Hitachi-LG Data Storage Inc. has agreed to plead guilty and to pay a $21.1 million criminal fine for its participation in a series of conspiracies to rig bids and fix prices for the sale of optical disk drives, the Department of Justice announced today. This is the department’s first charge resulting from its ongoing investigation into the optical disk drive industry.
A 15-count felony charge was filed today in U.S. District Court in San Francisco against Hitachi-LG Data Storage, a joint venture between Hitachi Ltd., a Japanese corporation, and LG Electronics Inc., a Republic of Korea corporation. Of the 14 counts, seven charge Hitachi-LG Data Storage with conspiring with others to suppress and eliminate competition by rigging bids on optical disk drives sold to Dell Inc.; six counts charge Hitachi-LG Data Storage with rigging bids on optical disk drives sold to Hewlett-Packard Company (HP); and one count charges Hitachi-LG Data Storage with conspiring with others to fix the prices of optical disk drives sold to Microsoft Corporation. The final count charges Hitachi-LG Data Storage for its participation in a scheme to defraud HP in an April 2009 optical disk drive procurement event.
“The bid-rigging and price-fixing conspiracies involving optical disk drives undermined competition and innovation in the high tech industry,” said Sharis A. Pozen, Acting Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division. “The Antitrust Division is committed to prosecuting those who harm competition in the optical disk drive industry.”
Under the plea agreement, which is subject to court approval, Hitachi-LG Data Storage has agreed to assist the department in its ongoing investigation into the optical disk drive industry.
Sonnet Technologies, a leader in providing storage systems for professional users of Macintosh, Windows, and UNIX systems in the film, video, and broadcast industries, today announced the Fusion F2QR portable two-drive hardware RAID storage system. Mounted side by side in a tough aluminum enclosure about the size of two stacked CD cases, the diminutive system contains two, 2.5-inch, 1TB hard drives.
Based on the multiple-award-winning Fusion F2, a portable two-drive RAID SATA storage system recognized for its performance, reliability, whisper-quiet operation, and shock-resistant characteristics, this compact device adds a built-in hardware RAID controller for configuring the drives; a quad interface with eSATA, FireWire(R) 800, and USB 2.0 ports for flexible compatibility; and a greater storage capacity. The Fusion F2QR delivers great performance with up to 160 MB/sec read and 100 MB/sec write data transfer rates, and is bus-powered by a FireWire port on the computer regardless the interface used.
The Verbatim Store 'n' Save USB 3.0 desktop hard drive features high performance storage using a USB 3.0 “SuperSpeed” interface and providing up to 3TB of storage capacity. USB 3.0 delivers bus speeds of up to 4.8Gbit/sec – a ten-fold increase in performance compared to existing USB 2.0 connections – making it ideal for both home- and office-based users who want to transfer large files. For added security the Store 'n' Save includes Nero BackItUp and Burn Essentials software. It can be placed flat or on its side to help create more space on your desktop.
For added security Nero BackItUp and Burn Essentials enables to back up all files whenever wanted or starts the auto back up at a set time for added security. It also gives the option to burn files to CD or DVD or to recover damaged files. Verbatim Hard Drives also come with Green Button energy saving software. Green Button software suspends the hard drive from spinning while not in use increasing efficiency and saving energy.
Super Talent Technology, a leading manufacturer of Flash storage solutions and DRAM memory modules, today announced the USB 3.0 Storage POD enclosure, a hard drive enclosure that converts almost any 2.5" HDD into a USB 3.0 external hard disk.
Chances are you already have an external USB drive and its USB 2.0 connector is holding it back. The USB 2.0 bus keeps most drives from performing at their true potential and relegates their usage to simple storage backup. Now you can do something about it. By simply changing the enclosure, you can liberate your existing HDD and see double and even triple the speed - without reformatting.
Today LaCie announced the LaPlug, a simple solution to share any USB hard drive or key over a local network. The LaPlug also offers a convenient way to access data, at home or on the go, as well as share personal files such as vacation or birthday photos with family and friends. Additionally, the LaPlug can stream multimedia content and back up multiple computers to one central location. Even better, all this functionality can be achieved with USB hard drives a user already owns.
The LaPlug turns any USB hard drive into a network storage device, sharing files wirelessly throughout the home. Simply connect the LaPlug to the network then connect the drive to the LaPlug. Instantly the user has an easy and cost-effective way to make files stored on their USB hard drives more accessible than ever. For ultimate convenience a user can connect a USB printer to the LaPlug and make it wirelessly available to all computers on the network.
