I-O Data announced the LANDisk HDL-AS line of single-drive NAS servers for home users. Available with hard-drives pre-installed, in 2 TB and 3 TB capacities, the HDL-AS features a 1 GbE network interface, and sustained throughput of 90 MB/s. Its software supports programmed recording of streams over DTCP-IP (SKY! premium Service Link), Dropbox, iTunes server, and most consumer NAS features. Measuring 45 x 138 x 168 mm, it weighs about 1.2 kg. Slated for mid-February, it is priced at 26,565¥ ($292) for the 2 TB and 36,645¥ ($403) for the 3 TB model.

QNAP Inc. introduced the new TS-x70U-RP series Turbo NAS to its US market this week. The new series, TS-x70U-RP, stands out with its economical 10GbE capability and retains all the same features.

The new TS-x70U-RP series NAS is powered by a high performance Dual-core Intel 2.4GHz CPU and is equipped with 4GB DDR3 RAM with upgradable option up to 16GB. The 10GbE ready capability makes the TS-x70U-RP series the perfect solution for business applications such as iSCSI IP-SAN, server virtualization, high speed backup, video storage, and centralized shared storage.

HGST (formerly Hitachi Global Storage Technologies and now a Western Digital company, NASDAQ: WDC) today announced the industry's highest-capacity 10,000 RPM, enterprise-class hard drive - the Ultrastar C10K1200. Providing a capacity extension to HGST's proven Ultrastar C10K900 product line, the new 2.5-inch Ultrastar C10K1200 features a SAS 6Gb/s interface for reliable data throughput, a 64MB cache buffer for optimized read/write response time, and a fast 10K rotational speed for reliable high-performance computing. All this, combined with the drive's low power, high capacity and high performance attributes, results in higher density servers, blades and network storage arrays that helps reduce space requirements, lowers cooling costs and improves total cost of ownership (TCO).

Increasing storage needs, shrinking floor space and budgets, and reducing power and cooling are just a few challenges that datacenter managers face today, making it challenging to scale and sustain business growth. Whether building datacenters for public clouds, private clouds or traditional datacenters, adopting the right tiered storage strategy delivers greater efficiencies in terms of reliability, performance, capacity and power, and can make a vast difference in the ability to lower TCO.

Seagate Technology plc (NASDAQ: STX) today reported financial results for the quarter ended December 28, 2012. During the fiscal second quarter, the Company reported revenue of approximately $3.7 billion, shipping 58 million units. On a GAAP basis, Seagate reported gross margin of 27.0%, net income of $492 million and diluted earnings per share of $1.30. On a non-GAAP basis, which excludes the net impact of certain items, Seagate reported gross margin of 27.6%, net income of $523 million and diluted earnings per share of $1.38. Cash flow from operations in the quarter was $844 million and the Company returned $1.1 billion to shareholders in dividends and share redemptions. Cash, cash equivalents, restricted cash, and short-term investments totaled approximately $2.0 billion at the end of the fiscal second quarter.

"Seagate is executing well in an environment where customer demand forecasting is challenging," said Steve Luczo, Seagate's chairman, president and chief executive officer. "Looking ahead, we will continue to manage our business conservatively to the demand environment, focus on profitability and effectively invest for market leadership in storage for mobility, cloud and open source. Creating value for shareholders remains a top priority, and in the first half of fiscal 2013, we returned over 95% of operating cash flows through share redemptions and dividends."

German peripherals maker Fantec rolled out the MWiD25, a 2.5-inch SATA drive enclosure (strictly speaking, a NAS). The enclosure connects to standalone hosts over USB 3.0, but can also connect to multiple devices (PCs, smartphones, tablets) over 802.11 b/g/n WLAN and 10/100 Ethernet. The enclosure packs a 3,000 mAh battery which can keep it running for hours on a full-charge. It can enclose HDDs and SSDs up to 9 mm-thick. The company posted apps for Android and iOS that speeds up the process of connecting to it, in addition to backup, sync, and a file-manager. Measuring 80 x 128 x 25 mm, the enclosure is sold either empty, or with HDDs pre-installed. Capacities offered are 320 GB, 500 GB, 750 GB, and 1 TB.

