Space and geeks often go hand in hand. Our PC gaming lives are filled with space themes without even realizing it. We see amazing fan-made miracles like this beautiful Star Trek Shuttle PC (opens in new tab) and gorgeous gear like SteelSeries' beautiful Destiny 2 space-themed peripherals (opens in new tab) PC games are set in space Not to mention how often they are set in space.

The other thing PC gamers can't get enough of is storage. Whether you need a lot of space to store games, programs, or other entertainment, SSDs are now the best way to go for fast, reliable, regularly used storage. After all, this is true on the ground as well.

After all, the International Space Station needs extra storage, too. Hewlett Packard Enterprise's (HPE) Spaceborne Computer-2 is the first commercial edge computing and AI-enabled system to be used in space, allowing station scientists to analyze data without having to send it back to Earth Spaceborne Computer-2 The time saved in transmission and communication should allow researchers to get more work done while drifting comfortably in space.

To help with the high-performance tasks that the HPE Spaceborne Computer-2 will complete, Kioxia will provide flash-based SSDs and send them to the great beyond. kioxia is known for producing full-fledged enterprise storage solutions, such as this coveted CM7 (open in new tab). Kioxia is known for manufacturing full-fledged enterprise storage solutions, such as this coveted CM7 (open new tab). These include the Kioxia RM Series Value SAS and Kioxia XG Series NVMe SSDs, which will support scientific simulation, deep learning, and real-time image processing applications aboard the ISS.

The Kioxia RM SAS is an enterprise product made to work with HPE ProLiant servers, so theoretically it should work great with the HPE Spaceborne Computer-2, and NVMe drives are known for their high performance in gaming laptops and PCs. NVMe drives are known for their high performance in gaming laptops and PCs. These drives are not ones I have personally used, but Kioxia flash is one of our favorite PCIe 4.0 SSDs (open in new tab) when packaged with other storage solutions like the WD Black SN770, Works great. (Open in new tab) To be fair, we have not even used these in space before.

According to Kioxia, SSD-style flash storage is perfect for space. They say, "These flash-based SSDs are better suited than traditional hard disk drive storage to withstand the power, performance, and reliability requirements of space because they have no moving parts, are less susceptible to electromagnetic interference, and offer faster performance.

We have come a long way since the first space computers, such as the Gemini Guidance Computer with its proprietary ferrite core and 39-bit memory. Very cool indeed, but nothing compared to what we are seeing today, and the fact that companies like HP and Kioxa are sending SSDs into space is a testament to how far computing in the final frontier has come. Next time I'll ask them to send me into space too.