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Flash Memory

21 October 2015

Western Digital Corporation and SanDisk Corporation today announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Western Digital will acquire all of the outstanding shares of SanDisk for a combination of cash and stock. The offer values SanDisk common stock at $86.50 per share or a total equity value of approximately $19 billion, using a five-day volume weighted average price ending on October 20, 2015 of $79.60 per share of Western Digital common stock. If the previously announced investment in Western Digital by Unisplendour Corporation Limited closes prior to this acquisition, Western Digital will pay $85.10 per share in cash and 0.0176 shares of Western Digital common stock per share of SanDisk common stock; and if the Unisplendour transaction has not closed or has been terminated, $67.50 in cash and 0.2387 shares of Western Digital common stock per share of SanDisk common stock. The transaction has been approved by the boards of directors of both companies.

The combination is the next step in the transformation of Western Digital into a storage solutions company with global scale, extensive product and technology assets, and deep expertise in non-volatile memory (NVM). With this transaction, Western Digital will double its addressable market and expand its participation in higher-growth segments. SanDisk brings a 27-year history of innovation and expertise in NVM, systems solutions and manufacturing. The combination also enables Western Digital to vertically integrate into NAND, securing long-term access to solid state technology at lower cost.

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Hard Disks

20 October 2015

The Storage Products Business Unit of Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc., a committed technology leader, announces its newest enterprise performance hard disk drive (HDD) line, the AL14SE series, designed for mission critical servers and high-performance, high-availability storage systems. The AL14SE is Toshiba’s latest 10,500 rotations per minute (RPM) HDD to support 12Gbit/s SAS and 512n sector length for compatibility with the latest generation host controllers and host bus adapters.

The AL14SE features a new four platter design, increasing storage capacity by 33 percent over the previous AL13SE generation models. The new AL14SE family is also updated with a 128MB data buffer for improved performance. The AL14SE family of HDDs provides 12Gbit/s dual-ported SAS support and 512n sector models in industry standard capacities of 300GB, 450GB, 600GB, 900GB and 1200GB.

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Network Storage

20 October 2015

We are pleased to announce the NetSwap NS500 addition to our NetSwap product family, with the recent update of Cloud-friendly NetSwap version 2.14 firmware bringing the ability to run Virtual Machines (optional Utility OS) and new RAID types (0, 1 , N-Way, and 5, 6 and 10).

Because of the recent announcement of the new NetSwap Dashboard software, many customers have sought the advantages of the NetSwap platform without requiring the use of our Highly-Removable Drives at all of their installations.  For example, sites where smaller NetSwaps are replicating over the internet to a central location have created a desire for a higher storage density tennant for a lower price on the NetSwap platform.

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Flash Memory

15 October 2015

ZOTAC International, a global innovator and leading manufacturer of graphics cards, ZBOX Mini PCs, and Solid State Drives (SSDs), ramps up a new line of storage aimed at offering enduring speed in desktops, notebooks, and external storage as it becomes an essential to every PC. 

Available in 240GB and 480GB capacities, the Premium Edition SSDs bring with it a suite of features. At the heart sits a quad-core Phison SSD controller and outstanding MLC NAND for marathon reliability with up to 480 TBW and up to 3,000 PE cycles. With robust performance delivering sequential read/write speeds of up to 520MBps and 500MBps, the Premium Edition SSDs are within a hair’s width of the SATA III bandwidth saturation point.

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Flash Memory

15 October 2015

OCZ Storage Solutions -- a Toshiba Group Company and provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) for computing devices and systems, today announced the introduction of Host Managed SSD (HMS) technology, first supported by the Saber 1000 Series SSDs. HMS technology enables Host controls over internal SSD background processing tasks that were previously not exposed to host-level software. System-level software control of background processing tasks, such as Garbage Collection, enable improving overall storage performance, and specifically enable obtaining consistent and predictable latency across a large pool of SSDs.

Hyperscale, Cloud, and datacenters now run software defined storage applications which manage large pools of SSDs across multiple servers. Consistent performance of these SSDs is critical to many modern applications, such as modern data bases and online trading, that have migrated to the Cloud. Exposing HMS functions via API enables integration of HMS functions into the storage stacks.

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Flash Memory

13 October 2015

Lexar, a leading global brand of flash memory products, today announced two additions to its CFast memory card line: the Lexar Professional 3600x CFast 2.0 card and the Lexar Professional 3500x CFast 2.0 card. Both are designed to capture high-quality 4K video and meet the exacting speed and capacity demands of professional cinematographers, filmmakers, and content creators. These cards leverage new thresholds of performance and maximize the capabilities of next-generation cinema-grade video cameras.

