Crucial, a leading global brand of memory and storage upgrades, today introduced the Crucial v4 Solid State Drive (SSD), designed to deliver substantial yet affordable performance gains for mainstream SATA 2 (3 Gb/s) systems, the primary performance capability of computers purchased before 2011. Available in 32 GB, 64 GB, 128 GB, and 256 GB capacities with MSRPs of $49.99, $69.99, $99.99, and $189.99 respectively, the Crucial v4 SSD can be purchased now through select global channel partners, or direct through www.crucial.com.

The Crucial v4 SSD offers read speeds up to 230 MB/s and write speeds up to 190 MB/s, enabling faster startup times, faster application downloads, faster transfer data speeds, and increased reliability compared to traditional hard drives. The v4 SSD joins the m4 SSD and Adrenaline Solid State Cache Solution to round out the award-winning Crucial SSD portfolio.

Crucial, a leading global brand of memory and storage upgrades, today announced the immediate availability of the Crucial m4 mSATA Solid State Drive (SSD), designed primarily to address the rapidly emerging Ultrabook category and deliver powerful, proven performance for systems where space is at a premium.

The Crucial m4 mSATA SSD delivers the award-winning performance and reliability of the Crucial m4 SSD in a drive one eighth the size. Because of its tiny mSATA form factor, the Crucial m4 mSATA SSD can be mounted to an mSATA-enabled motherboard to serve as a primary storage in ultrathin laptops or act as a cache to complement the performance of an existing hard drive. Available in 32 GB, 64 GB, 128 GB, and 256 GB capacities with MSRPs of $52.99, $80.99, $121.99, and $225.99, respectively, the Crucial m4 mSATA SSD can be purchased now through select global channel partners, or directly at www.crucial.com.

Crucial, a leading global brand of memory and storage upgrades, today announced the immediate availability of Crucial Load-Reduced DIMM (LRDIMM) server memory in support of the new Intel Xeon processor E5 family.

The rise of data center virtualization, cloud computing, and transactional databases has put additional strain on enterprise servers, causing them to struggle to meet user demands. Crucial LRDIMM server memory supports higher memory densities than standard DDR3 RDIMMs, allowing the addition of more DIMMs per channel, and providing flexible, scalable memory that allows applications to perform more effectively. By reducing the electrical loads presented to the CPU, Crucial LRDIMMs deliver up to twice the installed memory capacity for Intel Xeon processor E5 family-based servers, and increase memory bandwidth by up to 35 percent over standard DDR3 RDIMM modules, helping improve overall data center performance and efficiency.

For those who thought with the Indilinx buyout and release of Everest and Kilimanjaro series NAND flash controllers, OCZ is on course of becoming a largely self-sufficient SSD industry player, here's a revelation. Its new Everest series silicon, used in recently-launched SSD families (such as Octane and Vertex 4), is essentially a re-badged Marvell controller (found on SSDs such as Crucial M4, Intel SSD 510), with custom firmware developed by OCZ. This discovery by Anandtech was confirmed by OCZ (Indilinx).

The Indilinx Everest (Octane and Petrol series) and Everest 2 (Vertex 4 series), are both re-badged Marvell chips with Indilinx firmware. Although it doesn't change anything, it perfectly explains how OCZ could come up with two "new" SSD controllers (Everest and Everest 2) almost instantly, after the Indilix acquisition. Everest 1 is essentially a higher-clocked Marvell 88SS9174, while Everest 2 could very well be a re-badged Marvell 88SS9187, according to the source.

Crucial is known for issuing firmware updates for its M4 series SSDs that bring significant improvements, be it the 0009 update that introduced performance improvements by as much as 20%, or the 0309 update that fixed a lot of BSOD instability issues. Introduced on Wednesday, the newest firmware update, "000F", introduces the following changes:

• Improved compatibility with certain SAS expanders and peripheral RAID cards.
• Improved throughput stability under extremely heavy workloads.
• Improved data protection in the event of unexpected, asynchronous power loss.

With higher performance, improved OS-level stability, and now with higher throughput stability and improved data protection in the event of power loss, Crucial M4 is closer to being the perfect consumer SSD.

