This week Lite-On IT Corporation and Royal Philips Electronics announced that the joint venture between the two companies will officially take shape on May 1 of this year. The joint venture between the two companies will focus on the manufacturing and marketing of optical storage drives. Under the new agreement between Lite-On and Philips, the new venture will be called Philips & Lite-On Digital Solutions (PLDS). The European Commission has fully approved of the new venture as of April 2.

PLDS will be effective in Europe from 1st of May 2007. Lite-On IT BV, the European head office of Lite-On IT Corporation, will continue to provide the same service to its customers under the new flag of PLDS. The company will handle sales, marketing, service, finance and logistics of Optical Disc Drives (ODD). PLDS will continue to sell ODD under the brand names Lite-On and HP

Some people are worried that the superior technology in flash-based solid-state-drives (SSD's) might make a serious dent in the hard disk drive (HDD) market. However, according to market analysis firm TrendFocus, the hard drive industry is actually looking at a projected growth. Thanks to perpendicular recording technology, which reduces the cost to shove more data on a disk, the hard drive market is expected to grow an impressive $33 billion USD. The enormous growth projection is also due to the growing IT markets in India and China.

Iomega's new Power Pro Desktop Hard Drive, offers 2TB of space powered by four hot-swappable SATA hard drives with hardware-based RAID security features, giving users a cost-effective but powerful storage solution for the large data and image files created in today's business environment. The new Iomega Power Pro Desktop Hard Drive is Windows and Mac compatible, including the new Windows Vista operating system. The Power Pro has versatile performance with a choice of computer connections: FireWire 800/400 and USB 2.0. RAID security options on the Power Pro Desktop Hard Drive include RAID 0/0+1/5 and RAID 5+ configurations. The Power Pro's four 500GB SATA drives are arrayed in a stylish tower, with each drive secured in a bay that can be locked. For ease-of-use and maintenance, the new Iomega Power Pro Desktop Hard Drive has an LCD panel that displays the current status for RAID level and available storage capacity, as well as fan and temperature condition. The Iomega Power Pro Desktop Hard Drive is expected to be available worldwide on April 10 for $1,699.95.

Seagate Ships FreeAgent Family of Data Movers, Growing Beyond Traditional Backup and Storage

FreeAgent Family of Data Movers Combines a Sophisticated Design with Easy-to-Use Lifestyle Tools for Anywhere, Anytime Access of Digital Content

FreeAgent Pro data movers allow consumers to automatically synchronize their content anytime, anywhere and allow access to Seagate Internet Drive, an online service that provides a "24/7 ATM" to post, access and share files from anywhere using the Web. The FreeAgent Pro comes in 320GB, 500GB, and 750GB capacities.

FreeAgent Go data movers plug into any computer's USB 2.0 port for mobile access to your computing environment - including Web favorites, passwords and settings, IM, email, contacts and digital files and is available in 80GB, 120GB, 160GB capacities.

FreeAgent Desktop data movers provide simple add-on storage for people to gather and access their content in one place. The FreeAgent Desktop data movers are available in 250GB, 320GB, and 500GB capacities.

Plextor unveiled the first space-saving Slim line optical drive solution for desktop PCs. The compact 'dual-bay' Plextor PX-DB600 enables two optical slim line drives to be positioned into the space of just one 5.25" drive bay - making it ideal for lifestyle chassis and small form factor Media Center PCs. Developed from their extensive experience in laptop opticals, the dual-layer multi-format (DVD+/-R and DVD-RAM) Plextor PX-608AL and the dual bay PX-DB600 (combined as the PX-DB608AL) enables greater flexibility and convenience for 'small footprint' PC-owners. For example, users can watch a DVD movie while burning other media to disc, and copy discs directly without saving to the hard disk first. The PX-DB608AL has the following writing speeds: DVD±R 8x, DVD±R DL 4x, DVD+RW 8x, DVD-RW 6x, DVD-RAM 5x, CD-R/RW 24x. It reads DVDs at 8x and CDs at 24x. The Plextor PX-DB608AL solution will be available from April 2007 at Plextor's network of dealers. It is covered by Plextor's Fast Warranty Service (2-year warranty in the EU, Norway and Switzerland (Collect & Return); other countries 1-year carry-in).

Adaptec, Inc., a global leader in storage solutions, today launched the most comprehensive family of Unified Serial RAID controllers for the PCI Express (PCIe) interface. The new family consists of five different products and includes 4- and 8-port low-profile models, as well as the industry's only 12- and 16-port designs. Ideal for bandwidth-intensive applications including media servers, email databases, and application servers, these Adaptec Unified Serial RAID controllers deliver enhanced I/O performance, expanded scalability and high throughput.

