Thermaltake, the market’s most trusted brand in D.I.Y. computer cases and high-efficiency power supplies, today further expands its global initiative of designing and manufacturing versatile computer case for the gaming and PC D.I.Y market by announcing plans to develop and introduce the market’s first gaming computer case, V9 BlacX – Flex Edition, with an integrated GoFlex portable external storage drive docking station.
“With the ever increasing demands in storage expansions, Thermaltake is continuing to offer innovative storage solutions such as BlacX Series of Hard Drive Docking Stations and V9 BlacX Edition with integrated BlacX concept in a computer case where no additional cables or accessories are needed to establish a connection between an external storage unit to the computer system,” said Weller Chen, Product Management Director of Thermaltake North America. “Today, Thermaltake is proud to be collaborating with the industry’s leading storage solution provider, Seagate Technology, to enable a seamless external storage drive connectivity with one of the market’s most popular and versatile V9 BlacX computer case.”
Buffalo Technology today announced the most comprehensive family of USB 3.0 storage devices on the market. In a tradition of innovation and superb engineering, which allowed Buffalo to launch the first ever consumer USB 3.0 external hard drive, Buffalo maintains storage dominance with its new line up of USB 3.0 external hard drives, ideal for creative professionals, computer power users and digital content creators. Delivering unmatched interface speeds up to 5 gigabits per second, the new MiniStation Stealth USB 3.0, DriveStation Axis USB 3.0, DriveStation Duo USB 3.0 and DriveStation Quad USB 3.0 are designed for quick transfer and storage of high-resolution graphics, digital audio/video, large multimedia files, photos and more.
Representing the latest generation of high-performance multi-drive direct attached RAID storage solutions, the DriveStation Duo USB 3.0 and DriveStation Quad USB 3.0 combine SuperSpeed performance with RAID reliability and come equipped with NovaBACKUP® Business Essentials for Windows® PCs and Windows® Server 2003 and 2008, including servers running Microsoft Exchange and SQL. Ideal for small servers, creative professionals, offices and consumers requiring redundant and high performance external storage these new multi-drive external hard drives are a perfect blend of reliability, performance and flexibility at an affordable price. Also announced today are the new MiniStation Stealth USB 3.0 and DriveStation Axis USB 3.0 single drive storage solutions combining sleek styling, unique features and simplicity with the remarkable reliability for which Buffalo in known.
NETGEAR today announced at the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) three new home networking products that deliver the connectivity consumers need to supercharge their Internet-ready home theater gadgets and connect their iPads and other tablets, gaming consoles, and smartphones to the Internet.
Demonstrating the company’s commitment to delivering the innovative products needed to create the best connected entertainment and mobility experience throughout the home, NETGEAR introduces the Universal WiFi Range Extender—a compact wall-plugged design (WN3000RP) and two powerline networking solutions: the Internet Adapter for Home Theater—HD+3D (XAVB5004), which is the fastest powerline networking solution currently available on the market, and the Powerline AV 200 Nano Adapter Kit (XAVB2101), which is the world’s smallest 200Mbps powerline AV adapter.
“Over the last 15 years, NETGEAR has led the way to connect people to the Internet with the most reliable and fastest connections possible,” said Vivek Pathela, vice president and general manager, Home/Consumer Products, NETGEAR. “Today, people are placing increasing demands on their home networks to stream videos to their home theaters, play online games in 3D, and engage in social networks and apps with their iPads, tablets, or smartphones. We’ve created a new fleet of products that not only give consumers the reliable connection they’ve come to expect from NETGEAR, but also numerous ways to easily connect the growing number of HD entertainment and mobile devices in the home to the Internet. It’s the next wave of Internet connectivity in the home.”
D-Link is announcing three new categories of innovative, industry-leading home networking technologies at this year's CES. The company's DLNA-certified HD Media Routers, SmartBeam products and 500Mbps PowerLine solutions enable consumers to take advantage of now prevalent HD video-on-demand, HD gaming and other bandwidth-demanding applications with a strong Wi-Fi network platform and intelligent antenna technology.
D-Link is launching a new breed of DLNA-certified HD Media Routers incorporating HD Fuel technology, a Quality of Service (QoS) engine, to prioritize High Definition traffic for uninterrupted video streaming with services like YouTube HD, Netflix and VUDU throughout the home. The HD Media Routers come with an SD card slot to easily share media files across the home network or remotely and two HD Media Routers come with a USB 3.0 port for smooth HD content streaming from USB hard drives.
The Serial ATA International Organization (SATA-IO), the industry consortium dedicated to sustaining the quality, integrity and dissemination of Serial ATA (SATA) technology, today announced it is developing the SATA Universal Storage Module (USM) specification for portable storage applications. The USM specification will enable developers to incorporate slots into televisions, game consoles, set-top boxes, computers, docking stations and other consumer electronics applications that will accept powered, cable free storage modules with integrated standard SATA interfaces for expanding storage capacity. By utilizing SATA, the world’s most widely implemented storage interface, USM devices extend the speed and reliability of volume storage I/O to the consumer electronics market, and eliminate the need for a separate cable or power supply.
The SATA USM specification is the first standard specification to define slots to accept a complete, powered external storage device into consumer electronic devices. Modules, slots and interfaces designed according to the SATA USM specification will enable consumers to instantly access their music, movies, photos and other content from a variety of consumer electronics products, and to seamlessly transfer content between devices without the aid of additional power or cables. The integrated SATA interface supports transfer speeds up to 6 GB/s, offering users the same speed and reliability they’ve come to expect from their hard drives and other SATA-based devices. It gracefully degrades speed to support Gen 1 (1.5GB/s) or Gen 2 (3GB/s) drives.