Add a commentKingston Digital, Inc., the Flash memory affiliate of Kingston Technology Company, Inc., the independent world leader in memory products, today announced the DataTraveler 6000 (DT6000) USB Flash drive, which protects sensitive data with Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 140-2 Level 3 Validation and 100-percent encryption. For financial service organizations and government agencies that need the strongest data protection in mobile storage devices, the DT6000 meets data-at-rest regulations and is the most secure USB Flash drive available on the market.
The Kingston DT6000 utilizes patented Secured by Spyrus technology which supports 256-bit AES hardware-based encryption using XTS block cipher mode. XTS is current generation technology that provides much stronger protection than other block cipher modes such as CBC and ECB. The DT6000 uses 'military-grade' elliptic curve cryptography (ECC), which is recommended by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) as part of its Suite B set of cryptographic algorithms.
Greenliant Systems, a leader in energy-efficient, highly secure and reliable solid state storage products, has started volume production of its SATA interface NANDrive™ solid state drives (SSDs). The GLS85LS product family has the same pin-out across all capacities—2 GB, 4 GB, 8 GB, 16 GB, 32 GB and higher in the future—which simplifies system-level board design.
Measuring 14mm x 24mm x 1.95mm, in a 145 ball grid array (BGA), 1mm ball pitch package, SATA NANDrive devices are one of the smallest SSDs, giving OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) flexibility when designing data storage into their embedded products. The BGA package can be soldered directly onto the motherboard—no extra connectors are needed—providing added stability to the SSD.
Compatible with the latest generation chipsets, SATA NANDrive combines Greenliant’s proprietary high-performance NAND flash controller with up to eight NAND flash die in a multi-chip package. As a fully integrated SSD—when compared to using discrete NAND and a controller—NANDrive improves customers’ time-to-market by eliminating the need to procure and qualify multiple chips.
Other World Computing announced today the addition of its lowest-cost- of-entry Solid-State Drive to its award-winning SSD line. The new OWC Mercury EXTREME Pro 3G SSD combines award-winning SandForce technologies and Tier 1/Grade A NAND to deliver data rates over 275MB/s in a noiseless, more reliable form factor over conventional magnetic hard disk drives. Designed and manufactured in the U.S. with imported parts, the new OWC Mercury EXTREME Pro 3G 30GB SSD’s $67.99 MSRP makes it one of the lowest-priced, high-performance SSDs on the market.
Consumers using a Mac or PC equipped with the Serial ATA data bus will find the OWC Mercury EXTREME Pro 3G 30GB is able to deliver near bus saturating speed. Independent tests have confirmed the OWC Mercury EXTREME 3G SSDs deliver sustained data rates over 275MB/s and provide significant benefits in overall system responsiveness and sustained workflow.
Toshiba's Digital Products Division (DPD), a division of Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc., today announced its Canvio® 3.0 portable hard disk drive (HDD) line featuring cloud-based backup capabilities. With storage capacities of 500 gigabytes (GB), 750GB or one terabyte (TB), the new Canvio 3.0 line also features simple plug-and-play operation, pre-loaded backup software, and is compatible with personal computers and other devices equipped with USB 3.0 or USB 2.0 ports.
Designed to meet the needs of consumers who increasingly rely on the cloud for digital storage, the Canvio 3.0 drives are pre-loaded with Windows™-based NTI® BackupNow EZ™ software that provides step-by-step and fully-customizable backup capabilities to the cloud and to the drive. Users create a cloud account with NTI® BackupNow EZ™ where they can backup specific folders, certain file types, and conduct a complete system backup to the Canvio 3.0. The backup software also scans the user's system and files and recommends which files to backup to cloud-based or on-device storage.
QNAP Systems, Inc. today announced three new Turbo NAS models: the TS-419P II (4-drive), TS-219P II (2-drive), and TS-119P II (single-drive), positioned to provide corporate workgroups, SOHO, and home users with budget-friendly network attached storage (NAS) solutions for efficient data backup and convenient file sharing. The new models can be upgraded to the latest, free to download QNAP NAS firmware (version 3.5), with many new features and enhancements, and are backed by a two-year warranty.
The new models of the TS-x19P II series are equipped with a 2.0GHz Marvell processor, 512MB DDR3 memory and one or two Gigabit LAN ports. The products can be easily integrated into an existing network of workgroups, provide centralized storage with antivirus protection, cross-platform data sharing for Windows®, Mac®, Linux, and UNIX users, as well as secure connections for users to access data on the server via FTP, a web-based file manager, or WebDAV. With the MyCloudNAS service, the new models can also be converted into private cloud storage systems for remote access from the Internet.