ATP, the leading manufacturer of embedded Flash, ruggedized SSD and DRAM modules, upgraded its product lines of the Horizontal and Vertical SATA DOM product series with a few refined features targeting networking, industrial automation/equipment, gaming, POS and digital signage markets. Due to diminishing supplies in the market for small NAND Flash form factors, the renewal of this product series has come at a good time. The ATP SLC based Horizontal and Vertical SATA DOM product series are available in densities ranging from 2G to 16GB and are available for sampling immediately.

The new ATP SATA DOM product series come with the latest development of the hardware based PowerProtector, which provides more coverage of data protection in the event of a sudden power outage. The latest generation of PowerProtector provides more power for the controller to flush the data once a power outage is detected, temporarily storing in the SRAM and DRAM along the data path in a NAND Flash product, and into the flash ICs. This means the PowerProtector offers more protection for the data integrity in the case of a sudden loss of power. Moreover, the SLC based products have more than twenty times program/erase life cycles over other MLC Flash based NAND Flash products on the market, demonstrating extended product usage life and robustness to meet the industrial challenges.

Transcend Information, Inc. (Transcend ), a leading manufacturer of storage and multimedia products, today introduced the SSD370, the SATA III 6 Gb/s 2.5" solid state drive (SSD). The SSD370 features 1TB vast storage capacity and boasts the incredibly fast read and write speeds of up to 570 MB and 470 MB per second.

Best suited to address the huge capacity and high performance needs of the top-tier advanced devices, the SSD370 combines the high speeds and endurance of solid state drives, and additionally supports various useful features such as SATA DevSleep to optimize power management.

As in 2014 wearable devices begin to emerge in the market, personal applications like communication and music are more compact. Besides, with these devices, users are now able to record and store physical function statistics such as their heartbeats, pulse rates, daily step numbers etc. This propelsthe vigorous development of medical and health industry. According to the prediction of market research firm IDC, "wearable devices will soon be widely applied in industries including retailing, construction, and mining by enterprises, in addition to their applications in medical industry." And the small and handy Micro SD/Micro SDHC memory cards will be the best choice for expanding mobile storage capacity.

In response tothe growth trend of mobile and wearable devices, Apacer launches industrial Micro SD/Micro SDHC memory cards which conform to SD 2.0 specifications. Although the size is only one-tenth of general SD card, the Micro SD/Micro SDHC memory cards have a complete range of product types, providing SLC and MLC chips for choice. The highly reliable SLC chips have capacities ranging from 256 MB to 4 GB, which best satisfy industrial devices' demand of small capacity and high stability as a system disk. The more economic MLC chips' capacities range from 4 GB to 32 GB, meeting the high-capacity storage needs.

Alongside an updated desktop CPU roadmap, Intel posted an updated consumer SSD roadmap at its 3D Revolution 2014 presentation in Rome. It reveals the company's next-generation consumer SSD series, codenamed "August Ridge," and branded SSD 750 series. Targeting both the "consumer" and "professional" (≠ enterprise) market segments, the SSD 750 series comes in three form-factors, 2.5-inch SATA 6 Gb/s, mSATA 6 Gb/s, and M.2 (likely PCIe 2.0 x2 link layer). The series will sell in most popular sub-terabyte capacities, and will be based on the company's 20 nm MLC NAND flash. We have no reason to believe Intel will discontinue using SandForce-made processors in its consumer SSDs. Intel's SSD 750 series "August Ridge" is slated for Q4-2014.

Unigen Corporation has announced SLC or MLC NAND Flash based M.2 SATA III SSDs in densities ranging from 16 GB - 256 GB. Measuring 22 mm 'W' x 80 mm 'H' these small form factor flash modules are used for high reliability storage of critical code and data, in space-constrained embedded, industrial, gaming and networking applications. This New Generation Form Factor (NGFF) SSD allows for scalability with 110 mm 'H' modules, consistent with emerging trends.

To meet the needs of Unigen's diverse customer base and applications, these flash modules are offered in densities up to 256 GB in both commercial (0ºC - 85ºC) and industrial (-40ºC - 85ºC) temperature ranges. They feature Sustained Sequential Read/Write performance of 540/490 MB/s, and support S.M.A.R.T features, power loss protection, advanced wear leveling and ECC.

