Toshiba company OCZ today announced the new VX500 line of performance SSDs in the 2.5-inch form-factor, featuring SATA 6 Gb/s interface. The drives are based on a new-generation platform by OCZ's parent company Toshiba. The drives combine Toshiba TC358790 controller with 15 nm MLC NAND flash memory chips by Toshiba. The drives come in capacities of 128 GB, 256 GB, 512 GB, and 1 TB, and offer price/GB comparable to TLC NAND flash-based drives; yet with performance comparable to high-end MLC NAND flash drives.

All four variants offer up to 550 MB/s sequential reads. The 128 GB, 256 GB, 512 GB, and 1 TB variants offer up to 485 MB/s, 510 MB/s, 515 MB/s, and 515 MB/s of sequential writes, respectively. Random access performance is rated around 90,000 IOPS reads, with up to 65,000 IOPS writes. The 128 GB variant is priced at US $63.99, the 256 GB variant at $92.79, the 512 GB variant at $152.52, and the 1 TB variant at $337.06. The drives are backed by 5-year warranty. Acronis TrueImage disk cloning software comes included.Read our review of the VX500 512GB here.

Toshiba Corporation, a global technology leader and manufacturer of NAND flash memory, today announced that the Company has finalized the purchase of substantially all assets of OCZ Technology Group, making it a wholly owned subsidiary and Toshiba Group Company. Effective immediately, the Group company will operate independently as OCZ Storage Solutions, a leading provider of high-performance solid state drives (SSDs) for computing devices and systems.

The acquisition provides Toshiba with OCZ's enterprise and client SSD businesses and enables the established OCZ brand to continue in full force with a current product portfolio that includes SATA and PCIe consumer drives for high-performance and mainstream applications, and SATA, SAS and PCIe enterprise drives supported by virtualization, cache and acceleration software. OCZ Storage Solutions will leverage Toshiba's cutting-edge NAND and combine it with the Company's proprietary controllers, firmware and software to provide both client and enterprise customers with innovative and cost-effective solid-state storage solutions.

OCZ Technology Group, Inc., a leading provider of high-performance solid state drives (SSDs) for computing devices and systems, today announced that the Company received approval by the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware to sell substantially all of its assets to Toshiba Corporation. The transaction is expected to close within the next week, subject to the satisfaction or waiver of other customary closing conditions under the Asset Purchase Agreement. With this asset purchase, the popular OCZ SSD brand supporting a complete portfolio of enterprise and consumer drives continues in full force leveraged by Toshiba's financial strength and its portfolio of NAND flash memory.

"We are pleased by the court's approval as this business combination allows the company to continue to bring to market disruptive solid state storage technology. We are appreciative of all the support provided by our shareholders, creditors, and vendors which allowed this combination to occur," said Ralph Schmitt, CEO for OCZ Technology. "The OCZ team is excited to be a part of an innovative company like Toshiba where we can continue to develop new and unique SSD technologies that position the Company as a solid state solutions leader in both the client and enterprise storage markets."

Keeping itself busy until the Toshiba deal is finalized, OCZ Technology has actually unveiled a new product at CES 2014, the Vertex 460 solid state drive. This updated storage solution comes in a 2.5-inch form factor and features a SATA 6.0 Gbps interface, a Barefoot 3 M10 controller, and Toshiba-made 19 nm MLC NAND Flash memory chips.

The Vertex 460 is capable of transfer speeds of up to 550 MB/s and is set to ship later this month in 120 GB, 240 GB and 480 GB capacities.

OCZ Technology Group, Inc. a leading provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) for computing devices and systems, will showcase its leading portfolio of consumer and enterprise SSDs at the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2014, located in Suite 31-235, Venetian Hotel, Las Vegas, from January 7th through 10th. As part of its presentation at CES, OCZ will unveil the next generation of SATA-based SSDs that utilize the Company's in-house controller and firmware technology.

For the enterprise, OCZ will present comprehensive SATA and PCIe based SSDs that feature virtualization and caching software to accelerate business applications and I/O access. In addition, OCZ will display the recently released Intrepid 3000 Series which delivers the Company's fastest and largest capacity SATA III SSDs to date and features advanced flash management and endurance capabilities that extend NAND flash life and enhance drive reliability while delivering up to five times faster sustained performance than OCZ's previous generation.

