A PCI-Express variant of OCZ's Vector SSD is exhibited at CES. Pictures reveal it to be a compound SSD, that uses two subunits of the Vector 256 GB, striped into RAID 0, and connected to a SATA 6 Gb/s RAID controller that talks to the rest of the system over PCI-Express 2.0 x4. Each of the two Vector SSD subunits on Vector PCIe features an OCZ-Indilinx Barefoot 3 controller, sixteen 25 nm Intel-made MLC NAND flash chips, and 512 MB of DDR3 DRAM cache.

OCZ ran benchmarks of the drive, which reveal performance upscaling over the 2.5-inch SATA Vector SSD that's expected of a RAID 0 setup. Sequential speeds were as high as 926.2 MB/s reads, with 881 MB/s writes, a respectable 563 MB/s 4K-QD64 reads, with 501 MB/s 4K-QD64 writes. Overall, the Vector PCIe is a suitable successor to the company's 2-subunit RevoDrive, and is aimed more at consumers, but could help businesses just as well, thanks to the good multi-threaded performance of the Barefoot 3 platform.

Etron Technology, Inc. (Taiwan GTSM: 5351) introduces a new flash drive controller, EV2669, of Etron's USB3.0 Flash Drive Accelerator (FDA) series, in addition to its EV1669 product recently announced at the 2013 Consumer Electronics Show (CES). EV2669 enables Etron's USB3.0 flash drive customers to deliver unprecedented read and write speeds of 260 and 235 megabytes per second with MLC (Multiple Level Cell) flash memories without additional host drivers or software required. Moreover, EV2669 meets customer demands for large data storage by supporting flash memory capacities up to 128GB.

EV2669 utilizes Etron's proprietary Flash Driver Accelerator technology to improve the overall performance of NAND flash memory access by leveraging advanced firmware algorithms and high-performance flash interface engines. It has been adopted in the products of top-tier USB3.0 flash drive makers, many of which are exhibited at the 2013 CES.

Etron Technology, Inc. (Taiwan GTSM: 5351) announces a new USB3.0 single-channel Flash disk Accelerator (FDA) IC, EV1669, as the first product of the FDA family. EV1669 is capable of achieving read and write speeds of 100 and 80 megabytes per second, respectively, with a TLC (Triple-Level-Cell) flash memory with no additional host driver or software required.

Etron's USB3.0 FDA series, including EV1669, utilizes proprietary flash disk accelerating technology. This breakthrough technology increases the overall performance of accessing any NAND flash memory by using a new architecture that includes advanced firmware algorithms and high-speed flash interface engines and also significantly enhances the reliability and stability of various NAND flash memories.

Toshiba Corporation will showcase a reference display of an SDHC memory card with TransferJet close proximity wireless transfer technology at the 2013 International CES, to be held from January 8 to 11, 2013, in Las Vegas, U.S.A.

The SDHC memory card on reference display will be a product under development, integrating a TransferJet transceiver IC, a coupler, an RF filter, peripheral passive parts, an SD bridge connection circuit, and Toshiba's NAND flash memory.

Patriot Memory, a global pioneer in high-performance memory, NAND flash storage and enthusiast computer products today announces the availability of the new ultraportable Autobahn USB 2.0 drive. Designed for those looking for excellent USB 2.0 performance and high capacity in a micro sized form factor, the Patriot Autobahn is less than 18mm in length and becomes barely noticeable when plugged in.

Car audio enthusiasts can now rock their tunes with ease. The Autobahn is plug-and-play compatible with stereos that support USB connections for hours of music playback, without the hassle of plugging in an external player. The Patriot Autobahn is available in 8GB, 16GB and 32GB capacities to take all your data with you in and ever increasing mobile world.