Galaxy unveiled its Captain line of mSATA and M.2 SSDs. Both the Captain-mSATA and the Captain-MAC (M.2) are based on a JMicron-made controller, with Intel-made MLC NAND flash. Both the Captain-mSATA and Captain-MAC come in capacities of up to 256 GB, offering sequential speeds of up to 520 MB/s reads, with up to 275 MB/s writes. Their 4K random read performance is rated at 72,000 IOPS, and 4K random writes at 70,000 IOPS. It's important to note here, that the Captain-MAC may feature an NGFF interface, but runs on a SATA 6 Gb/s link layer. It's one of the many examples of M.2 SSDs that have crept into the industry, with such an interface.

Silicon Motion Technology Corporation, a global leader in designing and marketing NAND flash controllers for solid state storage devices, today announced that its SM2246EN SATA (6 Gb/s) client SSD controller now supports Micron's 16 nm 128 gigabit (Gb) MLC NAND flash, ideal for high performance, high capacity SSD solutions up to 1 Terabyte.

SM2246EN offers the best performance and power combination of four channel SATA 6 Gb/s client SSD controller in the market, delivering even better performance than most 8-channel SSD controllers with substantially lower power consumption. Using Micron's 128 Gb 16 nm MLC NAND, the SM2246EN delivers up to 538 MB/s sequential read performance and 450 MB/s sequential write, as well as up to 67,000 random read IOPS and 65,000* random write IOPS. In addition, with Micron 128 Gb 16 nm MLC NAND, the SM2246EN delivers ultra-low power consumption, equating to about 30% lower than the average power consumption of other SSD controllers.

Plextor finally revealed its M6Pro line of high-performance SATA 6 Gb/s SSD. Featuring a finely tuned firmware driving a modern Marvell-made controller and MLC NAND flash, the drive offers transfer rates in excess of 500 MB/s. It comes in capacities of 128 GB, 256 GB, 512 GB, and 1 TB. The drives come with PlexTurbo, a technology similar in function to Intel Smart Response technology, except that it creates a cache using system memory and the drive's NAND flash. At each boot, its software loads hot-data onto the system memory. It's slated for later in Q3 2014.

GeIL stepped into the modern SSD scene with its ZENITH line of SSDs. The series consists of two models, the performance-focused ZENITH S3, and the value-focused ZENITH A3. Both are built in the 7 mm-thick 2.5-inch form-factor, with SATA 6 Gb/s interface, and both come in capacities of 60 GB, 120 GB, 240 GB, and 480 GB. Both appear to be powered by Seagate-SandForce controllers, and MLC NAND flash memory. The ZENITH A3 offers sequential transfer rates of up to 540 MB/s reads, with up to 300 MB/s writes; while the ZENITH S3 offers up to 550 MB/s reads, with up to 500 MB/s writes.

We're still a few days away from the official unveiling of MX100 solid state drive but thanks to a distributor jumping the gun we already have the full scoop on Crucial's latest creation. As previously revealed, the MX100 is set to be the first SSD equipped with Micron's 16 nm MLC NAND flash memory but not all models will have the 16 nm NAND - the 128 GB drive will pack 20 nm chips, while the 256 GB and 512 GB versions will have 16 nm flash.

All three MX100 drives come in a 7 mm-thick 2.5-inch chassis (a 9.5 mm adapter is included), and have a SATA 6.0 Gbps interface, a Marvell 88SS9189 controller, and are backed by a three-year warranty.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the world leader in advanced memory technology, today announced that it has begun mass producing the industry's first three-dimensional (3D) V-NAND flash memory using 32 vertically stacked cell layers, which is its second generation V-NAND offering. Samsung's 32-layer 3D V-NAND - also referred to as Vertical NAND - requires a higher level of design technology to stack the cell arrays than the previous 24-layer V-NAND, yet delivers much greater production efficiency because Samsung can use essentially the same equipment it used for production of the first generation V-NAND.