DOWNLOAD: Crucial M4 000F Firmware Update Windows 7 Updater Utility, Manual Boot File, Instructions

Crucial, a leading global brand of memory and storage upgrades, today announced the immediate availability of the Crucial Adrenaline Solid State Cache Solution for enhancing Windows 7-based PC performance. A simple upgrade that allows users to keep their existing hard drive, Crucial Adrenaline enables PCs to boot up to twice as fast and increases data access speeds by up to eight times. Crucial Adrenaline provides users with the best of both worlds: SSD-like performance with the high capacity of a traditional hard drive, all at an affordable cost.

Comprising a 50 GB Crucial m4 SSD, 3.5" adapter bracket, SATA cable, and NVELO Dataplex caching software, Crucial Adrenaline improves performance by intelligently placing, or "caching," the most frequently needed files on the SSD and leaves less frequently used files on the hard drive. Crucial Adrenaline is available now through select global channel partners, or directly at www.crucial.com/ssc, with an MSRP of $117.99.

Over last weekend, Crucial released a new firmware update for its M4 series SSDs, which aims to fix several blue screen of death (BSOD) issues that users are facing. Crucial's investigation into the BSOD complaints revealed that a bug in the older firmware caused the drives to become unstable after 5,184 hours of operation. After that, every hour the previously-rock-stable drives cause BSODs. The firmware update only applies to drives connected to SATA hosts, and not SAS expanders. Crucial is still working on a firmware update for drives connected via SAS expanders.DOWNLOAD: 0309 Firmware Update for Crucial M4

With the Ultrabook form-factor gaining prominence, there's an urgent need for notebook components to shape up, so is the case with storage devices. A little earlier this month, Crucial announced its latest M4 series SSD in the 2.5" SATA form-factor, which is just 7 mm-slim, as opposed to the ~9.3 mm thickness that's standard. It looks like more SSD makers are hopping into this trend, including Memoright, which launched its FTM Plus Slim series. For SSDs, slimmer 7 mm enclosures don't affect components inside, as SSDs are essentially a printed-circuit board with controllers, DRAM and NAND flash chips.

The FTM Plus Slim series have otherwise the same specifications as the regular (9.3 mm-thick) FTM Plus series. These drives are driven by SandForce SF-2281 controllers, with sequential transfer rates of up to 550 MB/s reads, 500 MB/s writes, and 55,000/50,000 read/write 4K IOPS. They take advantage of SATA 6 Gb/s interface to achieve those speeds. Like its thicker siblings, the FTM Plus Slim will be available in 60 GB, 120 GB, 240 GB, and 480 GB capacities.

Crucial, a leading global brand of memory and storage upgrades, today announced the immediate availability of 8 GB DDR3 memory modules across the Crucial Ballistix Sport, Tactical, and Elite series. By taking advantage of Micron's 4 Gb DRAM technology, the new 8 GB modules provide users with the maximum capacity, performance, and density needed to run data-and graphic-intensive applications smoothly and efficiently.

Available in low-latency DDR3-1600 MHz and DDR3-1866 MHz modules, Crucial 8 GB Ballistix modules can be installed in configurations up to 64 GB in some systems, including the new Intel X79 platforms. Additionally, the complete line of Ballistix memory features a new logo treatment and updated heat spreader designs.

Crucial, a leading global brand of memory and storage upgrades, today introduced a 7 mm version of the award-winning Crucial m4 SSD to meet the need for thinner storage devices. With the same performance delivered by the standard 9.5 mm Crucial m4 SSD, the new ultra-slim 7 mm version supports the latest thin and light form factor laptop models, such as the Lenovo ThinkPad T420G, Acer Aspire 6920G, and new Intel-inspired Ultrabook devices.

The 7 mm Crucial m4 SSD is available in 64 GB, 128 GB, 256 GB, and 512 GB capacities. The 512 GB capacity offering is one of the highest-capacity storage drives - magnetic or solid state - available in the market today for laptops with a 7 mm tall drive bay.

