Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi GST) today announced worldwide availability of two new 15,000 RPM Ultrastar hard drives for Tier 0/1, mission-critical, enterprise storage applications. The new drives include the Ultrastar C15K147, Hitachi’s first 15,000 RPM, 2.5-inch 6Gb/s Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) hard drive, and the new 600GB Ultrastar 15K600, the company’s fourth generation 3.5-inch drive with either 6Gb/s SAS or 4Gb/s Fibre Channel Arbitrated Loop (FCAL) interfaces. To help enterprises protect sensitive data and comply with privacy and data protection regulations, Hitachi now offers industry-compliant, self-encrypting, enterprise-class hard drives as an option across all of its 10,000 and 15,000 RPM Ultrastar drives.

While enterprise operating costs continue to escalate, most IT budgets are either flat or trending downward. At the same time, enterprise data is proliferating at an unabated rate and sensitive data must be protected. These factors combine to make storage efficiency, data protection and return on assets (ROA) among the most pressing concerns for today’s data center managers. In these environments, every possible technique must be applied to achieve maximum value, efficiency and security. This could mean applying tiered storage methods, implementing encryption technologies, reducing power, maximizing cooling while minimizing space requirements, or obtaining maximum performance out of individual components and systems.

Add a comment

Plextor is again confirming its position as the leading quality supplier of optical devices, by launching the fastest Blu-ray DVD re-writer in the world. The Plextor PX-B940SA writes at a blistering 12-speed (BD-R DL/SL), which is an important step up when burning complete Blu-ray discs which can hold anything up to 50GB of data.

Using a Serial ATA interface, the internal Plextor PX-B940SA offers extra convenience through faster operation and saving time – ideal for home enthusiast and SOHO users requiring high capacity data storage for backups, movies etc.

Rudy de Meirsman, Sales & Marketing Manager of Plextor Europe, says: “As Blu-ray is becoming the de-facto standard for consumer players, within PCs and even laptops, volumes rise and technology accelerates. Plextor is showing its continued innovative ability to stay on top of the optical market – bringing out the latest Blu-ray technology in an extremely high quality and high reliability package.”

Add a comment

Nero, creators of liquid media technology, today announced the release of Nero 9 “Reloaded”, the latest update to one of the world's most trusted and best-selling integrated digital media and home entertainment software solutions. Compatible with Windows 7, Nero 9 Reloaded adds a number of new multimedia capabilities designed to deliver on the company’s commitment to liquid media, allowing content to be distributed anytime, anywhere and on any device.  New Nero customers can take advantage of Nero 9 Reloaded bundle which includes Nero BackItUp & Burn software ($49.99 value) for free, giving even the most non-technical user a powerful solution for their data burning, restoration, recovery and syncing needs.

“Nero has built its reputation on the ability to solve the highly specific digital content needs of today’s diverse consumers,” said Kris Barton, executive vice president of global products, Nero AG. “With Nero 9 Reloaded we are not only ensuring the liquidity of our users’ content, but are helping to better protect their valuable photos, videos, music and data.  Compatibility with the new Windows 7 Operating System further underscores our longstanding commitment to platform interoperability.”

Add a comment

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., a worldwide leader in digital consumer electronics and information technology, has launched its first internal Blu-ray disc COMBO, the SH-B083. The Samsung Blu-ray disc (BD) drive is available with large capacities of up to 25GB for a single layer disc and 50GB for a double layer disc for use in PCs. Building upon the company’s ODD leadership, the new Blu-ray drive reads BD-R and BD-ROMs at up to 8x speeds. The COMBO drive also reads CDs at up to 40x and DVDs at up to 16x.

With Samsung’s fast dual layer jumping algorithm, the new SH-B083 COMBO drive features an average access speed of 350ms which is much faster than any other drive on the market. The new drive reads Blu-ray discs and reads and writes CD/DVDs.

“Expanding the HD content experience for PC users, Blu-ray technology offers consumers a lot of advantages over traditional ODD technology,” said John Suh, director of OMS sales and marketing. “With Samsung’s new BD drive, users can not only watch HD movies on their PC but they can also record HDTV broadcasting on to a DVD with the bundled software Cyberlink Powerproducer. They also can record HD camcorder movies to a DVD disc with Powerproducer.”

Add a comment