Verbatim(R) Americas, LLC, an industry innovator in the data storage industry for 40 years, announced today its new TUFF-’N’-TINY™ family of ultra-portable USB drives with capacities of 4GB in emerald green and 8GB in royal purple. Among the most compact, durable USB flash drives on the market, the new TUFF-’N’-TINY drives measure about 1-inch long, one-half inch wide and are the thickness of a penny. Ideal for storing, backing up, sharing and transporting data and multimedia files, Verbatim TUFF-’N’-TINY USB Drives are available with retail prices starting as low as US$30.00.

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With support for Windows(R), Mac(R) and Linux(R) systems, the TUFF-’N’-TINY USB Drives also provide true cross-platform compatibility and a convenient way to transfer files between systems. Verbatim’s new travel-tough USB drives include a key ring lanyard that can be clipped on a key ring, PDA or cell phone to ensure that the user’s data is always conveniently at hand.

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Intel Corporation and Micron Technology Inc. today announced the development of a new 3-bit-per-cell (3bpc) multi-level cell (MLC) NAND technology, leveraging their award-winning 34-nanometer (nm) NAND process. The chips are typically used in consumer storage devices such as flash cards and USB drives, where high density and cost-efficiency are paramount.

Designed and manufactured by IM Flash Technologies (IMFT), their NAND flash joint venture, the new 3bpc NAND technology produces the industry’s smallest and most cost-effective 32-gigabit (Gb) chip that is currently available on the market. The 32Gb 3bpc NAND chip is 126mm². Micron is currently sampling and will be in mass production in the fourth quarter 2009. With the companies continuing to focus on the next process shrink, 3bpc NAND technology is an important piece of their product strategy and is an effective approach in serving key market segments.

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DivX, Inc., a digital media company, today announced the DivX Certification of two new high-performance Marantz® Blu-ray players for DivX® HD 1080p playback. The BD7004 and BD5004 Blu-ray players are now available in the United States and Canada.

With these devices, consumers can easily playback their 1080p DivX HD videos. Typical HD video requires a considerable amount of storage space, but DivX HD video provides a superior media experience by maintaining the highest visual quality while significantly reducing the video file size. Using DivX technology, a full-length high-definition movie is able to fit on a DVD.

"Having Marantz include DivX HD technology in their leading-edge Blu-ray players is a real win for us," said Eric Rodli, Executive Vice President, Licensing, at DivX. "As the market for Blu-ray players accelerates, we are pleased to have demand from our OEM partners to include DivX HD technology as a value-added feature."

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Aleratec Inc., leading developer and manufacturer of "Prosumers' Choice" solutions for the USB, Flash, HDD, Blu-ray, DVD CD, duplicating, and DVD/CD publishing markets, introduced today a new Blu-ray disc duplicator for the “Prosumer” market. This is the 3rd generation Blu-ray duplicator that Aleratec has brought to market. The Aleratec 1:3 Copy Cruiser BLU HLX features a high-speed transfer rate of 8X and embraces LightScribe technology, a sophisticated system for labeling discs.

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“Aleratec was the first disc duplicator company to adopt the LightScribe labeling technology,” stated Kent Henscheid, marketing manager for LightScribe. “We are pleased to see Aleratec carry on the tradition with this new 8X Blu-ray duplicator that features LightScribe DVD/CD functionality."

Aleratec’s new 8X, Blu-ray Disc Duplicator allows a customer to duplicate up to three (3) discs simultaneously while connected to the computer through an external eSATA connection. Each drive has an 8 MB internal memory to buffer write data while performing the duplication.  Advanced algorithms prevent buffer underruns/overruns to create an exact duplicate disc up to an 8X speed. The Aleratec 1:3 Copy Cruiser BLU HLX simultaneously produces up to 3 Blu-ray, or DVD, or CD Copies or simultaneously produces 3 DVD or CD silk screen quality direct to disc LightScribe labels.

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QNAP Systems, Inc., a leading manufacturer of world class NAS servers, NVR Video Surveillance Systems, and Network-based Video Players today expanded their Turbo NAS lineup with a pair of new ultra-high performance NAS servers for the corporate and entry-level enterprise market. The new TS-439U-RP and TS-439U-SP models are both 4-drive 1U rack mounted NAS servers with hot-swappable drives that are capable of up to 8TB total capacity using 2TB drives. The newly-designed HDD tray for 2.5-inch and 3.5-inch HDD dual support is also equipped in these two models, which gives users more choices to deploy the hard drives.

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The TS-439U-RP and TS-439U-SP feature Intel ATOM 1.6GHz CPU and 1GB DDRII memory, making them capable of incredible performance; up to 87.3MB/sec transfer rate for an FTP read with RAID 5 enabled. Both models can be configured for RAID 0/1/5/6/5+ spare, and JBOD with online RAID capacity expansion and RAID level migration. Both models feature iSCSI Target service with Thin Provisioning and dual Gigabit LAN ports with port trunking (support 7 bonding modes) and multi-IP setting.