In addition, Samsung has just launched a line-up of premium SSDs based on its 2nd generation V-NAND flash memory with 128 gigabyte (GB), 256GB, 512GB and 1TB storage options. After introducing 3D V-NAND-based SSDs to data centers last year, Samsung is now extending its V-NAND SSD line-up to high-end PC applications, in expanding its market base. "We increased the availability of our 3D V-NAND by introducing an extensive V-NAND SSD line-up that covers the PC market in addition to data centers," said Young-Hyun Jun, executive vice president, memory sales and marketing, Samsung Electronics. "Look for us to provide a consistent, timely supply of high-performance, high-density V-NAND SSDs as well as core V-NAND chips for IT customers globally, contributing to fast market adoption of 3D NAND technology."

Transcend Information, Inc. (Transcend ), a worldwide leader in storage and multimedia products, is proud to announce the launch of its JetDrive Lite series of expansion cards aimed at MacBook Pro with Retina display and MacBook Air users. With four different models offered in 64 GB and 128 GB capacities, Transcend's new JetDrive Lite cards are tailor-made to have a flush profile with each specific model while providing an easy way to increase available storage for media.

Seamless Design, Large Storage
With their substantial amount of storage space, Transcend's JetDrive Lite expansion cards provide plenty of space to backup, store, and carry personal documents, photos, movies, and music. The 128 GB card, for instance, can store over 60,000 high-resolution photos, 32,000 MP3 songs, 32 hours of Full HD video, or seemingly limitless number of documents. When inserted into the card slot of a compatible MacBook Pro with Retina display or MacBook Air, the low-profile JetDrive Lite will not stick out like an SD card and can be left in place for on-the-go storage.

Virtium, the embedded industry's trusted supplier of highly reliable infrastructure SSDs and industrial memory modules, today announced the availability of its StorFly M.2 SATA 6G (SATA III) solid state drives (SSDs). Delivering an optimal storage solution for embedded infrastructure-based applications that require high performance in a small form factor, Virtium developed two M.2 modules.

Standard StorFly M.2 modules are available in 42 mm (2242) and 80 mm (2280) lengths, with 60 mm and 110 mm modules offered as customer needs dictate. Engineered to provide superior endurance and extended product lifecycles, the new StorFly M.2 SSDs are optimized for a broad variety of embedded applications including networking base stations, industrial automation equipment, casino gaming and data logging systems.

Announced back in July 2013, Micron's 128 Gigabit 16 nm-manufactured MLC (multi-level cell) NAND Flash memory will soon be making its debut within a new Crucial solid state drive. Named MX100, the 16 nm NAND-equipped drive will be showcased at Computex 2014 and is expected to arrive in a 2.5-inch form factor.

The MX100 has a SATA 6.0 Gbps interface and performance-wise it's said to be somewhere between the aging M500 and the recently released M550. Pricing is expected to be very competitive.

ADATA revealed its flagship consumer SSD in the M.2 form-factor, the SR1020NP series, which is an evolution of the AXNP280e it unveiled at this year's International CES. The drive comes in capacities of up to 1 TB, is based on LSI-SandForce 3700 series processor wired to MLC NAND flash, and a host interface with wiring for PCI-Express 2.0 x4 physical layer. Most M.2 SSDs, in contrast, are being designed for PCI-Express 2.0 x2.

That's not all, most motherboards launched on Intel's 9-series chipset feature M.2 slots with just PCI-Express 2.0 x2 wiring, with the exception of ASRock's top-end Z97-Extreme6, which features a special M.2 slot with PCI-Express 2.0 x4 wiring. Using that slot, however, will eat into the bandwidth meant for graphics cards, and the primary PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slot will run at 3.0 x8, because ASRock wired the slot to the CPU's root complex. Under ideal conditions, SandForce 3700 series processors are advertised to offer sequential transfer rates as high as 1.8 GB/s. Given that, this drive should be bottlenecked on most motherboards with PCI-Express 2.0 x2 based M.2 slots. ADATA will display the drive at the 2014 Computex, early next month, alongside gaming-grade and overclocker-grade DDR4 modules.