QNAP Systems, Inc. today announced that its latest business-class, 2U rackmount TS-x70 series Turbo NAS start shipping now. The new generation TS-x70 series, including the 12-bay TS-1270U-RP and the 8-bay TS-870U-RP, are aiming to offer the business users a superb high-performance yet budget-friendly NAS solution to smooth daily file operations with low total cost of ownership. The models fulfill various business applications including high speed backup, server virtualization, iSCSI IP-SAN, video storage and centralized shared storage, and outstand as an affordable 10GbE ready NAS.

Powered by a high performance Dual-core Intel 2.4GHz processor, the new TS-x70 series are equipped with 4GB DDR3 RAM, which can be upgraded to 16GB optionally. The dual USB 3.0 ports allow high-speed server data backup. Featuring 10GbE re ady, the TS-x70 series provide dual Gigabit Ethernet ports, which can be expanded up to six Gigabit Ethernet ports, or four 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports plus two Gigabit Ethernet ports, benefit in aggregating and boosting network performance. "The TS-x70 series are proficient to fulfill mission-critical storage needs of small and medium businesses with maximum system uptime," said David Tsao, product manager of QNAP. "The 10GbE network expansion options can satisfy high-speed data transmission required in the business environment," added Tsao.

Thecus announces the Seagate and Toshiba HDD internal 3.5 hard drive addition. Thecus is constantly providing the most updated HDD on the market to pair with Thecus NAS. Thecus has been hard at work keeping its compatibility lists ahead of the market and has added a number of new compatible hard drives for a number of different NAS.

Drobo, makers of award-winning data storage products for businesses and professionals, today announced the general availability and shipping of its fastest and most technologically advanced networked storage, the new Drobo 5N.

The Drobo 5N further expands Drobo's new line of professional storage products, which includes the recently released Drobo 5D and the Drobo Mini, by leveraging the company's patent-pending SSD and tiering technology for the first time with networked storage. These, combined with Drobo's unique ease-of-use and flexibility, enable the Drobo 5N to provide an unprecedented package of simplicity, affordability and performance for home users, small offices and creative professionals. The 5N also utilizes Drobo's new, enhanced data protection capabilities, typically only found in more expensive enterprise storage systems.

QNAP Systems, Inc. today announced that its recently released Turbo NAS TS-x69L series, available in 2, 4, 5, 6, 8-drive configurations, can now utilize its built-in HDMI port and new HD Station feature, turning the Turbo NAS into a comprehensive media player, allowing users to enjoy high-definition videos, pictures, music, and more right on the big screen TV in the comfort of home.

"This amazing new HD Station feature is provided free of charge. Users now can easily enjoy a Full HD experience at home just by connecting the Turbo NAS with an HDMI cable to a big screen TV," said Jason Hsu, product manager of QNAP. The new HD Station, in conjunction with the intuitive XBMC media player, allows users to easily enjoy movies, home videos, photos, and music collections using the Turbo NAS at home.

Following its debut with more consumer-friendly 6-series NAS servers in the desktop form-factor, ASUStor is ready with its next line, which includes rackmount 4- and 9-bay NAS servers, targeting SMBs and enterprises. The two were exhibited at CES. Both models are based on the Intel Atom platform, featuring at least two gigabit Ethernet interfaces, some additional eSATA and USB 3.0 ports, and the 9-bay model even featuring redundant power supply. The two are based on ASUStor's ADM 1.0 software, which provides a third-party software environment for sysadmins to develop and deploy, specific to their setups.

At the International CES 2013 opening today, QNAP , Inc. showcased its newly launched Turbo NAS TS-x70 series and its complete NAS lineup, presented its latest version of NAS firmware 3.8 with various enhanced business and home applications, and displayed the new VioStor NVR VS-x100 Pro+ series and powerful surveillance Central Management System , the CMS-2000. Visitors could experience the full-spectrum of Turbo NAS series and VioStor NVR series at CES 2013.