Crucial, a leading global brand of memory and storage upgrades, today announced the Crucial Adrenaline Solid State Cache Solution for enhanced PC performance. Comprising a 50 GB Crucial m4 SSD, a 3.5" adapter bracket, and software, Crucial Adrenaline intelligently places, or "caches," the most frequently needed files on the SSD and keeps less frequently used files on the hard drive.

The combination of a cost-effective, high-performance SSD with an existing hard drive provides users with the best of both worlds: SSD-like performance with the high capacity offered by a traditional hard drive, all at an affordable cost.

A new firmware update by Crucial for its M4 series SATA 6 Gb/s SSDs was released last weekend, marked 0009. The new firmware, applicable to Crucial M4 SSD models CT064M4SSD2 (64 GB), CT0128M4SSD2 (128 GB), CT0256M4SSD2 (256 GB), and CT0512M4SSD2 (512 GB), packs a large number of changes. To begin with, the update is said to increase sequential read speeds by 20%. Tests run by SSD Review verify this. PCMark Vantage Disk performance is also increased.

The new firmware also works to increase throughput performance, lower write latency, wider compatibility with latest chipsets (AHCI modes), and fixes various kinds of cold-boot failures. The firmware lowers SATA speed negotiation time with host controllers, resulting in faster boot. Depending on the model, the 0009 firmware update for Crucial M4 series SSDs can be downloaded from here.

Crucial, a leading global brand of memory and storage upgrades, today introduced Crucial 8GB DDR3-1333 MHz UDIMM (desktop) and SODIMM (laptop) memory modules to fully support the latest 2nd generation Intel Core i7 and i5 processors. Users demand more from their computers than ever before, simultaneously running and switching between multiple, complex applications such as photo editing, high-definition video editing, and gaming software. With that in mind, Crucial high-capacity 8GB desktop and laptop memory modules enable users to meet these computing challenges head on, enhancing the user experience by providing a more responsive system.

The new modules also allow for high-capacity memory in smaller form factors such as laptops, All-in-One PCs, and home theater PCs. Traditionally, most laptops have been limited to one or two DIMM slots for system memory needs. As form factors continue to shrink, providing even less space on the motherboard to populate memory, an 8GB Crucial laptop module is ideal for newer, more portable form factors that only have one DIMM slot available. Additionally, these new 8GB DDR3-1333MHz SODIMM modules are 1.35V, compared to their standard 1.5V counterparts. For laptops that support the lower voltage, the modules help reduce power consumption and operating temperature while increasing battery life.

Crucial, a leading global brand of memory and storage upgrades, today announced two product line additions to its highly successful Ballistix high-performance memory: Crucial Ballistix Tactical and Crucial Ballistix Elite lines. Building on the recent successful launch of the Crucial Ballistix Sport memory, these new product lines create a comprehensive high-performance memory portfolio addressing the needs of a broad range of users across performance memory segments.

Whether casual enthusiast or hardcore gamer, the expanded Ballistix portfolio now provides a distinct choice of performance memory solutions and is available in a variety of speeds and densities, along with differentiated product features. The complete line of Ballistix memory features a new logo treatment and updated heat spreader designs, as well as a full range of products from low latency DDR2-800MHz up to high-speed DDR3-2133MHz. Additionally, 4GB densities will be available in DDR3-1600MHz, -1866MHz, and -2000MHz modules.

Lexar Media, a leading global provider of memory products for digital media, today announced the immediate availability of Crucial m4 solid-state drives in capacities ranging from 64GB to 512GB. Designed for both business customers and general consumers, the Crucial m4 SSD product line incorporates Micron's industry-leading 25-nanometer (nm) NAND flash technology in a 2.5" form factor. Like its Crucial RealSSD C300 predecessor, the Crucial m4 also supports the SATA 6Gb/s interface, opening up the data path between the host processor and the SSD, and resulting in improved overall system responsiveness, including faster boot times and application loads.

The new Crucial m4 SSD reaches read speeds of up to 415 MB/second, a 17 percent increase over its predecessor. Likewise, write speeds on the new 512GB capacity have demonstrated increases up to 260MB/s, a 20 percent boost over the fastest C300 drive1. Ideal for client computing, Crucial m4 SSD products provide benefits for notebooks, desktops, workstations, and industrial applications, including low power consumption, lightweight construction, and resistance to shock and vibration.

