TDK Corporation announced today the launch in May 2013 of the SDG4A series of serial ATA II compatible industrial solid state drives (SSDs) in 2.5 inch form factor with a maxi-mum capacity of 512 GByte.

tdk_sdg4a_ssd.png

The product employs the newly developed TDK SSD Controller GBDriver RS4 Series. Even without using DRAM cache memory, this makes it possible to meet the requirements for SSDs in industrial applications, with an effective access speed of 180 MByte/sec.

The use of the latest MLC type NAND flash memory and the addition of a read retry function indispensable for enhancing data reliability are major advantages of the new products, augmented by features of the existing GBDriver series such as auto recovery, data randomizer, and auto refresh. Integrated control of these functions enables the product to easily accommodate coming trends in flash memory.

Add a comment

seagate_600_ssd.pngSeagate Technology plc, a worldwide leader in storage solutions, today announced its new portfolio of flash-memory solutions. The company took the wraps off its first client solid state drive (SSD) and its next-generation enterprise SSDs. Featuring the Seagate 600 SSD, Seagate 600 Pro SSD, and the Seagate 1200 SSD, the new line of drives are engineered to deliver ultra-fast speed and high data integrity. Rounding out the portfolio, Seagate also announced the new Seagate X8 Accelerator, a storage class memory PCIe card powered by Virident enabling the company to offer all key interfaces including SATA and SAS solutions.

“We are pleased to announce these new flash memory products. With these new drives, Seagate solidifies its commitment to the flash-based storage market by delivering enterprise SSDs and server-side solutions as well as client solutions,” said Gary Gentry, senior vice president and general manager of Seagate’s solid state drive business. “By adding more SSDs to our family of hard disk and solid state hybrid drives, we now have the broadest portfolio of storage products in the industry, delivering one-stop shopping for our customers and partners. And we’re just getting started. Seagate is committed to becoming a premier supplier of both solid state drives and storage class memory products. We have put in place a winning strategy for developing multiple high value, flash based products and solutions for our customers.”

Seagate 600 SSD: Faster Performance with 6Gb/s SATA
The ultimate laptop upgrade, the Seagate 600 SSD delivers faster boot up speeds, shorter application load times, and improved system responsiveness for the ultimate performance. Laptop users can boot up nearly four times faster and load applications more than two times faster than with a standard hard drive, greatly reducing the amount of wait time to access content.

Add a comment

Buffalo Technology, a global leader in the design, development and manufacturing of wired and wireless networking and network and direct attached storage solutions, today announced that its DriveStation DDR, a high performance external USB 3.0 hard drive with 1 GB DDR3 RAM cache for accelerated transfer speeds, is available for purchase today at select retail partners. Ideal for a variety of users including tech enthusiasts, digital photographers and videographers and media buffs, DriveStation DDR offers extremely fast file transfers, comparable to SSD, with the high capacity and value of a traditional external HDD device.

buffalo_drivestation_ddr.png

The DriveStation DDR utilizes Buffalo's MegaCache Accelerator, a 1 GB DDR3 RAM cache system, to greatly accelerate file transfer rates, notably outperforming other USB 3.0 hard drives. Compared to a standard USB 3.0 hard drive, the 1 GB DRAM cache of the MegaCache system efficiently caches data as it's transferred to automatically boost performance for transfer speeds up to 408 MB/s, 2.3x faster than USB 3.0 hard drives and more than 10x faster than USB 2.0.

Add a comment

Mimoco, makers of the MIMOBOT line of designer USB flash drives, in collaboration with Lucasfilm and in honor of the Star Wars fan favorite holiday May the Fourth Be With You, announce the R2-A6 MIMOBOT. R2-A6, an astromech droid in the same family as R2-D2, is translated in the MIMOBOT’s stylistically illustrated flash drive form. Available in up to 128GB and USB 3.0 capabilities, the drive comes in a run of 1,000 limited edition hand-numbered units. The R2-A6 MIMOBOT drive also comes preloaded with bonus Mimory and the MimoDesk personalization suite of wallpapers, icons, and avatars.

mimoco_r2-a6_mimobot.png

R2-A6 is known as a good-luck charm to the Royal Naboo Security Forces and now, in MIMOBOT form and function, can be a positive omen for your data storage. The droid’s green and white color scheme is derivative in design and function of fellow mechanically-versed droid, R2-D2. Just as a proper astromech droid would be expected to perform, R2-A6 MIMOBOT allows documents, music, photos, and data to be shared, transported, and collected for its master. Just don’t expect it to repair a starfighter malfunction in our earthbound orbit!

Add a comment

Corsair, a worldwide designer and supplier of high-performance components, today announced two new solid-state drive (SSD) related products. The first, the SSD & Hard Disk Drive Cloning Kit, enables users to easily duplicate and transfer data between drives. The kit, which includes a cable and software, is ideal for users upgrading from traditional hard disk drives (HDD) to faster, more rugged Corsair SSDs. In addition, the company announced the Corsair SSD Toolbox, a free software utility which enables users to configure, optimize and monitor their Corsair SSDs.

corsair_cloning_kit.png

The SSD & Hard Disk Drive Cloning Kit enables users to move data between a hard drive and SSD by simply selecting the source drive and destination drives and then clicking a button. Designed for users migrating their data to newly installed SSDs, the kit includes data migration software, a USB-to-SATA cable, and Quick Start Guide. The cable supports USB 3.0 and 2.0 delivering transfer rates up to 180MB/s with USB 3.0 ports, 4 times faster than USB 2.0.

