Viking Modular Solutions today announced it has incorporated the SandForce SF-2000 processor family into its product portfolio, with new solutions ready for qualification in the first quarter 2011. Just released, the SF-2500 and SF-2600 are the second generation SandForce SSD processors for enterprise storage environments, and are designed to enable standard high density NAND Flash memory to reliably operate in SATA- and SAS-based enterprise storage applications without compromising performance.

Viking Modular has quickly developed and perfected SSD solutions in multiple form-factors for this latest generation, offering devices that can deliver 6Gb/s SATA III with performance expectations of 60K IOPS random read and write, and 500 MB/s sequential read and write. In addition, these devices utilize DuraClass™ technology, architected to leverage advanced SLC and MLC NAND Flash memory, and to deliver best-in-class performance, endurance, security and power efficiency in a single chip solution.

"SandForce is an important strategic partner for us and we know firsthand that their technology helps us to bring superior functionality to our customers," said Hamid R. Shokrgozar, President and General Manager of Viking Modular Solutions. "That's why we have wasted no time incorporating its newest class of controllers into our innovative suite of products. We will continue to deliver our portfolio of industry standard 2.5" and 1.8" form-factor SSDs in addition to developing the next generation of powerful SSD solutions for OEMs in the enterprise and industrial space."

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While 100GB and 128GB Blu-ray BDXL discs are finally a reality, this hasn't stopped TDK from pushing the technology to new limits. According to the Japanese website, Tech-On!, TDK has now developed a 1TB (yes, terabyte) optical disc. This disc contains 16 layers, with each layer capable of storing 33GB on each side.

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The company realized the large capacity by forming 16 recording layers, each of which has a capacity of 32 Gbytes on each side of the disc. The number of layers of an existing Blu-ray disc is four at most.

TDK succeeded in forming 16 layers by developing a disc material with a high light transmittance. Specifically, the light transmittance of one layer is 95.1%, and that of 16 layers is 72.6%.

Despite the number of layers, TDK claims that the time it takes to read one layer is the same as a standard Blu-ray Disc and the error rate is low enough for commercialization. The only problem they still have is the thickness of the recording layer (260μm), which needs to be 100μm or less to conform to the Blu-ray Disc specification.

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Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi GST) today announced the industry’s fastest and most power-efficient, 10K RPM, 6Gb/s Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) Enterprise hard drive, the Hitachi Ultrastar C10K600. The new 2.5-inch, 600GB Hitachi drive delivers up to 15 percent better random and 18 percent faster sequential performance than competitive products on the market today.

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The Ultrastar C10K600 drive also sets a new standard for energy-efficiency with an operating power specification that is at least 22 percent lower than the competition. Built on a field-proven platform to ensure greater reliability and reduced qualification time, these compact Ultrastar drives deliver the power, performance and high storage density requirements for Tier 1, Enterprise networked storage arrays, blades and other rack-mounted servers.

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Verbatim has taken inspiration from a long history of award winning sports cars and is launching two new GT USB Drives featuring the famous white racing stripes which are seen in circuits all over the world. The drives store up to 4GB and are ideal for carrying with you in any pocket or handbag. The drives are available in red and black for £7.99 (RRP).

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These great looking USB drives feature the famous white racing stripes reminiscencent of the legendary sport cars seen on the top level racing tracks around the world. The USB interface of the new Verbatim Store ‘n’ Go GT Edition USB 2.0 Drive is physically protected with a sliding mechanism, avoiding the need for a separate cap. Available in a black or red designs, measuring 54mm long, 21mm wide and 9.22mm deep and weighing just 7.9g, the new GT Edition USB 2.0 drives fit neatly in any handbag or pocket.These stylish drives are the perfect accessory for any model of laptop or PC and of course are the ideal partnerfor Verbatim’s 500GB GT Portable Hard Drive.

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Super Talent Technology, a leading manufacturer of Flash storage solutions and DRAM memory modules, today announced it is now shipping a new large capacity, 64GB, Pico-C. The Pico-C is famous for its: ultra-small, light weight, water-proof, cap-less design; now it's available in a 64GB version.

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"The Special Edition Pico-C is a testament to the fact that big things can come in small packages. We've taken our most popular flash drive, the Pico-C, to the next level by upping its capacity to an incredible 64GB, speed rating it and celebrating it with a 24K gold finish." - SuperTalent COO, CH Lee.

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Sonic Solutions today announced that it has completed the acquisition of DivX, Inc., based in San Diego, California. The addition of DivX® brings widely deployed digital media technologies, an embedded CE footprint of over 300 million devices, a strong consumer brand, and a global market presence to Sonic's expanding position as the leading supplier of services and technologies for the distribution of premium video content over the Internet.

"The acquisition of DivX accelerates our vision to make accessing entertainment over the Internet directly from home and mobile devices as pervasive as physical disc consumption is today," said David Habiger, President and CEO of the combined company. "With DivX, we instantly add hundreds of millions of consumer electronics devices to our footprint; make it faster and more efficient for device manufacturers, retailers, and Studios to launch digital services; and increase our global reach, particularly in the European market."

