Mimoco, makers of the MIMOBOT line of designer USB flash drives, in collaboration with Lucasfilm and in honor of the Star Wars fan favorite holiday May the Fourth Be With You, announce the R2-A6 MIMOBOT. R2-A6, an astromech droid in the same family as R2-D2, is translated in the MIMOBOT’s stylistically illustrated flash drive form. Available in up to 128GB and USB 3.0 capabilities, the drive comes in a run of 1,000 limited edition hand-numbered units. The R2-A6 MIMOBOT drive also comes preloaded with bonus Mimory and the MimoDesk personalization suite of wallpapers, icons, and avatars.

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R2-A6 is known as a good-luck charm to the Royal Naboo Security Forces and now, in MIMOBOT form and function, can be a positive omen for your data storage. The droid’s green and white color scheme is derivative in design and function of fellow mechanically-versed droid, R2-D2. Just as a proper astromech droid would be expected to perform, R2-A6 MIMOBOT allows documents, music, photos, and data to be shared, transported, and collected for its master. Just don’t expect it to repair a starfighter malfunction in our earthbound orbit!

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Corsair, a worldwide designer and supplier of high-performance components, today announced two new solid-state drive (SSD) related products. The first, the SSD & Hard Disk Drive Cloning Kit, enables users to easily duplicate and transfer data between drives. The kit, which includes a cable and software, is ideal for users upgrading from traditional hard disk drives (HDD) to faster, more rugged Corsair SSDs. In addition, the company announced the Corsair SSD Toolbox, a free software utility which enables users to configure, optimize and monitor their Corsair SSDs.

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The SSD & Hard Disk Drive Cloning Kit enables users to move data between a hard drive and SSD by simply selecting the source drive and destination drives and then clicking a button. Designed for users migrating their data to newly installed SSDs, the kit includes data migration software, a USB-to-SATA cable, and Quick Start Guide. The cable supports USB 3.0 and 2.0 delivering transfer rates up to 180MB/s with USB 3.0 ports, 4 times faster than USB 2.0.

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Micron Technology, Inc.  today announced a new PCIe all-flash I/O accelerator to improve overall performance in enterprise servers, appliances and storage platforms. The new Micron P420m combines consistent performance with the inherent power efficiency of an all-flash system to deliver improved economics for enterprise data centers. The P420m accelerates performance of today's demanding data center applications, including online transaction processing (OLTP), data warehousing and virtualization.

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Ultimately, Micron's P420m ends the wait game for digital data. It features ultra-low latency performance that enables fast and predictable response times to information frequently used in data center environments. When tested against competing PCIe solutions in a MySQL server running an OLTP benchmark, the P420m is the fastest and most consistent performer, delivering more than 3,200 web server requests per second. It handily manages online requests during peak traffic times, improving the overall end-user experience.

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smart_optimus_eco_ssd.pngSMART Storage Systems, an innovative enterprise solid-state drive (SSD) technology provider, today announced the new Optimus Eco, the first Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) 6Gb/s SSD on the market to leverage 19nm multi-level cell (MLC) Flash. Continuing the company's effort to usher in a new era of Flash storage, and anticipating the changing needs of enterprise data centers, SMART Storage Systems' new Optimus Eco SSD represents the industry's best combination of performance, capacity, endurance and cost in an enterprise-class 2.5-inch drive.

Forced to do more with less, many organizations are choosing to build their own hyperscale architectures by combining best-in-class hardware and software to lower costs and meet growing data center demands. In addition, looking to control maintenance costs, data center managers are seeking the highest-capacity drives to pack more capacity into a rack, resulting in the ability to reduce their storage footprint. In fact, Gartner estimates that in 2016 the average capacity of an SSD deployed in enterprise storage and server environments will be more than 1.1TB1. When combined with SSDs that can provide the endurance necessary to support write-intensive applications with cost-effective 19nm MLC Flash, the result is a dramatic reduction in storage total cost of ownership (TCO).

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Other World Computing announced today the OWC Envoy Pro EX ultra-portable Solid State Drive solution. Elegantly designed in anodized aluminum to match modern Macs and PCs, the Envoy Pro EX fits easily into a coat pocket, backpack, or briefcase for rugged mobile high performance storage and/or backup capacity.

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Inside the Envoy Pro EX resides a SandForce Driven OWC Aura Pro 6G SSD which offers real world sustained reads up to 436MB/s and writes up to 429MB/s. Besides offering blistering fast performance, the USB 3.0 interface can bus-power the Envoy Pro EX so an AC power adapter isn’t required.

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The most popular storage medium this year for superthin Ultrabooks and similarly built laptops won’t be the pricey solid state drives (SSD) that initially created a buzz for their astonishing speeds. Instead, they will be the so-called cache SSD storage consisting of NAND flash memory running outside a hard disk drive (HDD) that will be more economically priced for users, according to an IHS iSuppli Storage Space brief from information and analytics provider IHS.

Shipments this year of cache SSD solutions for Ultrabooks and ultrathins are projected to amount to 23.8 million units, up nearly 360 percent from just 5.2 million units in 2012. This year cache SSD shipments for the first time jump over pure SSD storage, expected to ship 18.7 million units for Ultrabooks and ultrathins.