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.

OCZ Technology Group, Inc., a leading provider of high-performance solid state drives (SSDs) for computing devices and systems, today announced that the Company has signed an asset purchase agreement with Toshiba Corporation, a global technology leader and manufacturer of NAND flash memory, to acquire substantially all of OCZ's assets in a chapter 11 bankruptcy proceeding for $35M.

Under this agreement Toshiba will acquire OCZ's client and enterprise solid state drive business. OCZ will continue to operate and serve existing and future customers during this process. Toshiba has agreed to provide the Company with DIP (Debtor-in-Possession) financing to ensure that there is adequate capital and flash supply to support the business during the contemplated sale period. The consummation of the asset purchase agreement is subject to an auction and approval by the bankruptcy court in the Company's bankruptcy case.

OCZ Technology Group, Inc., a leading provider of high-performance solid state drives (SSDs) for computing devices and systems, today announced that on November 25, 2013, it received notices that Hercules Technology Growth Capital, Inc. ("Hercules") took exclusive control of the Company's depository accounts at Silicon Valley Bank and Wells Fargo Bank, National Association. As set forth in the Company's recent SEC filings, Hercules and the Company are parties to a loan and security agreement. As previously reported, the Company is not in compliance with certain of the operating ratios and covenants in the loan agreement. As a result of such action and pursuant to Hercules' written instruction, the depository institutions disbursed the cash in the Company's respective accounts to accounts under the control of Hercules.

The Company has received an offer from Toshiba Corporation to acquire substantially all of the Company's assets in a bankruptcy proceeding. The parties have substantially completed negotiations on an asset purchase agreement and OCZ believes that all the material terms have been agreed to.

OCZ Technology Group, Inc., a leading provider of high-performance solid state drives (SSDs) for computing devices and systems, today announced its new Vector 150 SATA III SSD Series that utilizes the latest cutting-edge 19 nanometer (nm) NAND flash process geometry and an in-house controller design that shatters barriers by delivering OCZ's highest performing SATA III solid state drive series to date. At the forefront of Vector 150 innovation is OCZ's proprietary Barefoot 3 controller which was designed completely in-house by the Company's hardware and firmware teams to enable full design control over the product roadmap while delivering high performance flash-based storage, enhanced endurance, and a host of differentiated features for laptop, desktop and workstation applications.

Building off the success of the original Vector SSD Series, the Vector 150 SSD Series implements industry-leading performance by delivering consistent, sustained speeds over time regardless of whether the data is in compressed or uncompressed formats. It provides superior speeds across all capacities to dramatically accelerate gaming, content creation, and multimedia applications, supporting read bandwidth of up to 550 MB/s, write bandwidth of up to 530 MB/s, 4K random read speed of up to 100,000 input/output operations per second (IOPS), 4K random write speed up to 95,000 IOPS and sustained 4K random write performance of 26,000 IOPS.

OCZ Technology Group, Inc., a leading provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) for computing devices and systems, today introduced an SSD management application that centrally monitors and manages OCZ enterprise drives connected to network servers, storage arrays or appliances. Developed as a network-accessible management system, OCZ's new StoragePro XL 1.1 provides IT managers with a cross-platform view of their enterprise flash resources for centralized management, monitoring, maintenance and reporting.

StoragePro XL securely connects to multiple host systems across the network and allows IT managers to centrally monitor and administer their enterprise flash resources from a web-based management interface. Supporting enterprise hosts running Linux and Windows operating systems, and featuring an easy-to-use web-based centralized GUI (graphical user interface), IT managers are afforded specific drive details on performance, reliability and operation. Along with the monitoring functionality, a user configurable alerting systems is provided that enables identification of any potential system and/or storage issues in advance enabling corrective actions to be initiated at an early stage.

OCZ Technology Group, Inc., a leading provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) for computing devices and systems, reports its second quarter (Q2'14) results which ended on August 31, 2013.

"Revenue and gross margins declined in the second quarter as revenue for our client SSD products continued to be impacted by our challenges in procuring flash. Revenue from our enterprise solutions accounted for roughly half of our SSD revenue, compared to about 60% in the first quarter, as a major data center customer completed its installation during the quarter," said Ralph Schmitt, CEO of OCZ Technology. "This has been a difficult quarter as demand for our products continues to be greater than our ability to supply, given our capital constraints."