As the world's foremost developer and supplier of professional DVD and Blu-ray authoring systems, Sonic has worked with Hollywood for more than a decade to bring movies to consumers. Sonic's Roxio® division leads the industry for consumer media creation and management applications with hundreds of millions of units shipped. Sonic's RoxioNow™ division develops and licenses a universal "over-the-top" video platform for retailers, Hollywood Studios, consumer electronics manufacturers, and PC OEMs to offer movies and TV shows over the internet. Major retailers - Best Buy, Blockbuster, Sears/Kmart, Cineplex Entertainment, HP, Dell and many others - today license RoxioNow to power online video stores, while CE companies - Fujitsu, Funai Electric, LG, Panasonic, Pioneer, Samsung, Sony, and others - embed the RoxioNow platform in over 350 product models.

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Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., a worldwide leader in digital consumer electronics and information technology, announced today its newest consumer-friendly external DVD writer, the SE-S084F optical disc drive. This drive will be available just in time for the holiday season at select online retail outlets.

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“Weighing less than one pound and available in five distinct colors, the Samsung SE-S084F DVD Writer was built for netbook and mini PC users, who require the flexibility of a smaller device, but do not want to sacrifice the benefits of an optical disc drive,” said John Suh, director of OMS sales, optical disc drive division for Samsung Semiconductor, Inc. “For ultimate portability, the DVD writer offers customers high-performance reading and writing functions directly from a USB power source, removing the need for an AC adaptor or power cables.”

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Other World Computing (OWC) announced today it has begun developing OWC Mercury Extreme Pro Enterprise PCIe Solid State Drive (SSD) Solutions that will feature the SandForce® SF-2000 second generation processor announced today and being demonstrated by SandForce at Storage Networking World next week. OWC’s 8x and 16x PCIe SSD cards will be available with up to eight SSDs for capacities up to 3.2TB, offer up to 4GB/s sequential Reads/Writes and up to 480K IOPS, provide 28% over provisioning for data reliability, and double data encryption for security assurance. Exact pricing and model configurations for the OWC Mercury Extreme Pro Enterprise PCIe Solid State Drive (SSD) cards will be announced in early 2011.

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The OWC Mercury Extreme Pro Enterprise PCIe Solid State Drive (SSD) cards will be an ideal solution for I/O intensive enterprise servers, storage arrays, and high-end workstations in the financial, telecom, web/mail, gaming, public security, retail, and professional media creation/editing industries. With robust Native Command Queuing to enable up to 32 concurrent operations, OWC Mercury Extreme Pro Enterprise PCIe Solid State Drive (SSD) cards will deliver significantly higher Input/Output Operations per Second (IOPS) and throughput performance – up to 480K IOPS - than other SSD technology on the market today, as well as dramatically outperform traditional hard disk drive solutions.

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OCZ Technology is teaming up with SandForce Inc. to deliver exceptional new SSD products that leverage Serial-ATA (SATA) 6 Gb/s and cost-effective NAND flash components. With the updated architecture, the OCZ Deneva Family will continue to lead the way in the transition from hard disc drives (HDDs) to SSD data storage and IT infrastructures. OCZ is set to begin sample distribution to current and potential clients in the fourth quarter of 2010, with mass production beginning in the first quarter of 2011.

"We have a strong partnership with SandForce and are excited to utilize their new SF-2000 family of SSD processors in our next generation Enterprise and Industrial Solid State Drive products," said Alex Mei, CMO at the OCZ Technology Group. "Together we will be able to offer our enterprise clients a very robust line of ultra reliable 6 Gb/s SSDs in a variety of interfaces ranging from SATA to SAS within our customizable Deneva Series."

"OCZ is an industry leader in the design and manufacturing of Solid State Drives with innovative solutions for the storage market," said Jeremy Werner, Director of Marketing at SandForce. "We are pleased to work closely with them as we launch the new SF-2000 SSD Processor Family for the Enterprise and Industrial markets."

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Lexar Media today introduced a 1.8” footprint version of the award-winning Crucial RealSSD C300 product line. The 1.8” profile, which is approximately 40% smaller than the standard 2.5” drive, provides an excellent solid-state storage option for the most portable products such as ultra-thin laptops, netbooks, and tablet PCs – without sacrificing performance and capacity.

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Based upon the Micron RealSSD product design and innovation, the new Crucial RealSSD C300 1.8” drive utilizes (multi-level cell) MLC NAND, advanced controller technology, and optimized NAND management, which together improve boot up and application load times dramatically and enhance overall system performance. No moving parts provides for quieter, cooler, and more durable solutions compared to traditional hard disk drives.

With impressive read speeds of up to 355MB/s and write speeds up to 215MB/s, the Crucial C300 1.8” drive natively supports SATA 6Gb/s, and is backwards compatible with the SATA 3Gb/s interface. The new Crucial RealSSD C300 1.8”, like the standard 2.5” format, is available in 64GB, 128GB, and 256GB capacities, and comes with a limited three-year warranty.

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