Dell this week announced that it will be the first manufacturer in the industry to start shipping computers with the first consumer 1 terabyte (TB) hard drive. Using the Deskstar 7K1000 drive from Hitachi, Dell will begin including the new drives in both its own line of XPS gaming systems and under the Alienware brand. Alienware Aurora and Area 51 systems will be receiving the new 1TB drives first. According to official Hitachi specifications, the new drive is a Serial ATA 3Gbps model with a 7200 RPM spindle rate and 32MB data buffer. Read time comes in at 8.5ms and write times at 9.2ms. Along with the new 1TB drive, Dell is launching a service called StudioDell, which the company calls a "video time capsule". StudioDell will allow subscribers to upload videos, which will be stored at Dell headquarters for 50 years, so that later generations may view them. Dell even indicated that the videos will be stored on the new 1TB drives from Hitachi.

Tokyo, March 14, 2007 - Fujitsu Limited today announced the development of the MHW2040AC model 2.5'' hard disk drive (HDD) for use in automotive and various equipment that must operate in harsh environments, ranging from cold climate regions to deserts. The new model will be available on global basis at the end of March, 2007.

After Intel, Samsung, Seagate and Sandisk there is a new competitor in the Solid State Disk Business: Super Talent. In April they will start selling 1.8" (up to 32GB), 2.5" (up to 64GB) and even 3.5" models (max. 128GB). The prices are still not known but all versions will have a SATA interface.

MILPITAS, CALIFORNIA, MARCH 13, 2007 - SanDisk Corporation (NASDAQ: SNDK) today broadened its solid state drive (SSD) product line for the portable computer market with the introduction of a 32-gigabyte (GB)1, 2.5-inch Serial ATA (SATA) interface model, compatible with most mainstream notebook designs. Coming just two months after SanDisk introduced a 1.8-inch SSD for ultraportable notebooks, the 2.5-inch SSD is now available to PC manufacturers as a drop-in replacement for hard disk drives.

Although Blu-ray and HD DVD look set to battle it out for high definition sales, DVD still has some life left in it as New Media Enterprises (NME) has developed a disk capable of holding 20GB of data. This new version of DVD continues to use red lasers to read data, and is known as Versatile Multilayer Disk (VMD), with 5GB of data being stored on each layer. It is exactly the same thickness as DVD, but by using a "modified 2P process" NME has managed to produce disks with more than two layers on a single side, with production costs comparable to standard DVDs. Although the only VMDs at the moment are 4 layer, NME is already planning versions as large as 48GB, and believes the technology will be capable of reaching the 200GB barrier. NME has already managed to sign deals in 12 regions around the globe, and is planning to give consumers a third (less expensive) option in the HD market.

Seagate announced that it has begun shipping its Momentus 7200.2 2.5" hard drive with a 3 GB/s SATA interface. The Momentus 7200.2 with a platter rotation speed of 7200 rpm and perpendicular recording technology has been shipping for some time with a 1.5 GB/s SATA port and now promises twice the available bandwidth. The capacity remains at a maximum of 160GB; 80GB, 100GB and 120GB versions are available as well.

Samsung has started shipping hybrid hard drives with 128 or 256MB flash memory to OEMs. The drive is available in 80, 120 or 160GB with 5400RPM and SATA interface. It should be available to retail shortly. These drives will become mandatory for Vista certification in June 2007, so expect all the major companies to feature such hard drives in their notebooks soon.

Serial ATA International Organization (SATA-IO), the consortium dedicated to sustaining the quality, integrity and dissemination of SATA technology, today announced the availability of the Serial ATA Revision 2.6 specification. This updated specification combines the previously published SATA Revision 2.5 material with new feature definitions and enhancements that will enable developers to integrate the technology into new applications.

Tokyo, March 6, 2007 - Fujitsu Limited today announced the development of the new MHW2 BJ series of world's first 7,200 rpm 2.5" hard disk drives (HDDs) with a serial ATA 3.0 Gb/s interface. Featuring the world's highest storage capacity of 160 GB for a 7,200 rpm 2.5" HDD, the new series is targeted primarily at high-performance notebook PCs. The new series will be available on global basis at the end of May, 2007.In addition to achieving the world's leading storage capacity, MHW2160BJ is capable of data transmission speeds at up to 300 MB/s, the fastest rate in the industry. The series also features best-in-class acoustic noise level of 2.5 bels at idle, and low-power consumption, operating at 2.3 watts or less when reading or writing data.

As the use of notebook PCs becomes even more popular, there is demand for high reliability notebook PC HDDs that offer high-speed and high-capacity performance on par with those used in desktops. The MHW2 BJ series meets this demand with a speed of 7,200 rpm, the highest of any serial ATA 2.5" HDD. These HDDs boast the high quality Fujitsu customers come to expect, and they can be easily incorporated into high-performance notebook PCs and flat panel desktop PCs, both of which are expected to gain popularity. They are also RoHS compliant.

A group of researchers at Keio University in Japan has developed a new technology which uses bacterial DNA as a medium for long-term data storage. Although it's not incredible in terms of data capacity, the technology works by creating artificial DNA carrying information, which is then inserted into the bacterial genome sequence. After this, the DNA will multiply, reproducing the data. This can therefore act as a long-term method of storage because the DNA will be passed down from generation to generation - possibly for thousands of years (current storage methods will only last a few centuries). So far the researchers have only managed to encode "e= mc2 1905!", but there is potential for the future.