Kingfast rolled out the K25 Ultra cache-SSD. Featuring 32 GB of MLC NAND flash, the drive comes bundled with a license to use NVELO DataPlex SSD caching software, with which you can accelerate your existing HDD-based machine, without re-installing anything. The K25 Ultra is built into the 2.5-inch 7 mm-thick SATA 3 Gb/s form-factor, which makes it ultra-thin friendly. While an accelerated HDD's performance will depend on various other factors, the drive itself can dole out 270 MB/s sequential reads, and 190 MB/s sequential writes. It is priced at $58.

VIA Labs, Inc., a leading supplier of USB 3.0 integrated chip controllers, today announced its two latest USB 3.0 device controllers, the VIA VL752 and VIA VL753 SuperSpeed USB 3.0 to NAND flash controllers. The VIA VL752 and VIA VL753 deliver enhanced performance using the latest NAND flash technologies including 19nm, 20nm and 21nm geometries and have been certified by the USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF) for SuperSpeed operation, ensuring high quality, seamless interoperability, and effortless backwards compatibility.

The two-channel the VIA VL752 and single-channel VIA VL753 offer data transfer speeds up to 280MB/s, flexible bad block management, support for the latest 200MHz DDR NAND Flash, and a robust ECC engine for greater data integrity. The package sizes from the previous generation of VIA Superspeed USB to NAND flash controllers have been reduced to a QFN68 8 x 8mm package for the VIA VL752 and a QFN48 6 x 6mm package for the VIA VL753 to enable the smallest form-factor designs.

Intel's SSD 525 line of performance mSATA SSDs may be slated for 2013, but made an early debut with the company's NUC (next unit of computing) desktop. A 180 GB variant of the drive was put to test by VR-Zone, which is driven by LSI-SandForce SF-2281 processor, and features three Intel-made 20 nm MLC NAND flash chips (6-channels). The drive cracked Anvil Storage Utilities benchmark with 504 MB/s (compressible) and 463 MB/s (incompressible) sequential read speeds, 468 MB/s (compressible) and 240 MB/s (incompressible) sequential writes, and about 55,841 IOPS 4K random write (QD16) performance. The performance numbers make the drive appear nearly as fast as larger 2.5-inch SATA SSDs, and could be a boon for Ultrabook makers.

Transcend announced a 128 GB variant of its StoreJet Cloud wireless SSD (model: TS128GSJC10K), which the company launched in December 2011, with 32 GB and 64 GB variants. Measuring 99 x 54 x 16.5 mm, and weighing 90 g (roughly the size and weight of an entry-level smartphone), the drive is a self-powered wireless SSD, which uses a Li-polymer battery that can keep the drive connected for up to 6 hours; and 802.11 b/g/n (up to 150 Mbps) WLAN interface, with which the drive can either be part of a wireless network, or serve up to five clients in a small radius.

Since it's technically a NAS, the StoreJet Cloud features support for basic NAS features, and can be controlled using apps for mobile devices via Google Play and Apple App Store. The drive uses USB 2.0/1.1 for charging, and can connect to a host as USB mass-storage device. Thanks to drops in NAND flash prices, the 128 GB variant is priced around US $150. For reference, the 64 GB variant was launched at $300, just last year.

JEDEC Solid State Technology Association, the global leader in the development of standards for the microelectronics industry, and the Open NAND Flash Interface Workgroup (ONFI) today announced the publication of JESD230 NAND Flash Interface Interoperability Standard (Package). This jointly developed document defines a standard for NAND flash device interface interoperability. JESD230 is available for free download from both www.jedec.org and onfi.org.

JESD230 addresses signaling descriptions, packages, definitions, abbreviations and conventions, and is backwards compatible with existing technologies to the greatest degree possible. The standard will help enable the design of interoperable systems that can support Asynchronous SDR, Synchronous DDR and Toggle DDR NAND flash devices.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd, a global leader in advanced semiconductor technology solutions, today announced that it is producing advanced solid state drives (SSDs) that are designed specifically for use in servers and enterprise storage systems. These drives - the SM843 and the SM1625 - will be particularly useful as high-speed storage for a wide range of server and storage applications that depend on extremely fast data writing including social media in the cloud, SQL database logs, media streaming, virtualization, video on demand and online transaction processing (OLTP).

