While not the very first of its kind, Intel Smart Response technology took the enthusiast community by storm, offering a middle-ground between small but fast SSDs, and large but slow HDDs. By caching on the SSD, Smart Response is able to give system responsiveness a significant boost. Before that, HDD major Seagate put a tiny SSD component onto its Momentus XT hard drive, to chop access times a little. Now OCZ inverted the concept, and strapped an HDD onto its SSD to make it more capacious, on its new RevoDrive Hybrid.

Here, the major component is a SSD RAID 0 on a stick, which pools data onto an HDD. RevoDrive is a PCI-Express x4 SSD card, which uses a number of SandForce SF-1200 driven SSD sub-units in RAID 0 that's abstract to the host machine. The card is normally available in capacities as low as 60 GB, or as high as 480 GB. On RevoDrive Hybrid, OCZ installed a 2.5-inch hard drive with capacities as high as 1 TB, with the SSD component very much intact. The device promises to give you RevoDrive-like speeds, and humongous capacities, by streaming low-access data onto the HDD.

The RamSan-70 "Gorilla" is a high-performance, half-length PCIe card with 900 GB of usable SLC Flash capacity. Delivering 330K IOPS and 2 GB/s of bandwidth, it offers higher performance and greater capacity than any other half-length SLC Flash PCIe card.

Texas Memory Systems, Inc. (TMS), maker of The World's Fastest Storage, introduces the new high-performance RamSan-70, a 900-GB half-length PCIe card featuring Toshiba's newest 32nm SLC Flash. The RamSan-70 carries on Texas Memory Systems' tradition of delivering a complete integrated RamSan storage solution on a single board.

HighPoint Technologies, Inc., a leading HBA and storage solutions manufacturer, announces the arrival of new high port-count PCI-Express x16 SAS 6Gb/s HBA's. Available with up to 32 dedicated ports, RocketRAID high port count SAS HBA's provide maximum port count for minimal investment while delivering a connectivity bandwidth up to 19200 MB/s; ideal for a wide-range of high-performance and high-density storage applications.

Here is the complete socket AM3+ motherboard first-wave of ASUS, the M5A series, short and sweet. Based entirely on AMD 9-series chipset, including 9-series southbridge chips, the first-wave caters to gamer, performance, and enthusiast market segments, and only includes those chipset models that rely on discrete graphics (leaving out AMD 980G, 990GX). The lineup even includes models from ASUS' gamer/enthusiast-oriented Republic of Gamers (ROG) family, and The Ultimate Force (TUF) family.

The lineup starts with three models based on AMD 970 + SB950 chipset, which is a single discrete graphics card platform. The M5A97 is the entry-point, it bases itself entirely on what the chipset offers, plus two USB 3.0 ports. Moving up is M5A97 Pro, which has everything its little sibling has, plus a stronger 6+2 phase Digi+ VRM, and two eSATA ports. The M5A97 EVO, which was pictured a little while ago. This has everything the Pro variant has, plus two front-panel USB 3.0 ports, and FireWire.

OCZ Technology Group, Inc., a leading designer, manufacturer and distributor of high-performance solid state drives (SSDs), today unveiled the VeloDrive PCI-Express SSD. Designed to meet the needs of small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), enterprise clients and system integrators, the VeloDrive optimizes high-performance computing and storage applications, providing unparalleled versatility and simplified integration.

"The VeloDrive is the latest addition to our comprehensive lineup of PCIe SSDs. A truly configurable solution, it helps a range of customers accelerate their application performance," said Daryl Lang, VP of Product Management, OCZ Technology Group. "The ability to run the VeloDrive in multiple modes provides clients with the freedom to use the raid stack of their choice. This maximizes performance and creates faster, more seamless deployments with RAID stacks that may already have been qualified for their unique usage model."

The world's most expandable 2U server with quad NVIDIA Tesla GPUs and integrated InfiniBand, the ESC4000 helps professional users conserve space and energy while offering a high density architecture that supports dual CPUs. Flexible 8+1 expansion options and intelligent fan-control technology with 20% energy savings make it the server of choice for users who wish to combine performance, high efficiency, and environmental responsibility.

The ESC4000 joins previous entries in the ESC server series from ASUS, including the ESC1000 and ESC2000, making it the first ever 2U rack model in its category. The ESC4000 offers almost double performance with the same space requirements when compared to similar products thanks to an innovative high density design. Through its advanced parallel computing performance, flexible design and versatile hardware, the ESC4000 serves the needs of high-end professional applications, including scientific, weather and financial modeling, as well as advanced medical and life sciences uses.