The newly launched business-class, 2U rackmount TS-x70 series Turbo NAS, including the 12-bay TS-1270U-RP and the 8-bay TS-870U-RP, are designed to offer the SMBs superb high-performance yet budget-friendly NAS solutions to smooth daily file operations with lo w total cost of ownership. Powered by a high performance Dual-core Intel 2.40 GHz processor, the TS-x70 series deliver exceptional performance at an exceptional price.

Synology today announced the beta availability of DiskStation Manager (DSM) 4.2. "DSM 4.2 provides the architecture and manageability that enterprises depend upon and amazes individuals with multimedia feast. Also, it realizes our determination to preclude the big data challenges users are confronted with," said Vic Hsu, CEO of Synology Inc.

Synology continues to bring storage efficiency to virtual environment and data center. LUN Snapshot creates up to 256 snapshots per LUN with minimal storage space and no impact on performance. Virtual copies of data can now be replicated instantly with LUN Clone without compromising performance or demanding additional storage space, creating identical deployments in different environments quickly and effortlessly.

Today LaCie announced the 5big NAS Pro, its latest high-performance 5-bay network-attached storage solution powered by Intel. Thanks to hybrid cloud technology, the LaCie 5big NAS Pro lets employees collaborate easily using a single interface for both network/cloud storage and remote access. Plus, data stays secure thanks to novice-friendly SimplyRAID and client-side cloud encryption.

Fast Professional Collaboration
With transfer speeds up to 200 MB/s, the LaCie 5big NAS Pro boosts business productivity. Powered by a dual-core 2.13 GHz Intel 64-bit Atom processor and 4 GB RAM, it also features dual LAN and link aggregation for optimized network speeds. This performance-driven combination accelerates file sharing, remote access, and backups for small businesses.

QNAP Systems, Inc. announced today a major expansion of the number of compatible peripherals available for its Turbo NAS products. The major additions include ten 3.5-inch internal SATA hard drives and a Kingston 2.5-inch internal SATA hard drive.
The newly compatible 3.5" internal SATA hard drives:

• Seagate - ST2000DM001 (2TB), ST2000NC000 (2TB), ST1000NC000 (1TB), ST3000NM0033 (Constellation ES.3) (3TB), ST2000NM0033 (Constellation ES.3) (2TB), ST1000NM0033 (Constellation ES.3) (1TB), ST500DM002 (500GB)
• Western Digital - WD4000FYYZ (4TB), WD3000FYYZ (3TB), WD2000FYYZ (2TB)
  The newly compatible 2.5" internal SATA hard drive:
• Kingston - SSDNow E100 (100GB)

ASUSTOR Inc., a leading innovator and provider of network storage solutions, today announced the release of three new NAS Apps for its well-received AS 6 Series NAS devices. These new Apps consist of Symantec Backup Exec's RALUS, an acclaimed backup solution, Dropbox, a popular cloud storage and sync service and DVBLink TV Server, a digital television App. Additionally, two of ASUSTOR's existing Apps are being upgraded with advanced features and enhancements. Download Center now features the new and convenient Smart Download Folder function. Its mobile App, AiDownload, has added a push notification function and is now available for both iOS and Android. Not to be outdone, the Surveillance Center App now boasts added Daylight Saving Time adjustments along with full compatibility with Panasonic's BB and BL camera lines. Interested users may begin enjoying these new Apps and upgrades by downloading them through ASUSTOR's App Central.

OCZ Technology Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: OCZ), a leading provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) for computing devices and systems, today announced that the Audit Committee's investigation, assisted by third party legal and financial advisors, has been substantially completed and a preliminary report has been provided to the Audit Committee. While there continue to be various matters requiring further investigation, the Company believes they will be concluded shortly. The Audit Committee has approved this report and, in consultation with management, concluded that the Company should restate the results for the first quarter of fiscal 2013, as well as the results for certain quarters of fiscal 2012 and for the fiscal year 2012.

