PhotoFast announced three new solid state drives in the 1.8 inch form-factor. All three use IDE interfaces, and hence are ideal for consumer electronics such as PMPs, video cameras, etc. The new series these come under is the G-Monster V4. The drives offer capacities ranged between 32 and 256 GB (probably including 64 GB and 128 GB models along the way), and are characterized by the interface type: 40-pin ZIF, 44-pin IDE, and 50-pin IDE. All three feature MLC NAND flash chips, with 64 MB DRAM memory for the NAND flash controller. The controller offers a "Built-in Garbage Collection" feature that clears deleted data, relocating existing data onto its area. In this way, data fragmentation is reduced. The read-write speeds on offer are 128/90 MB/s, respectively.

Quick-draw Flash storage specialist PhotoFast introduced mini SATA flash drives (essentially compact SATA SSDs that plug into the connectors). The G-Monster mini-SATA and G-Monster mini-DOM drives are about as big as cartridges of retro portable game consoles, measuring 45 x 37 x 7.5 mm and weighing 10 g. They come in capacities of 32 and 64 GB, and offer reasonably good transfer rates at 110 MB/s (read) and 60 MB/s (write). With the standard arrangement of SATA data and power connectors, the G-Monster mini-SATA should plug into any SATA drive docks/enclosures. Apart from being a portable storage medium, it can also be tucked away as a system drive for a NAS server. The G-Monster mini-DOM on the other hand, can plug directly into one of the motherboard's SATA ports, and draw power using its 5V adapter. The two will hit shelves in October. Pictured below are (in order) G-Monster mini-SATA and G-Monster mini-DOM.

PhotoFast's solid-state drive (SSD) development has been on a roll in the last year or so. The company has been coming up with new SSD designs on a regular basis. Its latest doing is the G-Monster "Quad-Drive". Simply put, this SSD encloses four PhotoFast CFast (compact-flash derived standard) cards driven by a JMicron RAID controller, which then connects to the host machine over standard SATA II interface, and is seen as a single drive. Internally, the controller lets you configure the cards in RAID 0, 1, 5, 10, and JBOD modes. With the default configuration, the drive boasts of speeds of up to 250 MB/s read, and 170 MB/s write. Its price is yet to be known, as the product is on its way to the markets.

Solid-state drive specialist PhotoFast innovated an easy RAID builder solution, which doesn't boast of being an expansion card, and doesn't require additional drivers from the OS. The G-Monster Evolution "Simple RAID Adapter", is a small orange PCB with SATA II and power input on one side, and two sets of SATA II data and power connections on the other. Users can connect two hard drives or SSDs to the device, and connect the device like any other hard drive, to the computer's storage controller. The RAID array the device builds using the member drives connected to it, remains abstract to the host machine, which sees it as a single hard-drive. The G-Monster Evolution supports RAID 0, RAID 1, and RAID JBOD modes, with maximum transfer rates of 270 MB/s for both read and write. RAID modes are configurable with the bundled software. One limitation of this device is that it does not support SSDs that have internal RAID 0 connections between two or more sets of NAND flash memory. This is perhaps because the device uses the same controller, or at least the basic design, that goes into making SSDs with internal RAID connections. Popular SSDs of this type (incompatible with this device) include PhotoFast G-Monster V2, Patriot Warp V3, OCZ Apex, and G.Skill Titan. Its availability and pricing are yet to be known.

Photofast is on a roll with its G-Monster series solid-state storage, with product launches on a monthly basis. This time around, the company is readying two products that are unique in their own ways. First up, is the G-Monster-3.5, the company's first SSD in the standard 3.5" form-factor. The drive uses internal RAID to achieve high-capacities. While most other SSD manufacturers would simply stripe two SSD modules in internal RAID 0 configurations, Photofast used an internal RAID 5 configuration that ups reliability. The array is completely abstract to the host machine, which only sees it as a single drive. The drive uses a standard SATA II interface. It comes in capacities of 64, 128, 256, 512 GB, and 1, 2 TB. As far as its performance goes, the company rates the read/write speeds around 270 MB/s. The drive will be backed by a one-year warranty.

Next up, is the G-Monster ExpressCard/54 SSD. This drive serves the purpose of expandable, removable storage for notebooks, that performs on par or faster than the hard-drive. The card comes in the standard 54 mm ExpressCard form-factor. It can function in both PCI-Express and USB 2.0 modes for the slot. When in PCI-Express mode, the drive provides stellar read/write speeds of 170/100 MB/s, and in USB 2.0 mode, 36/30 MB/s. It comes in 32, 48, and 64 GB variants, and boasts of 1.5 million hours MTBF. It will be backed by a standard one-year warranty. There is no word on the pricing and availability.