Overall, cache SSD shipments will represent 53 percent of the storage solution for Ultrabook/ultrathins, versus 42 percent for pure-SSD types. The remaining 5 percent will come from shipments of a third solution more commonly known as hybrid HDD—one that employs embedded NAND flash inside a hard disk drive in an integrated form factor.

Cache SSD solutions will continue to maintain their lead in the Ultrabook/ultrathin market until at least 2017. By that time, cache SSD shipments will reach 49.2 million units, compared to 44.6 million pure-SSD shipment units for Ultrabooks and ultrathins. Markets also exist for cache SSD and pure SSD solutions to non-Ultrabooks and non-ultrathins, but shipments here are smaller than for counterpart solutions to the superthin laptops.

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Kingston Digital, Inc., the Flash memory affiliate of Kingston Technology Company, Inc., the independent world leader in memory products, today announced the release of MobileLite Wireless. MobileLite Wireless is the next generation of the innovative Wi-Drive portable wireless storage device Kingston released in 2011 for Apple and Android devices. The new reader is enhanced as it wirelessly streams movies, music, photos and documents from USB Flash drives, microSD (with included adapter) and SD/SDHC/SDXC cards. MobileLite Wireless also serves as an emergency mobile charger when the user’s phone battery gets low.

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Kingston’s new MobileLite Wireless is the ultimate companion to keep up with one’s active lifestyle, giving users access to unprecedented mobile essentials at a great price. It is as easy as plugging in any USB Flash drive into the USB port to quickly watch and share movies or view and share files wirelessly on mobile devices. The SD/SDHC/SDXC slot enables fast, easy sharing of images with friends and family by removing the card from a camera and plugging it directly into the MobileLite Wireless. The included adapter allows the same access and sharing for microSD cards used in many mobile phones and tablets.

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toshiba_exceria_pro_cf.pngToshiba Corporation today announced that its new line of high performance CompactFlash (CF) memory cards, the EXCERIA PRO series, will go on sale from April 27th in the Japanese market. Sales will also follow in Asia, Europe and North America. The initial line-up of 16GB, 32GB and 64GB cards offers the world's highest level read and write speeds and complies with the new Video Performance Guarantee Profile 2 (VPG-65) standard.

The EXCERIA PRO CF cards integrate Toshiba's high performance NAND flash memory and specially developed dedicated firmware. They achieve a read speed of 160MB/s and write speed of 150MB/s, the highest level yet reported.

The new cards are compliant with the CompactFlash Association (CFA) standard CompactFlash Specification Revision 6.1 and compatible with the UDMA7 high speed interface, ensuring they can support high performance DSLRs to the full. The cards are also compatible with the latest "Video Performance Guarantee Profile 2" standard, VPG-65. VPG-65 secures Full HD video capture streams at a minimum write speed of 65MB/s for compatible host devices and recording media. VPG-65 enables 4K resolution (a digital movie file format with horizontal resolution of approx. 4,000 pixels and vertical resolution of approx. 2,000 pixels) movie shooting and high quality Full HD video capture at high frame rates with no dropped frames.

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monster_1tb_overdrive3.pngMonster Digital, a leading innovator and developer of advanced memory and storage solutions, is introducing its first line of external Solid State Drives (SSD), which make the jump to SSD technology even easier for professionals and consumers to adopt for additional computer storage needs.

Simply put, Overdrive 3.0 is the fastest and easiest way to add storage to your computer. Inside the laser etched stainless steel enclosure is an advanced, high-speed, solid state drive that is available in four storage capacities of 128GB, 256GB, 512GB and 1TB for the suggested retail prices of $179.99, $299.99, $599.99, $1399.99 respectively.

Small, lightweight, and similar in size to an iPhone 4, each drive travels easily and is unobtrusive on a desktop or in the field on location. Conveniently wrapped around each drive is an integrated USB 3.0 "Super-Speed" cable, so you'll never again be without a connection cable when you need it most (the drive also works with USB 2.0). Rated at 250/150MB/s read/write speeds, all Overdrive 3.0's include a built in blue LED data transfer indicator and soft travel pouch. Because the technology is so energy efficient, there is no external power needed, and it won't drain your laptop battery like a traditional rotating hard drive can.

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Other World Computing today introduced the OWC Mercury Helios+E2 Thunderbolt SSD Solution. The bootable ‘all-in-one’ storage performance and expansion solution offers owners of Thunderbolt technology enabled Macs and PCs sustained read/write data throughput up to 617MB/s from up to 960GB of OWC Mercury SSD capacity; two Thunderbolt interfaces for connecting multiple Thunderbolt devices; and two eSATA 6Gb/s expansion ports for connecting up to an additional 32TB or more of external storage/backup capacity.

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With the simple connection of a Thunderbolt cable, the Helios+E2 immediately expands the storage performance and expansion capabilities of Thunderbolt enabled iMac, Mac mini, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro machines as well as PCs. Inside Helios+E2 resides an OWC Mercury Accelsior_E2, the only Mac bootable and supported PCIe SSD. Featuring two custom SandForce Driven Acccelsior SSD ‘blades’, Helios+E2 offers total capacity choices up to 960GB, up to 100K IOPS, and performance beyond even 6G speed with sustained data transfer rates up to 617MB/s read and 524MB/s write. With that level of bootable performance, creative professionals can stop waiting for I/O-intensive apps like Photoshop, Final Cut Pro, or Avid Pro Tools to render, capture or process; as well as experience near instantaneous booting and application launches.

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