Samsung's new data center and enterprise SSDs deliver extremely high performance with low power consumption in providing the most efficient storage solutions for data center applications," said Myungho Kim, vice president of memory marketing, Device Solutions, Samsung Electronics. "Samsung will aggressively produce its new line-up of SSDs beginning this month to accelerate SSDs' move into not only the server but also the storage marketplace, as we continue to affirm our leadership in the SSD market."

OCZ Technology Group, Inc., a leading provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) for computing devices and systems, will display its enterprise storage solutions at the Gartner Symposium/ITXpo, Booth #1044, Walt Disney World Dolphin Resort, Lake Buena Vista, Florida, from October 21st through October 25th. The Gartner Symposium/ITXpo is an annual gathering of CIOs and senior IT executives seeking the latest tools, technologies, and information to improve IT capabilities and data center effectiveness.

For SAN acceleration of I/O intensive workloads, OCZ will present its leading Z-Drive R4 PCIe SSDs supporting both full-height (FH) and half-height (HH) configurations, enabling the CPU with direct access (zero-latency storage) and instant boot capabilities. The FH (3/4 length) RM88 model enables an industry best 2.8GB/s of sequential throughput, 410K of random IOPS performance, and usable MLC NAND flash capacities from 800GB to 3.2TB. The HH (half-length) RM84 model is also a performance leader enabling 2GB/s of sequential throughput, 250K of random IOPS performance and usable capacities from 300GB to 1.2TB.

ADATA announced a new line of affordable client SSDs, the Premier Pro SP600 series. Built in the 9.5 mm-thick 2.5-inch form-factor, the drives take advantage of SATA 6 Gb/s interface. Available in 32 GB, 64 GB, and 128 GB capacities, the Premier Pro SP600 series is driven by JMicron JMF661 processor, and features 20 nm-class MLC NAND flash memory. The drives offer sequential read speeds of up to 360 MB/s, and up to 130 MB/s writes. Random access performance numbers provided to us include 40,000 IOPS 4K random reads, and 30,000 IOPS 4K random writes. The drives pack most common client SSD features, including TRIM, NCQ, and 40 b/KB ECC. The 32 GB, 64 GB, and 128 GB variants are priced at US $49.99, $69.99, and $99.99, respectively.

Samsung developed a new file-system that's optimized for storage devices with multiple NAND flash memory chips. Called "Flash-Friendly File-System" or F2FS, Samsung's newest creation has been submitted to the group governing the Linux kernel, and an implementation of it on derivatives such as Android is possible in the near future. F2FS is designed to take into account the "internal geometry" of NAND flash storage devices, using a log structure approach that overcomes shortcomings of file-systems designed for older spinning-disc physical media (such as floppy, hard drives, and optical discs). There's also promise for F2FS, particularly in future high-density servers using enterprise SSDs.

Toshiba announced the new MQ01ABD series hybrid hard drives for notebooks. Built in the 2.5-inch 9.5 mm-thick form-factor, the drives embed a dual-platter hard drive with 8 GB of SLC NAND flash memory, and 32 MB cache for the hard drive component. The hard drive component has a maximum spindle speed of 5,400 RPM. Available in 750 GB (MQ01ABD075H) and 1 TB (MQ01ABD100H) variants, the drives support SATA 6 Gb/s interface, and Advanced Format. The company did not reveal pricing, as the two drives are being sampled from today.

MyDigitalSSD has teamed up with SuperSSpeeds to offer the fastest and top performing solid state drives on the market today. Utilizing the SandForce SF-2281 controller and SLC NAND flash, the SuperSSpeed boasts incredible speed for advanced gaming, multitasking, and multimedia computing power. Rated at 550MB/s Read and 520MB/s Write, the SuperSSpeed is proof that in this day and age, you get what you pay for, being arguably 20 times better than its nearest MLC rival at only twice the expense including accessories.