Marvell, a worldwide leader in integrated silicon solutions, today launched the Marvell 88SE9130 6Gb/s SATA controller powered by HyperDuo embedded processor technology. The 88SE9130 solution enables breakthrough solid state drive (SSD) benefits to consumer desktop motherboards and an array of consumer electronics (CE) products. Powered by HyperDuo technology, the 88SE9130 controller enables SSD-like performance while allowing all data to be stored on a traditional SATA hard disk drive (HDD).
Configured with one hard disk drive and one SSD drive, the 88SE9130 uses intelligent algorithms to automatically pin hot data files and directories to a SATA SSD while enabling all data to be safely stored on a larger capacity SATA HDD. Using industry-standard benchmarks, such as PCMark, on consumer desktop machines, Marvell has demonstrated the 88SE9130 HyperDuo solution can achieve 80 percent of the performance of a SATA SSD while storing all data on a traditional large capacity SATA HDD.
"Our leadership in SATA technology products is reaffirmed with milestones like today's launch of the 88SE9130 SATA controller powered by HyperDuo. Through close integration with our partners, the 88SE9130 enables industry-leading performance levels at ultra-low product and energy costs," said Alan Armstrong, Vice President of Marketing for the Storage Business Group at Marvell Semiconductor, Inc. "Consumer technologies like those shown at CES 2011 desperately need innovations like HyperDuo 6Gb/s SATA controllers to continue meeting and exceeding customer demand, and Marvell is thrilled to be leading the industry with our SSD acceleration technology."
Rovi Corporation and Sonic Solutions today announced that the two companies have signed a definitive agreement for Rovi to acquire Sonic in a stock and cash transaction. The enterprise value of the transaction is approximately $720 million and the per share value of Sonic common stock at signing of the agreement is $14.17, a 38.2 percent premium to Sonic's 30 day average per share closing price as of December 21, 2010. The acquisition is structured as an exchange offer for all of the outstanding shares of Sonic common stock, to be followed by a merger.
Rovi, a provider of next generation guidance solutions including TotalGuide, discovery, metadata, advertising and networking technologies and Sonic, a provider of digital video processing, playback and distribution technologies, both leaders in the digital entertainment industry, together will bring an end-to-end solution that enables integration across the ecosystem. The acquisition of Sonic will enable Rovi to broaden its solutions to content owners, device makers, retailers and operators.
Fujitsu Semiconductor America, Inc. (FSA) will demonstrate its newest USB 3.0-SATA controller products at the 2011 International CES in Las Vegas, Nevada, January 6 to 9.
At booth #36505 in the USB Community Section at CES, Fujitsu will present throughput and interoperability tests between the Fujitsu USB 3.0 host controllers and various motherboards and devices. Fujitsu will demonstrate the superior performance of the MB86E50 USB 3.0-SATA RAID IC in combination with the FrescoLogic FL1009B xHCI host controller chip and two RAID 0 (striping) configured SSDs. A second demonstration will highlight the high transfer speeds attainable with the Fujitsu MB86C31 series USB 3.0-SATA bridge controller IC and a single-port reference HDD/SSD system.
"The USB 3.0 SuperSpeed standard represents an exciting step forward for high-performance external storage applications – especially when combined with the greater throughput and reliability gains of RAID," said Yoshi Masuda, senior manager of marketing, Fujitsu Semiconductor America. "In throughput tests pairing the Fujitsu MB86E50 USB 3.0-SATA RAID IC and FrescoLogic FL1009B xHCI host controller chip, we have seen sequential write throughput exceed 390 MB/s and read throughput at almost 380 MB/s using two RAID 0 configured SSD devices. We believe that these results are the highest in the industry."
Other World Computing (OWC) announced today it has expanded its award-winning storage solution line with the new Mercury Elite-AL Pro Dual mini bus powered portable hardware RAID storage solution. Featuring 14 pre-configured models with hardware RAID-1 “mirrored” redundancy for “live activity” data protection; or RAID-0 “stripe” for maximum data transfer speed, the Mercury Elite-AL Pro Dual mini contains two 2.5" hard drives or OWC Mercury SSDs for up to 2.0TB of capacity, a “Quad Interface” of FireWire 800, FireWire 400, USB 2.0, & eSATA connections for Plug and Play data transfer speeds up to 300 MB/s with Mac and PC computers.
Measuring the approximate size of a portable CD player - 5.6" (D) x 6.1" (W) x 1.1" (H) - the bus powered (no AC adapter needed) Mercury Elite-AL Pro Dual mini’s unique flat side by side two drive design enables it to fit into laptop, photography, and other gear carrying bags easily and without adding any bulk. With 14 models offering two 2.5" SATA hard drives with up to 2.0TB of capacity or two award-winning OWC Mercury Extreme Pro SSDs with up to 800GB of capacity, the Mercury Elite-AL Pro Dual mini delivers big storage performance in an under two pound, fanless solution.
Addonics Technologies today announced its Multi-Media Tower (MMT), a compact external storage device that can read/write data stored in a variety of formats.
The Multi Media Tower allows users to mix drive types and read/write to the most popular storage formats from a single enclosure. The MMT supports removable hard drives; Blu-Ray/DVD/CD players or burners; a 4-slot Flash memory card reader/writer; or a Micro SATA reader that can access Micro SATA drives and CFast memory cards.
The MMT is lightweight and constructed of durable aluminum. All devices in the Multi-Media Tower connect to any system via a Port Multiplier (PM) compatible eSATA port on a desktop or notebook PC.