OCZ Technology Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: OCZ), a leading provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) for computing devices and systems, reports its first quarter (Q1'14) results which ended on May 31, 2013. "Revenue generated from our enterprise solutions for the first quarter more than doubled compared to the last quarter, and drove the sequential gross margin increase. Overall revenue declined about 20% sequentially, primarily due to the lack of NAND flash supply for our client SSD products," said Ralph Schmitt, CEO of OCZ Technology.

"Over the past year we have restructured the Company, which included the appointment of new leadership, reduced operating expenses, streamlined our product offerings, realigned our engineering talent, and introduced new controller silicon and firmware, new higher-end SSDs for the client market and new storage solutions for the enterprise market," added Schmitt. "Fiscal Q1 is the first quarter in which the company operated with all these particular restructuring and restatement adjustments behind us."

OCZ Technology Group, Inc., a leading provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) for computing devices and systems, today announced that it will showcase its leading enterprise storage solutions at the Gartner Symposium/ITXpo, Booth #219, Walt Disney World Dolphin Resort, Lake Buena Vista, Florida, October 6th through 10th. As an annual gathering of CIOs and senior IT executives seeking the latest tools, technologies, and information to improve IT capabilities and data center effectiveness, the ITXpo is an excellent opportunity for OCZ to present its leading portfolio of enterprise storage solutions to this targeted audience.

Headlining OCZ's product presentations at ITXpo is the award-winning ZD-XL SQL Accelerator that delivers the convergence of hardware and software as one tightly integrated, optimized plug-and-play storage solution. This innovative solution accelerates and optimizes Microsoft SQL Server database applications and its high-performance flash-based PCI Express (PCIe) solid-state drive works in combination with intelligent acceleration and caching software to deliver the right and relevant database data when the application needs it.

OCZ Technology Group, Inc., a leading provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) and power management solutions for computing devices and systems, today announced that it has reached a settlement in principle in the federal shareholder class action litigation filed in connection with the Company's financial restatement.

The settlement is subject to negotiation of final documentation and court approval. Subject to Court approval, the settlement of $7.5 million will be funded by the Company's D&O liability insurance. The settlement may include an additional payment of the lesser of $6M or 4% of the net proceeds in the event that the company or any portion of it is sold within six months of the executed settlement agreement. This settlement would resolve the consolidated shareholder class actions pending in connection with the restatement.

OCZ Technology Group, Inc., a leading provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) for computing devices and systems, today announced the latest addition to the popular Deneva 2 Series which now utilizes 19 nanometer (nm) NAND flash. The new models are 2.5-inch, 6 Gbps SATA III-based Multi-Level Cell (MLC) drives that implement the Deneva 2 SSD Series feature-set and are built around a smaller NAND flash process geometry. This cutting-edge drive solution also features a completely new power architecture that was designed from the ground up to optimize server back plane functionality, providing enhanced management of in-rush current and power fluctuation. The result is an advanced SSD series that delivers superior storage performance, enterprise-class endurance, reliability and quality, and excellent total cost of ownership for customers.

"Our Deneva 2 has been a popular SSD series among IT professionals not only as an HDD replacement but to dramatically accelerate I/O access of such popular enterprise applications as OnLine Transaction Processing, database warehousing, read intensive data caching and server boot-ups," said Daryl Lang, SVP of Product Management for OCZ Technology. "By implementing new features and the latest NAND flash process geometry we are able to deliver an optimal balance of I/O performance and cost-efficiency to our customers."

OCZ Technology Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: OCZ), a leading provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) for computing devices and systems, today announced that as a result of the ongoing restatement process, the Company will not meet the previously disclosed September 16, 2013 NASDAQ extension date for becoming current with its filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Company notified the NASDAQ Listing Qualifications Panel (the "NASDAQ Panel") of this delay. On September 12, 2013, the NASDAQ Panel granted the Company's request to remain listed on The NASDAQ Stock Market, subject to the condition that the Company becomes current in the filings of its periodic reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission by October 7, 2013.