The restatements primarily relate to the timing of revenue recognition, the classification of certain customer incentive costs and for the level of reserves for product returns. The number of prior periods affected and the impact of the adjustments will be disclosed in more detail in the Company's restated financial statements, which will be provided as soon as practical. The Board and management are in discussions with Crowe Horwath LLP, the Company's independent auditors regarding the matters identified in the investigation.

Infortrend, the professional data storage solutions provider, today announced the new EonNAS flagship line, the EonNAS X. The first two additions to the flagship line, the EonNAS Pro 850X and EonNAS 1510X, feature 8-bay tower and 2U/12-bay rack mount form factors respectively. The two offer affordable and powerful unified storage solutions with 8 GB of DDR3 RAM and 10-GbE connectivity included. The higher transfer speed reduces waiting time thus enhancing business productivity for businesses of any size while the added RAM helps to cache data and boost data deduplication performance.

As the demand for faster backup and virtualization increases, the need for 10-GbE network connectivity becomes even more essential. With the deployment cost for a 10-GbE infrastructure becoming more affordable each day, it is critical for businesses to transition into this technology. The new EonNAS X line offers two models both equipped with 10-GbE LAN ports that can be used to fulfill the most bandwidth demanding applications such as backup, file sharing, video editing, and virtualization.

Drobo, maker of award-winning data storage products for businesses and professionals, today announced the Drobo 5N, the latest in their new lineup of ultra-modern, high-performance storage systems. The Drobo 5N, a sophisticated, network-attached storage (NAS) device, extends Drobo's traditional ease-of-use with increased performance and data protection enhancements for personal and professional users who want a fast, easy, and ultra-reliable file sharing and backup experience over the network.

Like the recently introduced Drobo Mini and Drobo 5D, the new Drobo 5N features Drobo's patented BeyondRAID and Data-Aware Tiering technologies, to deliver capacity, performance, and data protection that have traditionally been reserved for more expensive, enterprise-grade storage.

QNAP Systems, Inc. today announced the release of TV Station, extending Turbo NAS users' multimedia experience to online TV watching, recording, and playback.

Only requiring simple steps to install a DVB-T USB TV tuner on the Turbo NAS, the TV Station provides an economical option to record digital TV programs and share live or recorded contents with multiple members simultaneously. Live and recorded TV programs are made accessible via web browsers. "As the amount of time spent on watching television programs over the Internet on a computer and the recorded digital content has increased over years, the TV Station rides on the trend to fulfil user's needs," said Oliver Lien, product manager of QNAP.

Worldwide external disk storage systems factory revenues posted year-over-year growth of 3.3%, totaling just over $5.9 billion, in the third quarter of 2012 (3Q12), according to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Disk Storage Systems Tracker. For the quarter, the total disk storage systems market posted just under $7.9 billion in revenues, representing 3.7% growth from the prior year's third quarter. Total disk storage systems capacity shipped reach 7,104 petabytes, growing 24.4% year over year.

"The external disk storage system market continues to exhibit steady growth, posting solid third quarter factory revenues of just over $5.9 billion," said Liz Conner, senior research analyst, Storage Systems. "End users continue to invest in storage infrastructures despite persistent concerns surrounding global and regional economies. Helping to drive the worldwide market in the third quarter was the double-digit growth in multi-protocol storage architecture and strong demand for upper mid-range and high-end storage."

ASUSTOR Inc. , a leading innovator and provider of network storage solutions, has announced today the launch of a new live demo site for users to test ASUSTOR Data Master (ADM) 1.0, ASUSTOR's in-house developed NAS operating system. "We are delighted to announce the launch of the new live demo site," said Steve Huang, Product Manager at ASUSTOR. "The demo site will allow users to experience, firsthand, ADM's fresh and intuitive user interface before making any purchasing decisions."