Lexar Media, a leading global provider of memory products for digital media, today introduced the Crucial Ballistix Sport memory series designed to provide mainstream users, gamers, and general PC enthusiasts with a reliable, no-hassle gaming experience. The new Crucial Ballistix Sport memory supports today's latest AMD and Intel platforms, including 2nd Generation Intel Core processor (formerly codenamed Sandy Bridge) technology. It also features a stylish new heat spreader design, along with standard timings and voltages, providing maximum memory stability and system compatibility. Additionally, industry-standard specifications require little or no BIOS configuration, resulting in easy product installation.

"Over the years, Crucial Ballistix memory has earned a reputation amongst gamers and enthusiasts as high-quality, high-performance, reliable memory," said Jeremy Mortenson, senior product manager. "The Crucial Ballistix Sport series offers casual gamers an accessible, easy-to-use Ballistix memory product at an affordable price. This new Ballistix offering is part of our broader product strategy and a commitment to satisfy the needs of our customers."

Lexar Media, a leading global provider of memory products for digital media, today introduced Crucial DDR3-1333MHz RDIMM BOM-controlled server DRAM for customers who require a Bill of Material (BOM), revision control, as well as Product Change Notices (PCNs). BOM-control applies to the DRAM component, register, and PCB of eligible Crucial server memory modules. The new BOM-controlled server memory is covered by the Crucial Reliance Server Program, and enables registered partners to stay ahead of product changes, reduce the frequency of memory qualifications that occur due to memory revisions, and ultimately optimize productivity. Participating customers with Crucial BOM-controlled server memory will receive at least 30 day advanced notification of pending module revisions.

Crucial DDR3-1333MHz RDIMM BOM-controlled server memory is halogen-free, RoHS compliant, and will be validated on Intel CPUs and platforms; 2GB, 4GB and 8GB densities are now available for sampling and qualification. For additional information on how to purchase BOM-controlled server memory, contact your Crucial memory provider, or visit this page for details and qualifications.

Micron Technology, Inc. today unveiled a new portfolio of the industry's most advanced RealSSD solid-state drives (SSDs) for the fast growing flash-based notebook market. A new breed of notebooks are entering the market that have lightweight construction, snappier system responsiveness and a longer lasting battery-all made possible because of the innovations in flash-based storage products.

"SSDs are bringing excitement back into personal computing," said Dean Klein, vice president of memory system development at Micron. "Micron is accelerating this enthusiasm with our new RealSSD portfolio, providing even greater performance and higher capacities than our previous generation SSDs."

The popular Crucial Ballistix line just stepped up a gear. Announcing Crucial Ballistix with Thermal Sensor memory modules now in speeds of DDR3-1866 MHz in capacities of 2GB, 4GB kits (2x 2GB) and 6GB kits (3x 2GB), and DDR3-2133 MHz modules in capacities of 2GB or 4GB kits (2x 2GB). This high performance RAM incorporates the new thermally improved finned design and built-in thermal sensor. Available in dual and three channel kits, these memory modules are designed for the Intel Core i5 and Core i7 systems. And coupled with the recently announced Crucial Ballistix Active Cooling Fan, this is one "cool" kit of memory.

Lexar Media, a leading global provider of memory products for digital media, today announced the Crucial Ballistix Active Cooling Fan, a snap-on proactive solution to decrease memory module heat by increasing airflow. The Crucial Ballistix Active Cooling Fan cools memory modules by eliminating 'dead spots' of airflow within the case. The fan is especially effective with water-cooled systems where internal airflow around the memory modules is often minimal. Watch a short video demonstrating how the Crucial fan increases airflow inside a computer case artificially filled with smoke. The Crucial Ballistix Active Cooling Fan is available globally today through select partners and online at Crucial.com.