PhotoFast unveiled yet another 1.8-inch SSD, this time, compliant with more recent standards. The new G-Monster V3 uses a micro-SATA interface, that is available on some netbooks. Apart from its main NAND-flash storage, that comes in capacities of 32, 64, and 128 GB, it also features 64 MB of DDR2 memory to serve as a high speed buffer. The buffer ensures latency reduction on the host controller's side, especially since the drive offers high data transfer rates of 230/180 MBps (read/write). This may yet another product lined up for launch at Computex.

Although it barely introduced the G-Monster V2 drives, PhotoFast is already planning on letting loose the V3 line-up of 1.8-inch SSDs. Set to be unveiled at the Computex show next month, the V3 will be available in 32 and 64GB capacities, have 64MB of built-in cache memory and come in three flavors - with 40-pin ZIF, 44-pin IDE or 50-pin IDE connectors.

PhotoFast hasn't provided any read/write speed estimates for the drives. Pricing is unknown at this moment in time.

PhotoFast announced two 1.8-inch IDE solid-state drives under its G-Monster series. The two are demarcated by the interface, although both are IDE technically. The G-Monster 50 IDE V2 uses a 50-pin IDE interface, while the G-Monster 1.8" ZIF V2 uses a zero insertion-force IDE interface that's commonly found in portable devices such as PMPs, HD video cameras, etc. Both come in capacities of 32, 64, 128 GB, and offer transfer rates of 80/50 MB/s (read/write). The drives offer an MTBF of 1 million hours and are backed by a 1 year company warranty. Although there isn't anything spectacular about SSDs with sub-100 MB/s transfer-rates with the IDE interface, the durability of the drives over conventional hard-drives, especially for the kind of devices they end up in, may be their biggest selling points.

Japanese storage specialist, famed for its recent 1000 MB/s G-Monster Promise SSD Card is on the prowl with what looks like an entry-level notebook SSD that offers some of the core advantages of solid-state storage along with legacy compatibility. The Photofast G-Monster 1.8" IDE V2 is exactly what its name carries: a 1.8-inch SSD with the IDE interface. The speeds it offers can be easily matched by a high-end conventional hard-drive in its form-factor, 85 MB/s sequential read, and 50 MB/s sequential write, though its USP isn't exactly its speed: it is that of portability, much better shock-resistance against conventional hard drives, and the lower access time flash-based storage offers. It comes with a capacity of 128 GB, and a MTBF of 1 million hours. The drive is backed by the company's 1-year warranty. Its price isn't known just yet. Detailed specifications can be read here.

Recently there has been a boom in production of PCI-Express SSD cards. The cards offer fast storage by coupling arrays of SSDs across dedicated storage controllers to achieve high bandwidths. With market-heavyweights such as OCZ in the ring, this little class of storage products is here to stay. Fresh out with its first G-Monster PCI-E SSD that offers godly read/write speeds of 750/700 MB/s, Photofast is looking to push the bandwidth envelope with the G-Monster Promise. This SSD card "promises" bandwidth that scrapes the 1 GB/s mark, a significant milestone for fixed-storage.

The 3+ slot monstrosity packs 128 GB, 256 GB, 512 GB, or even 1 TB of data. It uses MLC NAND-flash chips, along with a storage controller that has 256 MB of dedicated ECC DDR2 memory. The controller uses PCI-Express x8 to connect to its host. The device assures 2.5 million hours of MTBF, and read/write speeds of 1000 MB/s. All of this comes at a price, US $1616 for the 128 GB variant, $2002 for 256 GB, $3015 for 512 GB, and $4534 for 1 TB, in Japan, where it will start selling later this month.

PhotoFast is readying two new additions to its solid state drive lineup, with the G-Monster V2 series SSDs. These drives brandish high-performance and capacities by standards of SSDs. The two drives, models PF25S128GSSDV2 and PF25S256GSSDV2 come with capacities of 128 GB and 256 GB respectively. The drives offer read speeds up to 230 MB/s and 160 MB/s writes. They use the standard SATA II interface. The drives support all major operating systems, and sport durability in the form of a high MTBF of 2.5 million hours. The company is expected to start shipping these SSDs by the end of this year.