ASUSTOR Data Master (ADM) 1.0 comes pre-installed on all AS 6 Series NAS devices, which were officially launched in November 2012. Designed around the use of Apps, ADM offers cross platform file sharing, energy efficiency and added functionality through its downloadable Apps. Its interface features familiar modern OS controls, true multitasking, background operation and real-time application searches for instant launches. Furthermore, with its data protection and backup solutions, easy IT integration, remote access and multimedia features, ADM is suitable for both home and business users alike. The live demo site is available here.

It will be towards the end of 2013, when Western Digital will have 5 terabyte (or 5000 GB) models of its NAS-optimized WD Red, and energy-efficient consumer-optimized WD Green lines of consumer hard drives. According to launch plans unearthed by Russian website AlwaysMoreDigital, the 5 TB WD Red (model: WD50ERFX) and 5 TB WD Green (WD50EZRX) will be launched in Q4 (in or after October 2013). A little earlier than that, the two lines will be updated with 4 TB variants, the WD40ERFX and WD40EZRX. All four drives feature 64 MB of cache, SATA 6 Gb/s interface, and are built in the 3.5-inch form-factor.

Following ASUS' venture into the consumer NAS segment as ASUStor, Gigabyte responded with its own. The company launched its Home NAS family with the GR-EZI04H, a 4-bay consumer NAS based on the Intel Atom platform. Pictured below, it uses a common desktop cube form-factor, with a main lockable door covering its four caddies.

Gigabyte used an interesting combination of hardware. It combined a current-generation Atom D2500 dual-core processor clocked at 1.80 GHz, with an old (yet effective) ICH10R southbridge, instead of the usual NM10 PCH. The ICH10R has been used on high-end Intel 4-series and 5-series platforms, and provides six SATA 3 Gb/s ports with RAID 0/5/10. The GR-EZI04H features two gigabit Ethernet ports, two USB 3.0 ports, two USB 2.0/1.1 ports, and a VGA display output. Its OS, a choice between Windows Home Server 2011 and Embedded Linux, is stored on an mPCIe DOM. Gigabyte used a custom NAS management software that isn't extensively detailed, but features a standard feature-set. More details are awaited.

Toshiba's Storage Products Business Unit of Toshiba America Electronic Components Inc., a committed technology leader, announces four new large capacity nearline hard disk drives (HDDs), including the first self-encrypting models in the company's enterprise capacity-optimized storage lineup. The 3.5-inch 7,200 rpm MG Series includes both SATA models - the MG03ACA400 and the MG03ACA400Y - and SAS models - MG03SCA400 and the MG03SCP400 - and all deliver 4 TB of storage, the company's largest capacity to date.

As businesses work to keep up with the explosion of unstructured data, large capacity HDDs are crucial for IT systems designed to organize and access the growing pools of valuable information. The massive capacity of the MG Series is perfectly suited for RAID storage and arrays, tiered virtual infrastructures for public and private cloud deployments, archives, and disk-based backup and data protection solutions. The robust 24x7 design and massive capacity provide the cost-effectiveness required for business-critical servers and external storage systems, including NAS, SAN and tiered storage deployments for large enterprises, as well as for direct-attached storage in general purpose servers and SMB-oriented systems and applications.

Synology today announced select models of its Plus series NAS server achieve the status of VMware vSphere 5 ready with full support for vStorage APIs for Array Integration (VAAI). By incorporating the cutting-edge VAAI technologies into the Plus series, Synology carves out an affordable storage solution for VMware virtual servers.

Synology supports VAAI primitives that include Hardware Assisted Locking (ATS), Block Zero, Full Copy, and Thin Provisioning. The complete VAAI support not only offloads tasks from ESXi server to storage arrays, but also achieves significant gains in system performance and more efficient utilization of storage space. When deploying the Plus series NAS servers, businesses are entitled to greater simplicity, agility and efficiency in their virtualization environments. For more information, please visit this page.