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Flash Memory

07 January 2020

At the Consumer Electronics Show 2020 (CES 2020) Western Digital Corporation will showcase new innovations in its extensive lineup of storage solutions built for every consumer use, including a demonstration of the world’s highest capacity, pocket-sized, portable SSD prototype featuring a SuperSpeed USB 20Gbps interface. The company is also releasing the 1TB SanDisk Ultra Dual Drive Luxe USB Type-C drive for smartphones and laptops.

Western Digital’s unmatched portfolio offers a range of storage solutions for everything from mobile to highly specialized performance drives. At CES 2020, Western Digital will show its consumer storage solutions from its G-Technology, SanDisk, WD and Western Digital brands. Highlights include:

Groundbreaking SanDisk 8TB SSD Prototype

Continuing its legacy of technology milestones, the company will demonstrate the world’s highest capacity, pocket-sized SuperSpeed USB 20Gbps portable SSD. Inspired by consumers’ desire to capture rich content and keep it with them, Western Digital continues to push the boundaries of what’s possible with an 8TB SSD prototype. Combining its expertise in flash memory with skillful design, the company continues to be at the forefront of developing revolutionary solutions that keep up with and surpass today’s consumer needs. Western Digital will also showcase its extensive lineup of portable SSDs available today.

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Other

06 January 2020

Elgato, the leading provider of hardware and software for content creators, today announced the launch of both Elgato 4K60 S+, a cutting-edge external 4K60 HDR10 capture solution capable of standalone SD card recording, and Elgato Key Light Air, a compact model of the wildly popular Key Light LED panel. Elgato’s parent company CORSAIR also announced the K95 RGB PLATINUM XT mechanical gaming keyboard – the first keyboard to integrate Elgato Stream Deck software, enabling powerful instant control of streaming apps and devices at just the press of a key.

4K60 S+ debuts as Elgato’s most powerful external capture device yet. In addition to USB 3.0 connectivity for live streaming via a PC, 4K60 S+ features a memory card slot to record gorgeous 4K60 HDR10 gameplay directly to an SD card without the need for a connected computer. Onboard HEVC encoding keeps file sizes manageable, while true zero-lag passthrough displays high-fidelity Xbox One X and PS4 Pro games in their original format for an uninterrupted, authentic gaming experience.

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Flash Memory

06 January 2020

Seagate Technology plc, a global leader in data solutions, today added new high-performance external solutions to its industry-leading line of storage for gamers. The Seagate FireCuda Gaming SSD and BarraCuda Fast SSD deliver elite performance and convenience for gamers and power users on the go.

Designed as the perfect companion to Seagate’s recently released FireCuda Gaming Dock, the portable FireCuda Gaming SSD delivers performance to help scorch the competition. Purpose-built for gamers, it marries Seagate’s premium FireCuda NVMe 510 SSD and the latest cutting-edge SuperSpeed USB 20Gb/s (USB 3.2 Gen2×2) interface, delivering staggering read speeds of up to 2000MB/s.

Optimized for performance and high on style, the drive offers capacities of 500GB, 1TB, and 2TB and features a signature chisel metal enclosure with customizable RGB LED lighting. Gamers can personalize the drive’s full-range RGB LED with the free Seagate Toolkit software and synchronize the LEDs with a FireCuda Gaming Dock, creating an immersive setup.

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Software

05 January 2020

OWC; a leading zero emissions Mac and PC technology company and one of the world's most respected manufacturers of hard drives, SSDs, Mac & PC docking solutions and performance upgrade kits, today announced the release of its new OWC SoftRAID Standard software for macOS and Windows machines along with SoftRAID Pro for macOS.

SoftRAID is the powerful yet easy-to-use software RAID platform that maximizes drive capacity, offers faster performance, and protects against data loss. It's ideal for voluminous data roles including audio/video production and editing, photography, graphic design, database servers, financial applications, and more. Easy Setup automates disk configuration and makes setup recommendations. Users work worry-free with disks checked and verified before use plus early warnings prevent unexpected disk failure.

