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).

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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"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."

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Kingston Digital, Inc., the Flash memory affiliate of Kingston Technology Company, Inc., the independent world leader in memory products, today announced the release of MobileLite Wireless. MobileLite Wireless is the next generation of the innovative Wi-Drive portable wireless storage device Kingston released in 2011 for Apple and Android devices. The new reader is enhanced as it wirelessly streams movies, music, photos and documents from USB Flash drives, microSD (with included adapter) and SD/SDHC/SDXC cards. MobileLite Wireless also serves as an emergency mobile charger when the user’s phone battery gets low.

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Kingston’s new MobileLite Wireless is the ultimate companion to keep up with one’s active lifestyle, giving users access to unprecedented mobile essentials at a great price. It is as easy as plugging in any USB Flash drive into the USB port to quickly watch and share movies or view and share files wirelessly on mobile devices. The SD/SDHC/SDXC slot enables fast, easy sharing of images with friends and family by removing the card from a camera and plugging it directly into the MobileLite Wireless. The included adapter allows the same access and sharing for microSD cards used in many mobile phones and tablets.

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RITEK recently launched RITEK M-DISC DVD, increasing the lifetime of discs up to 1,000 years. M-DISC was researched and developed by Millenniata, Inc. in U.S.A. M-DISC can preserve and protect your information by laser etching data into a rock-like material that is not available in any other recordable media. Because information is etched into a rock-like material it is resistant to the deteriorating effects of light, temperature, humidity and time. M-DISC's ability to survive extreme conditions has been tested and proven by the U.S. Department of Defense.

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A leading manufacturer of storage media, RITEK is the only strategic partner of Millenniata in Taiwan. For storage media that demand high technology and quality to manufacture, only RITEK, a leading storage media manufacturer in the world, has the professional capability to pull that off. RITEK will also produce the new M-DISC BD as the only partner cooperating with Millenniata. M-DISC BD will be on the market soon.

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Attorney General Pam Bondi’s Office has sued an optical disc drive (ODD) maker over price-fixing allegations. The complaint alleges that Hitachi-LG Data Storage, Inc. and its subsidiary, Hitachi-LG Data Storage Korea, Inc., participated in meetings, discussions, and communications to share competitively sensitive information, such as prices, sales, production, and bidding information in order to rig bids for ODDs sold to Dell Inc., Hewlett-Packard Company, and Microsoft Corporation. ODDs are used to read and record data on optical disks, such as CDs and DVDs. ODDs are commonly found in computers and video game consoles. Additionally, some ODDs are designed to be attached externally to devices, such as computers.

“Price-fixing hurts healthy business competition and costs Florida’s businesses, consumers, and governmental agencies by requiring them to pay higher prices for products,” stated Attorney General Pam Bondi. “My office is committed to protecting Floridians, and we will work to obtain relief for those affected by this alleged price-fixing scheme.”

Hitachi-LG Data Storage, Inc. was charged with a 15-count felony charge by the United States Department of Justice in the United States District Court in San Francisco in September 2011. Hitachi-LG Data Storage, Inc. subsequently paid a $21.1 million criminal fine and pleaded guilty to bid-rigging and price-fixing of ODDs.

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toshiba_exceria_pro_cf.pngToshiba Corporation today announced that its new line of high performance CompactFlash (CF) memory cards, the EXCERIA PRO series, will go on sale from April 27th in the Japanese market. Sales will also follow in Asia, Europe and North America. The initial line-up of 16GB, 32GB and 64GB cards offers the world's highest level read and write speeds and complies with the new Video Performance Guarantee Profile 2 (VPG-65) standard.

The EXCERIA PRO CF cards integrate Toshiba's high performance NAND flash memory and specially developed dedicated firmware. They achieve a read speed of 160MB/s and write speed of 150MB/s, the highest level yet reported.

The new cards are compliant with the CompactFlash Association (CFA) standard CompactFlash Specification Revision 6.1 and compatible with the UDMA7 high speed interface, ensuring they can support high performance DSLRs to the full. The cards are also compatible with the latest "Video Performance Guarantee Profile 2" standard, VPG-65. VPG-65 secures Full HD video capture streams at a minimum write speed of 65MB/s for compatible host devices and recording media. VPG-65 enables 4K resolution (a digital movie file format with horizontal resolution of approx. 4,000 pixels and vertical resolution of approx. 2,000 pixels) movie shooting and high quality Full HD video capture at high frame rates with no dropped frames.

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ASUS today announced the Xonar Essence STU USB external digital-to-analog converter (DAC) and headphone amplifier, based on the acclaimed design and quality of Xonar Essence ST/STX internal sound cards and going beyond their already high standards. Offering audiophile-grade performance, Xonar Essence STU delivers USB connectivity and accessible external controls.

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It offers clear sound with a 120dB signal to noise ratio (SNR), strong 600ohm headphone amplifier, asynchronous USB audio and swappable Op-Amps for DIY sound modification. Precision clock tuning technology further enhances audio fidelity, making Xonar Essence STU a great choice for discerning music lovers who need a quality DAC and headphone amplifier to drive the full capabilities of high-end headphones.

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qnap_ts-221_nas.pngQNAP, Inc. today announced the release of the Turbo NAS TS-x21 and TS-x20 series for home users and home offices. The new models in the TS-x21 series are equipped with 2.0 GHz CPU, 1GB DDR3 RAM, and the TS-x20 series with 1.6 GHz CPU, 512MB DDR3 RAM. Both series deliver superior performance for daily routines in file storage, sharing, and data backup, and serve as ideal media centers for storing and sharing huge multimedia files.

The TS-x21 and TS-x20 series feature the brand-new Turbo NAS operating system QTS 4.0. The new QTS 4.0 integrates multi-window operations into the web-based user interface, adds cross-device file synchronization, several smart mobile apps, and more. In an era where almost everyone has at lease one mobile phone or tablet device, the QTS 4.0 fulfills people’s needs of mobile data access and synchronization, and storage for huge quantities of data. What’s more, the QTS 4.0’s multi-window user interface introduces users to an unprecedented NAS management experience. In addition, the multimedia applications and multi-tasking designs not only increase management efficiency but also transform home entertainment.

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