“More and more cinematographers and videographers are embracing cutting-edge video cameras for important shoots,” said Steffi Ho, product marketing manager, Lexar. “The goal in developing the Professional 3600x and 3500x CFast 2.0 cards is to provide them with the fastest memory cards available to capture high quality 4K video and beyond.”

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Flash Memory

13 October 2015

Lexar, a leading global brand of flash memory products, today introduced the Lexar Professional 2933x and 1400x XQD 2.0 cards, as well as the Lexar Professional Workflow XR2 (XQD 2.0 USB 3.0 reader) for professional videographers, photographers, and enthusiasts. The Professional 2933x XQD 2.0 is the fastest XQD card on the market today, delivering a dramatically enhanced workflow with the quickest capture and transfer performance available.

Designed for use with the latest generation of high-definition camcorders and high-resolution DSLRs, the new XQD 2.0 cards deliver read transfer speeds up to 2933x (440MB per second) and 1400x (210MB per second) respectively, enabling an accelerated workflow that allows users to quickly capture and store stunning, high-quality images and 4K video. These new rugged, high-speed cards support both PCI Express Gen 2 and USB 3.0 interfaces.

“The Lexar Professional 2933x and 1400x XQD 2.0 cards provide exceptional resilience to environmental factors such as water, vibration, shock, and temperature, so they’re the ideal tool for professional photographers and videographers using XQD based DSLRs, such as the Nikon 4DS, looking to capture the highest quality images or video in any environment,” said Wes Brewer, vice president and general manager, Lexar. “And pairing these new cards with the Professional Workflow XR2 reader gives photographers and videographers the ability to quickly offload content and complete post-production work, so they can save time and refocus on their business and craft.”

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Flash Memory

13 October 2015

Lexar, a leading global brand of flash memory products, today announced two additions to its mobile USB 3.0 flash drive line: the Lexar JumpDrive M20c and the Lexar JumpDrive M20i. The Lexar JumpDrive M20c is designed for use with next-generation USB Type-C devices, and features two connectors – USB Type-C and USB 3.0 – to allow users to easily share content between smartphones, tablets, and computers. The Lexar JumpDrive M20i is designed for use with iOS devices, enabling users to easily offload and move photos and videos between an iPhone, iPad, and computers.

"The long-awaited reality of Type-C connectivity is here, and the new Lexar JumpDrive M20c is meeting the emerging demand for a solution that allows users to quickly and easily share content across next-generation and legacy devices," said Aaron Lee, director of product marketing, Lexar. "With the endless amount of content being created, captured, and consumed every day, it's easy to run out of space on your smartphone or tablet. Both the Lexar JumpDrive M20c and Lexar JumpDrive M20i provide users with an easy way to transfer, share, and offload content on the go."

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Network Storage

13 October 2015

QNAP, Inc. has sprung another surprise on the enterprise storage marketplace with the announcement of the new TVS-ECx80U-SAS-RP unified NAS-SAS storage solution. This new system bridges the gap between all three different types of drives: speedy all-SSD storage, large capacity SATA drives and cost-effective SAS HDD systems. The new TVS-ECx80U-SAS-RP series marries high-performance 12Gbps SAS drives with built-in ultra-high performance 256GB SSD caching. Powered by QNAP’s new QTS 4.2 management software along with the new Qtier automated data-tiering technology, the system keeps frequently accessed data readily accessible and infrequently accessed data close at hand in less-costly HDD storage, significantly improving the overall performance while reducing data warehousing costs.

With up to 24 HDDs, 12Gbps SAS performance, and 256GB of SSD caching, the new TVS-ECx80U-SAS-RP delivers lightning-fast frequently accessed files from the SSD drives, and balances less-accessed files in SAS and SATA hard drives. From a cost perspective, this is important as SSDs are still in the $0.30/GB cost band, while SAS and SATA drives are in the $0.04 ~ $0.06/GB range. The TVS-ECx80U-SAS-RP series also features powerful quad-core Intel® Xeon™ processor mated to 16GB of DDR3 RAM (expandable to 32GB) in a 2U ~ 4U chassis (model dependent) with a redundant power supply for enhanced fault-tolerance. The introduction of 12Gbps SAS architecture boosts performance 37% over previous 6Gbps hardware. All models ship with 4 Gigabit LAN ports and feature optional 10GbE LAN connectivity. Up to 8 QNAP REXP Expansion Chassis can also be connected for additional storage.