Intel Corporation announced today a new addition to its award-winning lineup of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs): the Intel® X25-V Value SATA SSD. Priced at $125, the 40 gigabyte (GB) drive is aimed at value segment netbooks and dual-drive/boot drive desktop set-ups to offer users the performance and reliability advantages of solid-state computing at an affordable, entry-level price.

SSDs can replace or coexist with traditional hard disk drives (HDDs). With no movable parts or spinning platters, SSDs are more reliable and higher performing than HDDs. This makes users more productive as they experience faster overall system responsiveness. With the affordable price point, consumers can now enjoy the benefits of an SSD by adding an SSD option to their current desktop PC in a dual-drive or "boot drive" set up. In a dual-drive configuration, the Intel X25-V SSD is added to a desktop with an existing HDD. The SSD is loaded with the operating system and favorite applications to take advantage of the speedy performance which is nearly 4x faster than a 7200RPM HDD. Users keep their existing HDD as a means of higher capacity data storage. This capability is commonly referred to as a "boot" drive since the SSD accelerates boot or start up time.

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OCZ Technology Group, Inc. today unveiled the OCZ Onyx SATA II 2.5” Solid State Drive (SSD) Series, an ultra-affordable MultiLevel Cell (MLC)-based solid state storage solution designed for consumers looking to take advantage of flash-based storage technology. Offering a faster and more durable alternative to traditional hard drives in a cost-efficient SSD, the Onyx delivers reliable performance without the high price normally associated with SSD drives.

“As new technologies become available, OCZ continues to expand both our enterprise and consumer SSD lines, and one of our goals is to make SSDs more affordable to end-users. Our new Onyx series SSD does exactly that and is a perfect solution for netbooks, laptops, or home desktop PCs,” commented Ryan Petersen, CEO of the OCZ Technology Group. “Designed to offer the best of both worlds, the new OCZ Onyx SSD delivers the speed and reliability of solid state storage to mainstream consumers at an aggressive price point that makes the technology more accessible to customers who want to take advantage of all the benefits of the SSDs without incurring the high cost normally associated with the solution.”

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WD today introduced its new My Passport™ AV portable media drives. Designed specifically for video storage and playback, the new My Passport AV portable media drives deliver a plug-and-play experience for digital media enthusiasts. Available now at select retailers and WD's online store, the My Passport AV portable media drive is offered with 320 GB of capacity.

A large and increasing number of game consoles, camcorders, TVs, DVRs, Blu-ray players and media players, including the WD TV® Media Player family, allow consumers to connect a USB drive and play the multimedia content from the drive on an HD TV. The My Passport AV portable media drive is designed to meet the requirements of this demanding video streaming environment. It delivers the formatting and low-power consumption that assures out-of-the-box compatibility with many leading CE (consumer electronics) devices.

WD worked to ensure that the My Passport AV portable media drives operate seamlessly with the Direct Copy feature offered in Sony's new Handycam® video recorders. Direct Copy lets Handycam users offload and archive HD video directly to a My Passport AV portable media drive without a computer, creating room to shoot more HD videos when their Handycam hard drive becomes full.

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I-O Data Japan sent out a press release this morning, announcing its new 12x Blu-ray Disc writer, the BRD-SH12B. Based on the LG BH12N, the BRD-SH12B is capable of 12x BD-R, 12x BD-R DL, 6x BD-R LTH, 2x BD-RE and 2x BD-RE DL writing speeds and a maximum BD-ROM read speed of 10x. The drive is also backwards compatible with all major CD and DVD formats and comes bundled with Corel's WinDVD BD and DVD MovieWriter 7 BD software as well as Nero Express Essentials.  The BRD-SH12B is expected to ship in late March for a suggested retail price of 28,500 Yen ($315US).