Sharkoon presents two external SATA RAID cases in a stylish, black metal design, which allows multifunctional configuration possibilities for a fail-safe hard drive system. The Sharkoon 2-Bay RAID Box offers two lockable Hot Swap bays for 3.5 inch SATA hard drives, each with up to 3 Terabyte storage capacity. The inserted data medium can be operated in RAID level 0, 1 or JBOD. The desired mode can be selected through a switch on the case's front. Blue LEDs display operation, data transfer and the selected RAID mode. Cooling is ensured by the 70mm fan on the backside. For external connection, the 2-Bay RAID Box provides a USB3.0 interface. The case measures 215 x 130 x 120 mm (L x W x H) and weighs 1926 grams. An instruction manual, power cable, USB3.0 cable and two keys are provided within shipping.

Eurocom Corporation, the world's leading developer of highly personalized, high-performance notebook PCs and energy efficient All-in-Ones has been developing a dual CPU notebook solution for years. Eurocom technicians have been testing and verifying the systems performance and quality since the beginning of 2011 and now the system is ready for shipping.

The system is called the EUROCOM Phantom 4.0 and starts at $7999. The EUROCOM Phantom 4.0 can support up to two server class processors, 6 memory slots for 48 GB of RAM via 8 GB sticks, 6 storage drives with RAID 0/1/5/10/30. The Phantom 4.0 supports multiple operating systems (Microsoft Server 2003R2 x32 or x64, Server 2008R2 x64; VMware; Red Hat; LINUX; Solaris; Windows 7)and virtualization.

Western Digital, the world's leader in external storage solutions, today introduced its My Book Studio Edition II dual-drive storage system with a massive 6 terabytes (TB) of storage to meet the capacity needs of today's creative pros and Mac enthusiasts who create, store, edit and archive large HD video and photo files. The new capacity provides users 33 percent more storage than the previous capacity, while maintaining the same footprint.

Combining its extended 6 TB storage capacity and compatibility with Apple Time Machine, the new My Book Studio Edition II drive becomes an instant storage solution for a variety of professions including art and design, photography, legal and medical, and a host of other small businesses.

NextComputing, manufacturer of high-performance portable workstations and servers, announces its latest rugged portable workstation computer, the Vigor EX. Built to withstand harsh environments and handling, the Vigor EX packs high-end workstation performance in a durable chassis for anyone who needs to run demanding software applications in the field.

Graphics- or processing-intensive applications like geospatial imagery analysis, UAV ground control, or HD digital video processing require very high-end, powerful computer hardware to run properly. However, for mobile deployments where size, weight, power, and cooling (SWaP-C) are a concern, a typical rackmount server is oftentimes too large, heavy and power consuming.

Seagate Technology today announced its latest enterprise solutions designed to deliver storage for the widest range of application environments. Joining the industry's most award-winning enterprise lineup, these solutions include: two new members of the Pulsar Solid State Drive (SSD) family that deliver the ultimate enterprise performance, endurance and reliability; two next-generation Savvio 15K and 10K hard disk drives (HDD) optimized for a balance of high performance and capacity; and the latest Constellation ES.2 3TB HDD for pure capacity-optimized mass storage needs.

"The surge in storage consumption is being driven not only by the growth of content and use within the enterprise, but also by new applications and devices that directly or indirectly consume enterprise storage," said Kurt Richarz, Seagate EVP of Product Line Management. "Seagate's new family of enterprise storage solutions meets the diverse storage needs of these high growth application environments, whether it's fast transactional database servers, bulk storage and archiving, or everything in between."

PROMISE Technology today announced Pegasus, the industry's first-high performance hardware RAID solution designed to unleash the raw speed of the all-new Thunderbolt technology. Designed from the ground up for media and entertainment customers, Pegasus offers superior speed and throughput in a form factor small enough for a desktop, and is available in 4-bay and 6-bay aluminum enclosures with up to 12TB of raw storage.

"Intel is excited about the superior performance and simplicity Thunderbolt technology and PROMISE's Pegasus family of products will bring to consumers and media professionals trying to keep up with the explosion of digital media," said Jason Ziller, Director, Thunderbolt Planning and Marketing, Intel Corporation.