"Get rich, or die trying" - this time, there is no risk involved. The Birmingham Veterans Administration Medical Center, Alabama, in co-operation with the FBI, is looking for a lost hard drive, that went missing some time this week. The reward is set at a hefty $25 000 - the equation information = money literally applies in this case. The HDD was used as a backup disk for patients' information, and apparently, there were at least 500 000 medical records on the device. The reward is also being offered for the identification of anyone responsible for the loss of the Iomega external hard drive.

Anyone with information is asked to call the VA Medical Center at 933-8101, ext. 4401; the FBI at 326-6166; the VA OIG hot line at 1-800-488-8244; or the VA Medical Center Police at 933-8101, ext. 6444.

Traxdata has joined the Blu-ray side of the HD-DVD vs Blu-ray war. And what better way to do it than by introducing a rewritable Blu-ray disk? The disk can hold 25GB of data, and can play 1080p HD at an impressive bitrate of 40Mb/s. It also features a hard-coating technology that should make it more resistant to things like fingernails that tend to scratch disks. It can be re-wrote at speeds of 2x.

Expanding its lineup of consumer-friendly, easy-to-use external hard drives that has made it the leading consumer external storage brand worldwide, Western Digital Corp. today introduced the My Book World Edition family of shared storage appliances. This new family of shared storage appliances allows consumers and home office workers to securely access their digital content, such as photos, home videos and documents, and share it with family and friends from anywhere in the world as if that content were stored local to the user. The terabyte (TB) My Book World Edition II model is equipped with a dual-drive configuration and RAID capability.

One common argument in the world of computing is that high temperatures make hard drives more likely to fail, and the same is said for high usage levels. However, when conducting internal research, search giant Google suggests that this is only true for hard drives in their first months of operation or once they are over five years old. According to Google, there are so many other variables that the biggest factor in the lifetime of hard drives is actually the model itself rather than the conditions. In fact, Google saw a trend suggesting that drives are more likely to fail at lower temperatures or extremely high temperatures, and generally speaking, hard drives failed less as temperature increased (until these extremes were reached). As for high usage, the research showed that hard drives only seem to be affected by high usage in the first months or after it is five years old, and other than that the rate of failure was the same as drives in low-usage environments.

LAKE FOREST, Calif. - Feb. 5, 2007 - As consumers increasingly rely on digital media to secure their important documents and valuable personal content, they often fear that changes in technology may render their data inaccessible. Western Digital Corp. (NYSE: WDC), the leading consumer external storage brand worldwide, today announced that its new My Book Premium ES Edition external hard drive incorporates eSATA (external Serial ATA) and USB 2.0. eSATA is a new technology that transfers data between the external device and the computer at higher rates than ever before and USB 2.0 is today's most common method of connecting external devices to personal computers.

Seagate Technology today formally introduced the Digital Audio Video Experience (D.A.V.E.) technology - the project previously code-named "Crickett" - at the DEMO 07 Conference. The DAVE platform can deliver 10-20 GB of wireless storage to mobile phones, PCs, and other wireless-enabled devices. The DAVE reference design is about the size of a centimeter-thick credit card, with dimensions of 3.5 x 4.7 x .47 inches (61 x 89 x 12 mm) and weighing only 2.5 ounces (70 grams). It has rechargeable lithium ion battery which delivers up to 10 hours of media-streaming performance and up to 14 days of standby power. Using Bluetooth 2.0 or WiFi 802.11b and 802.11g connections, DAVE stays into your pocket while establishing connection to your mobile device anywhere up to 30 feet (9.1 meters) between the devices. The DAVE mobile storage platform is expected to be available to leading cell phone manufacturers and telco service providers for products in the second calendar quarter of 2007.

The engineers at Fujitsu have managed a breakthrough which would allow the company to produce hard drives with 1Tb of data per square inch. This figure is almost seven times the density of the latest perpendicular recording drives. The technology behind this is referred to by Fujitsu as "patterned media" - it uses anodised aluminium to create a pattern of holes, each holding a portion of magnetic material used to store a single bit of data, with the aluminium oxide around each hole magnetically insulating it. Fujitsu is continuing to work on this technology, aiming for 4Tb per square inch by 2010.

Lite-On is about to ship next month what it claims to be the world's first 20x DVD writer with SATA interface. The LH-20A1S can handle all the major DVD and CD recordable and rewriteable formats, including dual-layer media. The drive comes with 1.5Gbps SATA interface, compatible with boards that support both that and the 3Gbps SATA II specification. Lite-on said the LH-20A1S will ship mid-February for around £32.

Samsung Electronics Ltd., has introduced the world's first 1.8-inch hard drive with a 60GB per disk capacity and a super-slim form factor that is just 5-millimeters tall. Samsung's sleek new 1.8-inch N-series features 20GB, 30GB, 40GB and 60GB per disk capacities - the largest one-disk storage capacity offered by any drive on the market today. The new slim hard drive spins at 4200 rpm and according to Samsung is "among the quietest on the market today". The power consumption of the drive is rated at 0.3 watts in idle mode. Samsung's 1.8-inch N-series is currently shipping.