challenges in the mobile processor segment. The company’s own Exynos chips lag behind competitors, forcing Samsung to use Snapdragon processors in global versions of its devices. This situation weakens the company’s position in the competitive market, and Samsung aims to close this gap through new technological processes. In addition, Samsung’s production facilities suffer from underutilization. For example, the 4nm process has lost popularity, forcing the company to convert its Pyeongtaek plant to memory chip production. Despite these difficulties, Samsung is making efforts to modernize and is discussing the possibility of spinning off its contract manufacturing into a separate division to attract investments. #VPS #server #Samsung #Snapdragon

The performance of the 13th and 14th generation Core Raptor Lake processors has been fixed by the company and now users will not have stability issues. However, for the already affected chips Intel has not yet implemented solutions, users can only get an extended warranty. Intel Core 13th and 14th generation processors have been found to have irreversible degradation during higher operating voltages. The company admitted the problem in the microcode algorithms. In September of this year, an update was released to protect against possible failures on the processors, and the solution does prevent possible functioning problems. Now, Intel has also stated some measures that will be able to minimize the negative impact on the chips after a malfunction. In addition, a representative of the company stated that the rest of the chips will no longer have this problem. The issue was that the eTVB microcode algorithm allowed the processors to work even during significant temperature overshoot. This algorithm problem was fixed as early as June of this year. The high voltage request was due to the SVID algorithm microcode, which affected the stability of the operation. And since August, the microcode no longer responds to high voltage requests. The company has released microcode 0x12B which incorporates previous updates and completely fixes the current voltage issue. With the use of the latest BIOS update, users can prevent the chip degradation issue. Nevertheless, if there is an issue with the 13th and 14th generation chips they can be returned under warranty. All users have access to a 2-year warranty and can contact the manufacturer if necessary. #server #Intel #CPU #RaptorLake