As with all MyDigitalSSD drives, the SuperSSpeed runs cool and quiet with no moving parts to create heat. Coupled with being shockproof, meaning that dropping your SSD or notebook no longer means losing your data, the SuperSSpeed it a far more durable and reliable upgrade to a traditional spinning hard drive (HDD).

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the world leader in advanced memory technology, today announced that it has begun volume production of 128-gigabyte (GB) embedded memory for next-generation smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices. Samsung started producing the new 128GB eMMC (embedded multimedia card) Pro Class 1500 in late August, which is only one month after it started delivering eMMC Pro products in 16-, 32- and 64-GB densities, rapidly completing the industry's widest line-up of eMMC products.

"By doubling the highest density of its previous eMMC products, Samsung expects to contribute significantly to a timely release of leading-edge mobile devices," said Wanhoon Hong, executive vice president, Memory Sales & Marketing, Samsung Electronics. "The higher data storage and faster data transmission will bring a range of benefits to users that compare to those of ultra-slim notebook PCs."

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., a global leader in memory semiconductor technology, today held a groundbreaking ceremony for a major new memory fabrication line in Xi'an, China. Once completed, the new facility will make use of advanced 10-nanometer (nm)-class technology in producing NAND flash memory chips, a critical component powering IT and mobile applications for high-speed and large-density data storage.

Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman and CEO Dr. Oh-hyun Kwon hosted the event, which welcomed 600 attendees including government dignitaries such as Zhao Leji, secretary of provincial party committee and director of provincial People's Congress Standing Committee, and Kyu Hyung Lee, Ambassador of the Republic of Korea to China. Other honored attendees included Sang-Jick Yoon, vice minister for Industry and Technology at the Ministry of Knowledge Economy, as well as hundreds of Samsung suppliers and customers.

Apparently, Toshiba's strategy of inflating NAND flash pricing by cutting down production by 30 percent, stimulating similar reductions across the industry, backfired. Taking advantage of Toshiba's production cuts, Micron Technology ramped up its production, gaining market share. The Idahoan company's increased market share at Toshiba's expense ensured that SSD makers with Toshiba NAND flash create variants of their products with Micron's chips. Toshiba's latest move, according to a TweakTown report, is to scale its NAND flash production back up, and cut NAND flash prices down by 20 - 25 percent. Such a price-cut could result in further SSD price-cuts across the board, as the industry would end up with large inventories of Toshiba- and Micron-branded NAND flash chips.

Integrated Device Technology, Inc. (IDT), the Analog and Digital Company delivering essential mixed-signal semiconductor solutions, today announced the industry's first NVM Express (NVMe) enterprise non-volatile DRAM (NV-DRAM) controller with native support for PCIe Gen 3. The new NVMe NV-DRAM controller expands upon IDT's previously announced NVMe flash controller family to provide standards-based, high-density, high-performance PCIe-attached NV-DRAM solutions built around a combination of DRAM and NAND flash devices.

The IDT 89HF08P08AG3 NV-DRAM controller supports up to 32 GB of DDR3 SDRAM and 8 channels of NAND flash, with a PCIe x8 Gen 3 host interface. The controller is designed to fully comply with the NVMe standard - a standard that defines an optimized register interface, command set, and feature set for PCIe-based solid-state drives (SSDs). IDT's new PCIe NV-DRAM controller enables unparalleled read and write random performance with extremely low latency and high endurance, making it ideal for storage-intensive enterprise-class applications. The programmable controller provides OEMs the flexibility to quickly develop and deploy NV-DRAM solutions that use standard NVM Express drivers.