Other World Computing (OWC), a leading zero emissions Mac and PC technology company, announced today the OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro Qx2 hardware RAID storage drive with massive 12TB of storage/backup in a desktop-sized brushed aluminum enclosure. Featuring four 3TB high performance hard drives in four hot swappable drive bays, the Mercury Elite-AL Pro Qx2 12TB RAID storage drive offers the flexibility of a "Quad Interface" of FireWire 800, FireWire 400, USB 2.0, and eSATA; four selectable Hardware RAID settings of 0, 1, 5, 10; and 300 MB/s data transfer rates for high speed, Plug & Play storage and redundancy for Macs and PCs.

QNAP Systems, Inc., a leading manufacturer of world class award-winning Turbo NAS servers, VioStor NVR Video Surveillance Systems, and Network-based Media Players today announced the availability of the new V3.4 NAS management software. The V3.4 NAS management software is embedded into the NAS as V3.4 firmware, which enhances several key aspects of the QNAP Turbo NAS units allowing owners to maximize their investments in a QNAP NAS. New enhancements in V3.4 include:

QNAP Systems, Inc., a leading manufacturer of world class NAS servers, NVR Video Surveillance Systems, and Network-based Media Players today announced the TS-x12 lineup of affordable high performance Turbo NAS servers intended for the fast-growing home and SOHO market segment. The new models utilize the latest Marvell 1.2GHz processor and include 256MB of DDRII memory and Gigabit LAN ports, offering up to 8TB of networked storage with a unique blend of solid performance, high reliability, and advanced features at very affordable price points. The TS-x12 series includes the 1-drive TS-112, 2-drive TS-212, and 4-drive TS-412.

NAS is becoming a popular addition to home networks as they solve the problem of how to centrally store and share digital content among computers in the home - especially in mixed Windows/Mac networks. QNAP's new TS-x12 models are easy to attach to existing networks and provides easy file sharing within the network, centralized backup of all networked computers, website hosting, printer sharing, even recording of surveillance video from IP cameras.

Synology Inc. today launched the DiskStation DS411slim, a palm-sized 4-bay NAS server, which boasts a read speed of over 100MB/sec and is tailored for home and small office users who look for a green and quiet file sharing and backup solution, along with multimedia enrichment.

With a small and lightweight construction, the DS411slim measures 120x105x142 mm, nearly a quarter of the size of a conventional 3.5-inch 4-bay NAS server, and weighs 0.66 kg only. However, its compact design does not sacrifice its high performance, which reaches 106.9 MB/sec reading and 48.6 MB/sec writing speeds under RAID 5 configuration in a Windows environment.

The new ICY BOX IB-NAS6220 is a network storage for networking people who love music and movies, who want to share this love with friends and family and who are no IT-experts. The new ICY BOX IB-NAS6220 combines what commonly exists in separation: store your own data; enjoy your own data like movies and music wherever the Internet is available; confer rights to use while maintaining the control.

The NAS6220 has space for two 3.5" SATA HDDs with up to 2 TB. All data can be made available to the home network and are thus accessible through the Samba server. Also the printer server can be shared. For the installation you don't need special IT skills. If you can use a computer you are also fine with the NAS6220.

QNAP Systems, Inc., a leading manufacturer of world class NAS servers, NVR Video Surveillance Systems, and Network-based Media Players today announced expansion of their Turbo NAS lineup with the addition of the TS-419U+ rack-mounted NAS server targeted specifically at the fast-growing SMB and workgroup market segments. The TS-419U+ features 4 hot-swappable SATA hard drives with up to 8TB of total capacity (using 2TB drives) packaged in a compact 1U rack-mounted chassis. The TS-419U+ supports 2.5-inch or 3.5-inch hard drives in hot-swappable drive carriers, giving users more flexibility on selecting hard drives for installation. The TS-419U+ features a Marvell 1.6GHz CPU and 512MB of DDRIII memory, providing sustained high performance with low power consumption.

ZOTAC International, a leading innovator and the world's largest channel manufacturer of graphics cards, today kicks off the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show with the H67-ITX WiFi - a miniature 2nd Generation Intel Core platform. The ZOTAC H67-ITX WiFi takes the mini-ITX form factor to new heights of performance, energy-efficiency and integrated graphics capabilities.