The primary difference between the TS-439U-RP and TS-439U-SP is the RP model includes a redundant power supply that will automatically kick in if the other fails. The SP model includes a single power supply, but is upgradeable with an optional redundant power supply that can be installed without powering down the unit.

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Kingston Technology Company, Inc., the independent world leader in memory products, today announced a new addition to its SSDNow line of solid-state drives. Shipping immediately, the SSDNow V+ features capacities up to 256GB, higher input and output operations per second (IOPS) and faster read/write speeds than a standard mechanical hard-disk drive. It is targeted to prosumers and enterprise companies looking to increase performance and extend the life of existing systems.

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"The SSDNow V+ is the ideal solid-state drive for power users, system builders, system integrators, and in demanding corporate environments where efficiency and performance are important as more system resources are in use," said Ariel Perez, SSD business manager, Kingston®. "Users will be more productive as the drive's higher capacities and IOPS allow for more data storage and faster boot and application load times."

A computer's operating system will benefit from the drive's impressive random 4K read speeds of up to 6,300 IOPS, and random 4K writes of up to 291 IOPS. The Kingston SSDNow V+ has a blazing sequential read speed of up to 220MB/sec. and write speeds of up to 180MB/sec.

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Verbatim(TM) Americas, LLC an industry innovator in the data storage industry for 40 years, announced today its new TUFF-CLIP(TM) USB Drives.  Available now with capacities of 4GB in turquoise and 8GB in black, the new flash drives combine clip-and-go convenience with industrial strength toughness.  Verbatim's TUFF-CLIP USB drives feature an ultra-rugged plastic enclosure with a convenient retractable slider that protects the USB connector.  Tough enough for active users to carry their data wherever they go, the innovative design also has an integrated carabineer clip that can be securely fastened onto a backpack, key chain, belt loop or notebook.  The drives come pre-loaded with password security software for Windows systems that protects sensitive data in a user-defined private zone, while allowing a public zone for open access and sharing of non-sensitive content. 

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“The TUFF-CLIP drive's enclosure is made of ABS plastic and built to take everyday knocks in stride” explained Mark Rogers, Verbatim Product Manager.  “With the clip-on design, the drives are also less likely to get lost or misplaced; and with the retractable cover, there is no cap to lose.”

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Active Media Products, manufacturer of SSDs and WWF series USB drives, today launched new 16GB and 32GB PATA ZIF SSD upgrades for HP mini netbooks with transfer speeds about twice as fast as the default drive.

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"The SaberTooth Z cuts bootup and application load times in half." said Vice President of Sales at Active Media Products, Jerry Thomson. "HP Mini 1000 users will be amazed at the ease of installation and the difference it makes in performance."

The SaberTooth Z has a 1.8-inch form factor and measures 54 x 32 mm. Using a PATA / IDE interface and a ZIF connector, the SaberTooth Z is guaranteed compatible with HP Mini 1000, 1010NR, 1030 NR and 2510P netbooks. Active Media Products uses the same Phison 3016 controller in its SaberTooth AA PATA half mini PCIe SSDs, so the reliability and performance are already proven. The controller hosts key features such as ECC, wear leveling and bad bit management that improve reliability and extend the life of the drive.

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Toshiba Corporation announced today that the company has applied for membership of the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) and plans to introduce products that support the Blu-ray format.

As a market leader in digital technologies, Toshiba provides a wide range of advanced digital products, such as DVD recorders and players, HDTVs and notebook PCs that support a wide range of storage devices, including hard disk drives (HDD), DVD, and SD Cards. In light of recent growth in digital devices supporting the Blu-ray format, combined with market demand from consumers and retailers alike, Toshiba has decided to join the BDA.

Toshiba aims to introduce digital products that support the Blu-ray format, including BD players and notebook PCs integrating BD drives, in the course of this year. Details of the products, including the timing of regional launches, are now under consideration. We will make announcements in due course.

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Continuing its tradition of being first-to-market with industry leading hard drives, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi GST) today announced that it is now shipping the world’s first, two terabyte (2TB), 7200 RPM hard disk drive (HDD). The new, colossal, 2TB Deskstar™ 7K2000 blends high performance and high capacity with low power and other eco-friendly features designed to enable Energy-Star rated computers and other high performance desktop systems.

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Leveraging a solid track record for reliability, the new Deskstar 7K2000 is now in its fourth-generation using the company’s unique five-platter design with relaxed bit density and proven perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) technology. Couple this with an ultra-quiet operation, a 32MB cache and a 3Gb/s SATA interface, and the new Deskstar 7K2000 is the ideal desktop drive for power users, gamers or anyone looking for a big, fast hard drive.

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