Improving A Proven History
While becoming a leading developer of external drives over the past two decades, OWC began offering multi-drive units pre-configured with SoftRAID to offer customers enhanced data storage capabilities. Because SoftRAID proved to offer many of the same attributes our customers expect from our hardware, OWC acquired SoftRAID in 2014 so hardware and software teams could work together daily to create the easiest to use, most fully featured software RAID package available.

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Hard Disks

05 January 2020

OWC; a leading zero emissions Mac and PC technology company and one of the world's most respected manufacturers of hard drives, SSDs, Mac & PC docking solutions and performance upgrade kits, today announced two new massively powerful additions to its industry-leading ThunderBay product family – the ThunderBay 8 and the all-new ThunderBay FLEX 8.

ThunderBay 8
The ThunderBay 8 is a professional-grade 8-Bay Thunderbolt 3 storage solution for pros who refuse to compromise. Think of it like a high-performance personal data center offering a multitude of configuration possibilities and almost limitless storage capacity for filmmakers, video production gurus, photographers, graphic designers and small business workgroups. With 8 hot swappable drive bays, OWC ThunderBay 8 offers massive professional-grade storage capacity in a Thunderbolt 3 desktop-sized design. Mix 2.5-inch and 3.5-inch HDDs and/or SSDs in any combination up to 112TB of capacity and use them independently or match drives and combine them in a speed and/or redundant RAID with the included SoftRAID setup and management software.

Monstrous Capacity, Monstrous Bandwidth
Need even more capacity? Daisy-chain up to 6 of these storage behemoths together for up to a staggering 672TB to create your own custom, one-of-a-kind data center. With real-world tested speed up to 2586MB/s via Thunderbolt 3 and the ability to SoftRAID together 8 SSDs or HDDs, ThunderBay 8's rugged, field-tested aluminum design has the under-the-hood horsepower needed to conquer high bandwidth requirements. You can even connect multiple ThunderBay 8 solutions to multiple Thunderbolt 3 ports on your Mac or PC to achieve exponential speed increases.

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Other

02 January 2020

A year on after sweeping 15 best-of-CES awards with its breakthrough Super X-Fi Headphone Holography, Creative Technology will be unveiling the all-new Super X-Fi Gen2 audio profile, which features key improvements to provide users with a more natural headphone audio experience than ever before.

Unprecedented Realism in Headphones
Super X-Fi recreates the soundstage of a high-end surround speaker system in headphones, and personalizes it with Artificial Intelligence (AI) for a natural listening experience. Since its worldwide launch at CES 2019, users and critics have been blown away by the realism of personalized audio, which is tailored according to their anthropometric profiles.

“At the beginning, our user profile base was in the range of tens of thousands. Over the past year, riding on the successful launch of Super X-Fi, we have accumulated hundreds of thousands of user profiles. This significant jump in real-world data has provided us with the capacity for more research, and importantly, it has enabled us to train the Super X-Fi AI engine to be even more accurate in personalizing the audio experience for our users. This was key in our development of the Super X-Fi Gen2 profile,” said Lee Teck Chee, vice president of technology at Creative, and inventor of Super X-Fi.

Super X-Fi Gen2 incorporates other important enhancements as well, including the preservation of more details in the surround sound configuration, along with higher positioning accuracy. Audio fidelity is improved, resulting in a clearer sound signature. This translates to more pristine audio across a broader range of content, and a much higher level of enjoyment for users overall. For movies, dialogue becomes clearer, and audio cue positioning is more precise, with an enhanced bass performance. This is also better across various genres of music, as the improved restoration of details moves users closer to a studio environment.

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Flash Memory

31 December 2019

Greenliant is now sampling its NVMe U.2 EnduroSLC Industrial Enterprise EX Series solid state drives (SSDs) to customers that require ultra high endurance primary storage with sustainable low latency and high performance in extreme environments. Designed with Greenliant’s EnduroSLC Technology, NVMe U.2 Industrial Enterprise EX Series SSDs provide ultra robust data retention and ultra high system-level lifetime endurance of 30 drive writes per day (DWPD) for 5 years.