Equipped with the Intel H67 Express chipset, the ZOTAC H67-ITX WiFi supports the latest LGA1155 2nd Generation Intel Core family processors including 2000 series Core i3, i5 and i7 processors. The ZOTAC H67-ITX WiFi goes beyond the capabilities of the 2nd Generation Intel Core platform and accommodates processors up to 130-watt TDP - above the 95-watts required by the fastest Intel Core i7 processor - for additional overclocking headroom that appeals to the most demanding enthusiasts.

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi GST) today announced its new 500GB, 5,400 RPM Travelstar Z5K500 drive - the industry's highest capacity, one-disk, 7 millimeter (mm) z-height hard disk drive (HDD).

According to IDC, 500GB, mobile 2.5-inch drives represent 22 percent of the market today, with this capacity growing 42 percent annually from 2010 to 2013. Offered in a complete family of 500GB, 320GB and 250GB, which satisfies more than 77 percent of today's capacity needs in the portable PC market, these drives are the industry's only second-generation family of 5,400 RPM, 7mm z-height drives, which are designed as a direct replacement for standard 2.5-inch, 9.5mm drives in everything from external drives to laptops, netbooks and blade servers. All this combined puts the new Hitachi Travelstar Z5K500 drive family in the industry sweet spot of opportunity in the mobile 2.5-inch market.

HighPoint Technologies announces an exciting update to the RocketRAID 2700 SATA Host Adapter Series with support for Port Multiplier (PM) storage enclosures. This is the industry's first PCI-E 2.0 x16 SATA Host Adapter to support PM enclosures. The RocketRAID 2700 SATA PM Series is designed for customers who place a premium on storage expansion and performance but demand affordability.

Synology America Corp. today launched the DiskStation DS211+, a high-performance and full-featured 2-bay NAS server for office and enthusiast users to share files, centralize backup, and protect data. The latest addition to the professional class of DiskStations comes with Synology's distinctive DiskStation Manager (DSM) 3.0 software to provide an intuitive interface for managing the server.

As part of the revamped design, the DS211+ offers hot-swap drive bays, which will help businesses to minimize downtime in the event of a drive failure. Priced around $400, this is the first DiskStation to offer this feature at this price point. For photographers, it also offers an integrated SD card reader, making for easier transfers to the NAS.

Flash storage specialist RunCore is readying a new 3.5" SATA solid state drive (SSD) that provides 1 TB of storage. The drive uses two SandForce SF-1200 controllers in internal RAID 0, the internal RAID controller makes use of SATA 6 Gb/s interface with the host, giving the drive transfer speeds of up to 500 MB/s. The two SSD units inside the drive are set to run in RAID 0, which is abstract to the host. The company is yet to finalize a release date or price.

AMD's upcoming "Bulldozer" architecture based processors that use a new socket type, the AM3+, are slated for Q2, 2011. To complement its launch, AMD will be launching the 9-series chipset series, consisting of four kinds of desktop chipset. The lineup starts with the AMD 990FX, the high-end 4-way CrossFireX-ready chipset, geared for high-end motherboards. Next up, is the 990X. This discrete graphics chipset is also ready for CrossFireX, but has just 16 PCI-Express 2.0 lanes to spare for graphics, platforms based on this will feature two PCI-Express x16 slots which reconfigure to electrical x8 slots when both are populated.

The third is an entry-level discrete graphics chipset that doesn't support CrossFire, but can spare one PCI-Express 2.0 x16 slot for discrete graphics, it's the AMD 970. Lastly, there's the 980G integrated graphics chipset, which features a DirectX 10.1 compliant IGP, which supports UVD 2.0 video acceleration. For some reason, this chipset doesn't support older AM3 processors, but only AM3+. The other chipsets in the series however, do support existing socket AM3 Athlon II and Phenom II series processors. All four northbridge chipsets support HyperTransport 3.0 processor interconnect, supporting data rates of up to 5.2 GT/s.

QNAP Systems, Inc., a leading manufacturer of world class NAS servers today refreshes its popular mid-range NAS business lineup with new 2- and 4-drive desktop models, TS-239 Pro II+ and TS-439 Pro II+. The Turbo NAS servers adopt Intel's new D425 single-core Atom CPU with 1.8GHz clock speed and 1GB RAM, which delivers superior performance and high reliability with versatile business features. The new models provide maximum storage of 8TB (using four 2TB hard drives and single disk volume/JBOD configuration). The TS-239 Pro II+ and TS-439 Pro II+ NAS servers are compatible with VMware, Citrix and Windows 2008 Hyper-V clusters virtualization platform, ideal for file sharing, backup, and advanced server applications in the office environment.