Virtium, the embedded industry's trusted supplier of highly reliable infrastructure SSDs and industrial memory modules, today introduced its second generation StorFly SATA 6G (SATA III) solid state drive product family. Virtium's Gen2 StorFly SSDs family is available in 2.5 and 1.8-inch SATA, M.2, mSATA, Slim SATA, and CFast form factors. Designed to meet the diverse storage requirements of mission-critical embedded applications, Virtium's second generation StorFly SSD products provide superior endurance and are engineered for extended product lifecycles. The new StorFly products are optimized for the data types and workloads of a wide range of infrastructure applications including networking, communications, industrial, remote monitoring, transportation, digital signage and gaming systems.

Greatly minimizing the need for costly product requalifications, Virtium's StorFly PE Class SLC-based SSDs will maintain stable configurations for at least three or more years enabling OEMs to realize a considerable total cost-of-ownership (TCO) advantage. The new StorFly SATA SSDs deliver four times the read performance, along with improved error-checking and correction (ECC) and wear-leveling capabilities, providing greater levels of reliability and endurance compared to the first generation StorFly SSDs. The new StorFly designs also support SMART commands and feature Virtium's vtGUARD power fail protection technology to protect against potential data corruption as a result of an unexpected power loss.

Samsung Electronics, Co., Ltd., the world leader in advanced memory technology, said today that it has begun mass producing the industry's first high-performance, three-bit-NAND-based SSD for servers and data centers. The new SSD will allow data centers to better manage workloads related to social networking, web browsing and email, and enhance operation efficiency. Installations of the 3-bit MLC (multi-level-cell) NAND SSDs, initially in large-scale data centers, are expected to begin later this quarter.

"Following the last year's introduction of 3-bit NAND-based SSDs for PC markets, our new 3-bit SSD for data centers will help considerably in expanding the market base for SSDs," said Young-Hyun Jun, executive vice president, memory sales and marketing, Samsung Electronics. "We expect SSD market growth will gain momentum as this new SSD delivers significant improvements in data center investment efficiency, leading to full-fledged commercialization of SSDs in IT systems later this year."

Micron Technology, Inc., today announced a new enterprise-class solid state drive (SSD) designed specifically for data center storage platforms. Enterprise applications are experiencing tremendous new demands for greater data throughput due to rapid growth in mobile applications, cloud services and connected devices. Micron's new M500DC SATA SSD addresses this growing need by providing the performance and data protection features of an enterprise-class drive at a great value.

"System administrators are realizing that there is a need for an SSD that delivers more enterprise-features than a client drive at a more affordable price than most enterprise drives," said Greg Wong, founder and principal analyst at Forward Insights. "Products such as Micron's M500DC SSD offer data centers the optimal balance of enterprise class features, performance and price for demanding 24/7 enterprise workloads."

Plextor has now announced the European release of the M6S, its newest SATA solid state drive which makes use of Marvell's SS9188 dual-core controller and Toshiba 19 nm Toggle-Mode MLC NAND memory. The SSD comes in a 2.5-inch form factor (7 mm tall) and has a SATA 6.0 Gbps interface and is capable of read/write speeds of up to 520/440 MB/s.

Plextor's M6S is backed by a three-year warranty and comes in 128 GB (82 Euro), 256 GB (145 Euro) and 512 GB (306 Euro) capacities.

With the trend in terminal products toward mobility, the built-in storage devices have turned to compact design in specification and size, and stronger durability are required for the products. Aiming at industrial computers driven by the trend, Apacer launches two ultra slim SSDs: JEDEC MO-297-compliant SFD 18S6 and MO-300-compliant mSATA A1.

The small size equipped with SATA 3.0 high-speed transmission interface, along with the products' features of low power consumption, durability and high performance, will become the necessary storage solution for the rise of the new mobility devices. It can be specially applied to medical tablet PCs, bedside healthcare, mobile on-board unit and data communication system devices.

OCZ Storage Solutions - a Toshiba Group Company and leading provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) for computing devices and systems, today announced the introduction of the enterprise-class Z-Drive 4500 PCI Express (PCIe) SSD Series. The new Z-Drive 4500 Series delivers even higher performance in comparison to OCZ's Z-Drive R4 Series, leverages 19 nanometer (nm) MLC NAND flash, and features a more robust architectural design covering 800GB, 1.6TB and 3.2TB usable capacities.