Super Talent Technology, a leading manufacturer of flash storage solutions and DRAM memory modules, announces its USB 3.0 Express RC8 has been certified as a go to market partner with Microsoft for usage with Windows To Go, a new feature of Microsoft's Windows 8 Enterprise edition. Windows To Go enables enterprises to provision a full corporate image on an external USB drive which users can boot and operate from almost any PC.

Certified through the Windows 8 Hardware certification kit, Super Talent's RC8 is one of the world's top USB 3.0 drives with SSD technology; it provides high random read/write speed capabilities and reports itself as fixed media. Supertalent RC8 meets and surpasses many of the performance requirements of Windows To Go certified drives.

Intel plans to standardize SSD specifications for its Ultrabook platform, which would steer it toward slimmer, faster Ultrabooks. The company plans to invite a large number of industry players, including NAND flash memory makers SanDisk, Micron, and Samsung, for discussions into what is known as Next Generation Form Factor (NGFF), a new SSD form-factor derived from mSATA (think Apple's SSD form-factor found in the MacBook Air).

Intel is in a bit of a hurry with its NGFF SSD plans because the current mSATA form-factor poses limitations, including limited PCB area, in which a limited number of ONFI channels can be wired out. NGFF most likely is mSATA with greater PCB area, allowing the same number of ONFI channels as 2.5-inch SSDs, with the latest generation of controllers and toggle-NAND flash memory. NGFF doesn't increase the thickness of the SSD compared to mSATA, but merely elongates it (again, similar in form to Apple's SSD specifications). Five length standards are being discussed between Intel and Ultrabook partners.

Toshiba Corporation (TOKYO:6502) today announced an adjustment to production of NAND flash memory at its Yokkaichi Operation plant in Mie Prefecture, Japan, that will cut Toshiba's production by approximately 30%, effective from today.

Oversupply of NAND flash memory in the retail market, for application in USB memories and memory cards, has resulted in continual price declines since the beginning of this year. Toshiba has responded by adjusting shipments to the retail market since June and from today will reduce the operating rate at the plant in order to adjust output. This move will help to reduce inventory in the market and improve the overall balance between supply and demand.

Patriot Memory, a global pioneer in high-performance memory, NAND flash storage and enthusiast computer products today announces the launch of the Supersonic Rage XT USB 3.0 drive. Built with an ultra-portable form factor and the enhanced speed of USB 3.0, the Patriot Memory Supersonic Rage XT is the perfect solution for those looking for a compact design that doesn't compromise performance. The Supersonic Rage XT comes with a custom slide to connect design that provides best in class protection from wear and tear.

Available in 32GB and 64GB capacities and plug and play compatibility, the Patriot Memory Supersonic Rage XT offers excellent storage solutions that are extremely easy to use across multiple platforms. Backed by Patriot Memory's award winning customer service, the Supersonic RAGE XT will come with a 5-year warranty.

Since the last couple of weeks, we've known of MSI's plans to enter the client SSD market, thanks to a leak by LSI-SandForce. Today we're getting the first pictures of what MSI has been secretly working on. Called the Reflex series, MSI's first SSDs are built on the most widely used performance SSD platform, a combination of LSI-SandForce SF2281 controller and 25 nm synchronous NAND flash.

MSI's Reflex series will be launched in three variants, the RX-60 (60 GB), the RX-120 (120 GB), and the RX-240 (240 GB), respectively. Performance numbers differ with model. The RX-60 offers up to 525 MB/s reads with 495 MB/s writes, and 85,000 IOPS 4K random write performance. The RX-120 ups that to 550 MB/s reads with 515 MB/s writes, and 90,000 IOPS 4K random writes. Leading the pack is the RX-240, with 560 MB/s reads, 525 MB/s writes, and 90,000 IOPS 4K random writes. The three are built in the 2.5-inch form-factor, with SATA 6 Gb/s interface. Pricing and availability information is awaited.Update (23/07): MSI Europe informed us that while the product is real, it will not be available for purchase in Europe, and that there are no plans to sell the drives in the old continent, in the near future. MSI Europe's statement follows