Benefits of NVMe U.2 EnduroSLC Industrial Enterprise SSDs with 1-bit-per-cell (SLC) NAND include:

• Ultra High Endurance: Reaches 30 DWPD for 5 years
• High Capacity: Offered from 800 GB to 1.92 TB
• High Performance: Reaches up to 2,600/1,900 MB/s read/write
• On-Chip Adaptive RAID: Improves SSD reliability
• Power Interrupt Data Protection: Helps prevent data corruption during power failures
• Industrial Temperature: Operates between -40 and +85 degrees Celsius
• Data Security: Supports AES 256-bit encryption and crypto erase

“For the highest levels of data integrity, Greenliant’s NVMe U.2 Industrial Enterprise SSDs implement on-chip adaptive RAID,” said Xuanhui Li, Vice President of Business Development, Datacenter Products, Greenliant. “With Greenliant’s NVMe U.2 Industrial Enterprise SSDs, customers can achieve the efficiency and scalability required to meet the demands of write intensive applications in harsh environments.”

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Flash Memory

25 December 2019

Greenliant is now sampling its SATA 2.5” EnduroSLC Industrial Enterprise EX Series solid state drives (SSDs) for primary storage applications that require ultra high endurance under extreme temperature conditions. Designed with Greenliant’s EnduroSLC Technology, SATA 2.5” Industrial Enterprise EX Series SSDs provide ultra robust data retention and ultra high system-level lifetime endurance of 30 drive writes per day (DWPD) for 5 years.

Benefits of SATA 2.5” EnduroSLC Industrial Enterprise SSDs with 1-bit-per-cell (SLC) NAND include:

• Ultra High Endurance: Reaches 30 DWPD for 5 years
• High Capacity: Offered from 800 GB to 1.92 TB
• On-Chip Adaptive RAID: Improves SSD reliability
• Power Interrupt Data Protection: Helps prevent data corruption during power failures
• Industrial Temperature: Operates between -40 and +85 degrees Celsius
• Data Security: Supports AES 256-bit encryption and crypto erase

“Greenliant has brought its SLC NAND expertise to the enterprise with its new line of EnduroSLC Industrial Enterprise EX Series SSDs,” said Xuanhui Li, Vice President of Business Development, Datacenter Products, Greenliant. “With high reliability and outstanding quality of service, Greenliant’s industrial enterprise storage products are ideal for mission critical, I/O intensive applications in aerospace, defense, transportation, energy and power, communications and industrial control.”

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Hard Disks

21 December 2019

Western Digital announced that it has started shipping the industry's highest-capacity HDD samples to enterprise OEMs and hyperscale customers worldwide. The 20TB Ultrastar DC HC650 SMR HDDs and 18TB Ultrastar DC HC550 CMR HDDs, first previewed in June 2019, and announced in September 2019, feature its first-ever commercial implementation of energy-assisted magnetic recording technology on a nine-disk platform, enabling customers to more efficiently provision and scale their data center environments with unmatched total cost of ownership.

With zettabyte-scale data growth, the need for higher-capacity data storage across a broad spectrum of applications and workloads can be reliably met only with high Capacity Enterprise HDDs. The industry-leading capacities of Western Digital's Ultrastar 20TB SMR and 18TB CMR HelioSeal HDDs enable customers to deploy up to 22 percent fewer racks and reduce their TCO by up to 11 percent, along with the corresponding reductions in power consumption, cooling costs, and data center infrastructure needs when compared with today's 14TB CMR HDDs.

Western Digital achieves the industry's highest areal density performance in these drives through the innovative use of energy-assisted magnetic recording. Together with the company's HelioSeal and SMR technologies, triple-stage micro actuation and 9-disk platform, the energy-assisted recording technology provides an integrated solution, resulting in the dramatic gain in drive capacities.