Each model within the Z-Drive 4500 Series is integrated with OCZ's new Windows Accelerator (WXL) Software -- a flash management and caching solution for Microsoft Windows Server applications also announced by the Company today. WXL Software enables IT managers to deliver low-latency flash deployable as a local flash volume, a flash cache for HDD volumes or as a combination of both.

Transcend Information, Inc., a leading manufacturer of industrial-grade products, today announced the release of its SATA III 6 Gb/s N8S750 M.2 and MSA340 mSATA solid state drives (SSD). Featuring ultra compact dimensions and the next generation SATA III 6 Gb/s interface, Transcend's N8S750 and MSA340 SSDs are best suited to address the strict size limitations and high performance needs of today's advanced portable devices.

N8S750 SATA III 6 Gb/s M.2 SSD
The N8S750 SSD's space-saving 80 mm M.2 form factor (80.0 mm x 22.0 mm x 3.5 mm) is designed to meet future market demands of ultra-thin and light mobile devices that require an SSD, including Ultrabooks, notebooks, tablets, portable gaming systems, and smartphones. It features the latest SATA III 6 Gb/s specification, DDR3 DRAM cache, and is comprised of high-quality MLC NAND Flash chips. With exceptional transfer speeds of up to 520 MB/s read and 330 MB/s write, the N8S750 easily handles everyday computing tasks as well as demanding multimedia applications.

OCZ Storage Solutions -- a Toshiba Group Company and leading provider of high-performance solid state drives (SSDs) for computing devices and systems, today announced its new Vertex 460 SATA III SSD Series. As part of the renowned Vertex series, Vertex 460 continues the legacy by delivering an exceptional mainstream solution with advanced storage performance, reliability, and quality that meet the demands of today's client applications.

Evolving from the 20 nm-based Vertex 450, the new Vertex 460 uses the company's proprietary Barefoot 3 (BF3) M10 controller with state-of-the-art Toshiba 19 nm MLC NAND flash memory to deliver a superior, cost-effective solid state storage solution. With an emphasis on real-world performance across all capacities, Vertex 460 SSDs start fast and continue that way over time, excelling in write speeds without the use of synthetic software-based optimization.

Mushkin, Inc., an industry-leading designer and manufacturer of high-performance and mission-critical computer products, today officially announced the worldwide launch of its new highly-anticipated enterprise-class ProSpec series solid-state drives.

"We have time after time demonstrated to PC enthusiasts how Mushkin's solid-state drive solutions can dramatically improve performance and reduce data transfer times, delivering levels of performance that have earned Mushkin its place as one of the top SSD manufacturers," said Brian Flood, Director, Product Management at Mushkin, Inc." With the ProSpec line of enterprise-class SSDs, we deliver a no compromise drive that provides high performance while enabling customers to reach new levels of data security and reliability. The result, a combination of performance and capacity that we believe represents a new paradigm shift for mission critical, enterprise storage."

OCZ Technology Group, Inc., a leading provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) for computing devices and systems, today introduced its next-generation Intrepid 3000 Series of enterprise-class SATA III-based SSDs delivering the industry's best sustained performance and consistent I/O responses. As the series supports storage capacities up to 800 GB, Intrepid 3 represents OCZ's highest performing and largest capacity enterprise SATA SSDs to date. Leveraging the Everest 2 Platform, a combination of the Marvell 88SS9187 controller with OCZ's proprietary firmware, the new series features advanced flash management and endurance capabilities that extend NAND flash life and enhance drive reliability, all supported by a 5-year warranty.

'Incredibly fast' best describes the new Intrepid 3000 Series. In a steady state condition by which the drive is writing, erasing and re-writing data repeatedly over the full capacity of the drive, the performance for both large block sequential operations, as well as small block random operations, is unrivaled. This includes 520 MB/s for sequential reads (128K blocks), 470 MB/s for sequential writes (128K blocks), 91,000 input/output operations per second (IOPS) for random reads (4K blocks) and 40,000 IOPS for random writes (4K blocks). In comparison to OCZ's previous SATA III enterprise drives, the Intrepid 3000 Series delivers five times faster sustained performance for 4K write operations and two times faster sustained performance for 4K read operations.