Add a comment

Micron Technology, Inc.  today announced a new PCIe all-flash I/O accelerator to improve overall performance in enterprise servers, appliances and storage platforms. The new Micron P420m combines consistent performance with the inherent power efficiency of an all-flash system to deliver improved economics for enterprise data centers. The P420m accelerates performance of today's demanding data center applications, including online transaction processing (OLTP), data warehousing and virtualization.

micron_p420m_pcie_accelerator.png

Ultimately, Micron's P420m ends the wait game for digital data. It features ultra-low latency performance that enables fast and predictable response times to information frequently used in data center environments. When tested against competing PCIe solutions in a MySQL server running an OLTP benchmark, the P420m is the fastest and most consistent performer, delivering more than 3,200 web server requests per second. It handily manages online requests during peak traffic times, improving the overall end-user experience.

Add a comment

smart_optimus_eco_ssd.pngSMART Storage Systems, an innovative enterprise solid-state drive (SSD) technology provider, today announced the new Optimus Eco, the first Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) 6Gb/s SSD on the market to leverage 19nm multi-level cell (MLC) Flash. Continuing the company's effort to usher in a new era of Flash storage, and anticipating the changing needs of enterprise data centers, SMART Storage Systems' new Optimus Eco SSD represents the industry's best combination of performance, capacity, endurance and cost in an enterprise-class 2.5-inch drive.

Forced to do more with less, many organizations are choosing to build their own hyperscale architectures by combining best-in-class hardware and software to lower costs and meet growing data center demands. In addition, looking to control maintenance costs, data center managers are seeking the highest-capacity drives to pack more capacity into a rack, resulting in the ability to reduce their storage footprint. In fact, Gartner estimates that in 2016 the average capacity of an SSD deployed in enterprise storage and server environments will be more than 1.1TB1. When combined with SSDs that can provide the endurance necessary to support write-intensive applications with cost-effective 19nm MLC Flash, the result is a dramatic reduction in storage total cost of ownership (TCO).

Add a comment

Other World Computing announced today the OWC Envoy Pro EX ultra-portable Solid State Drive solution. Elegantly designed in anodized aluminum to match modern Macs and PCs, the Envoy Pro EX fits easily into a coat pocket, backpack, or briefcase for rugged mobile high performance storage and/or backup capacity.

owc_envoy_pro_ex.png

Inside the Envoy Pro EX resides a SandForce Driven OWC Aura Pro 6G SSD which offers real world sustained reads up to 436MB/s and writes up to 429MB/s. Besides offering blistering fast performance, the USB 3.0 interface can bus-power the Envoy Pro EX so an AC power adapter isn’t required.

Add a comment

The most popular storage medium this year for superthin Ultrabooks and similarly built laptops won’t be the pricey solid state drives (SSD) that initially created a buzz for their astonishing speeds. Instead, they will be the so-called cache SSD storage consisting of NAND flash memory running outside a hard disk drive (HDD) that will be more economically priced for users, according to an IHS iSuppli Storage Space brief from information and analytics provider IHS.

Shipments this year of cache SSD solutions for Ultrabooks and ultrathins are projected to amount to 23.8 million units, up nearly 360 percent from just 5.2 million units in 2012. This year cache SSD shipments for the first time jump over pure SSD storage, expected to ship 18.7 million units for Ultrabooks and ultrathins.

Overall, cache SSD shipments will represent 53 percent of the storage solution for Ultrabook/ultrathins, versus 42 percent for pure-SSD types. The remaining 5 percent will come from shipments of a third solution more commonly known as hybrid HDD—one that employs embedded NAND flash inside a hard disk drive in an integrated form factor.

Cache SSD solutions will continue to maintain their lead in the Ultrabook/ultrathin market until at least 2017. By that time, cache SSD shipments will reach 49.2 million units, compared to 44.6 million pure-SSD shipment units for Ultrabooks and ultrathins. Markets also exist for cache SSD and pure SSD solutions to non-Ultrabooks and non-ultrathins, but shipments here are smaller than for counterpart solutions to the superthin laptops.

Add a comment

Toshiba's Digital Products Division (DPD), a division of Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc., today announced Canvio Connect, a portable external hard drive that offers high capacity storage along with the ability to access and share files directly from the device, making it the first of its kind.

toshiba_canvio_connect.png

"Toshiba's Canvio Connect represents the next evolution in external portable hard drives," said Maciek Brzeski , vice president of product marketing and development, Branded Storage Products, Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc., Digital Products Division. "With its remote access and file sharing capabilities, users can now share their digital content with friends, family and colleagues from anywhere at any time directly from their Canvio Connect — making it unlike any other portable hard drive on the market."

Add a comment