"With higher densities of memory running fully populated in motherboard memory slots?along with faster speeds?performance systems demand additional cooling," said Jeremy Mortenson, Crucial senior product manager. "Whether you run your memory at stock speeds or push it to the limits with overclocking, temperature plays a critical role in reliability. The new Crucial Ballistix Active Cooling Fan can improve airflow and keep your memory running cooler."

Lexar Media, a leading global provider of memory products for digital media, today introduced a 1.8" footprint version of the award-winning Crucial RealSSD C300 product line. The 1.8" profile, which is approximately 40% smaller than the standard 2.5" drive, provides an excellent solid-state storage option for the most portable products such as ultra-thin laptops, netbooks, and tablet PCs - without sacrificing performance and capacity. Based upon the Micron RealSSD product design and innovation, the new Crucial RealSSD C300 1.8" drive utilizes (multi-level cell) MLC NAND, advanced controller technology, and optimized NAND management, which together improve boot up and application load times dramatically and enhance overall system performance. No moving parts provides for quieter, cooler, and more durable solutions compared to traditional hard disk drives.

Lexar Media, a leading global provider of memory products for digital media, today announced the Crucial RealSSD C300 with Data Transfer Kit available with the 64GB, 128GB, and 256GB C300 drives. This convenient product bundle includes a Crucial RealSSD C300 solid-state drive, a SATA-to-USB data cable, and cloning software.

Migrating from a traditional hard drive to a solid-state drive offers improved boot up and application load times. In addition, SSDs run cooler, quieter, and with more durability when compared to a traditional hard drive. However, transferring data from an existing hard drive to a new SSD can prove a daunting task to many notebook or desktop computer users.

Lexar Media, a leading global provider of memory products for digital media, today introduced a 64GB addition to the award-winning Crucial RealSSD C300 product line. The new 64GB RealSSD C300 drive, like its predecessors, natively supports SATA 6Gb/s, is backwards compatible with the SATA 3Gb/s interface, and provides scorching-fast read speeds of up to 355 MB/s and write speeds up to 75 MB/s. Competitively priced at US$149.99, the new 64GB C300 drive is available in a standard 2.5-inch form factor, and comes with a limited three-year warranty.

"The 64GB C300 drive is a natural extension of our award-winning Crucial RealSSD C300 product line. This aggressively priced 64GB C300 drive makes SSD technology more affordable than ever, delivers durability for mobile computing, and makes it a compelling boot drive for desktop PCs," said Robert Wheadon, Lexar Media senior worldwide SSD product manager.

Lexar Media, a leading global provider of memory products for digital media, today announced Crucial Ballistix high-performance memory modules with thermal sensor and temperature-monitoring utility, encased in a radically redesigned and more effective heat spreader. The thermal sensor and monitoring utility allow PC enthusiasts to view memory module temperature in real time, a major benefit for overclockers and enthusiast users constantly battling against excessive system heat. Additionally, the new Crucial Ballistix modules feature a redesigned "finned" heat spreader design that reduces memory module temperature by up to 30% more than the current Crucial Ballistix design. The new Crucial Ballistix modules are initially available exclusively at popular online retailer Newegg.com.

"Ask any PC enthusiast and they'll tell you that system heat is a constant concern," said Crucial Ballistix senior product manager, Jeremy Mortenson. "Our new Crucial Ballistix memory modules offer two incredibly effective tools in memory cooling: thermal sensors for temperature monitoring, and an improved heat spreader design."

Lexar Media, a leading global provider of memory products for digital media, today announced high-density 4GB Crucial DDR3-1333MHz (PC3-10600) SODIMM notebook memory. These new 4GB SODIMM modules offer anyone seeking a desktop replacement option - including mobile consumers, enthusiasts, and workstation users - the enhanced computing performance they crave. Additionally, the notebook modules have been validated for compatibility with Intel's Core i7, i5, and i3 mobile processors.

"The shift from DDR2 to DDR3 memory in the mobile computing space allowed for higher memory bandwidths while using less power, which resulted in improved system performance and potentially longer battery life. Now, with the availability of high-density 4GB Crucial DDR3-1333MHz SODIMM modules, mobile users will push the limits of notebook system performance and speed even further," said Jim Jardine, Lexar Media's senior worldwide product manager.