"We are delighted that NASDAQ has given us this extension as it gives us the additional time we need to complete the restatement. The Company has been working to complete the comprehensive audit and restatement work that was expanded to cover three additional years, subsequent to the issuance of the NASDAQ Panel's hearing decision," stated Ralph Schmitt, CEO of OCZ Technology. "We have completed most of the work required to regain compliance and the team is diligently driving this to closure."

OCZ Technology Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: OCZ), a leading provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) for computing devices and systems, today announced that it will expand its Research & Development (R&D) Center in Orange County, California which is focused on enterprise development for the company's next-generation SSDs. The company has a current presence in the area and is moving to a new expanded Irvine R&D location.

"Orange County, California has a rich base of engineering talent covering semiconductors and storage that makes it a viable location for us to expand our design center," said James Tout, SVP of Global Engineering for OCZ Technology. "With a leading and widely recognized portfolio of SATA, SAS and PCIe-based solid-state solutions, we believe that the opening of our new OC-based design center will attract the professional resources and talent we need to create leading-edge, next-generation enterprise products for the storage industry."

OCZ Technology Group, a leading provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) for computing devices and systems, will showcase its latest solid state drive storage products at the 2013 Intel Developer Forum (IDF), September 10th through September 12th at Moscone Center, San Francisco. This event is an excellent opportunity for OCZ to connect with customers and partners using the latest Intel technology by demonstrating its complete portfolio of SSD solutions tailored for big data, cloud computing, and other enterprise applications.

Offering solutions for applications including virtualization, database, and cloud management, OCZ will display a comprehensive lineup of innovative products designed to solve performance, availability, and reliability roadblocks in IT infrastructures. OCZ will unveil the upcoming smaller form factor Z-Drive R4 PCIe SSD, featuring the same exceptional performance but with the ability to be deployed in a much greater range of platforms, including support for the Open Compute Project (OCP). The OCP Foundation is a growing community of engineers around the world whose mission is to design and enable the delivery of the most efficient server, storage, and data center hardware designs for scalable computing, and provides a structure in which individuals and organizations can share their intellectual property.

OCZ Technology Group, Inc., a leading provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) for computing devices and systems, will showcase the company's latest enterprise storage and acceleration solutions at the 2013 High Performance Computing (HPC) for Wall Street Show in booth 201 at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City on September 9. One of the largest shows catering to the HPC market, it is an ideal venue for OCZ to showcase solid state storage products designed for addressing big data performance and low latency for financial applications.

OCZ will unveil the upcoming Aeon Series 3.5" SSD, a Non-Volatile Memory (NVM) SAS drive specifically targeted to meet the stringent requirements of latency sensitive applications currently being mired by legacy hard-disk drive (HDD) infrastructures. Designed for demanding transactional environments such as high-frequency trading (HFT), Aeon delivers the speed and ultra low latency read and writes of DRAM with the persistence and scalability of storage. Aeon reduces file system overhead in enterprise appliances while accelerating applications and improving overall I/O efficiency, along with providing unlimited endurance supporting an infinite number of drive writes per day without wearing out or slowing down.

August 26, 2013 - OCZ Technology Group, Inc., a leading provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) for computing devices and systems, and Mellanox Technologies, a leading supplier of high-performance, end-to-end interconnect solutions for data center and storage systems, have collaborated together to deliver flash I/O storage performance and complete fault tolerance (FT) to VMware clusters on top of on-host server flash and hard disk drives (HDDs). These SAN-less, fault tolerant capabilities will be presented in OCZ's booth (#711) at VMworld 2013, Moscone Convention Center, today through August 29th.

The combination of the Mellanox ConnectX-3 EN 40 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) network interface card (NIC) with OCZ's VXL Software replicates VMware datastores in virtualized SAN-less clusters. The combined solutions deliver industry-leading Ethernet connectivity, intelligent and efficient cache and flash volume distribution of PCI Express (PCIe) flash resources while enabling High Availability (HA) and Fault Tolerance (FT) services of VMware clusters.

OCZ Technology Group, Inc., a leading provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) and power supply units (PSUs) for computing devices and systems, today announced that Joint Harvest, a leading distributor of IT and computer technology products in China, is now authorized to distribute OCZ's complete line of SSDs and PSUs. With deep roots in China's IT market, Joint Harvest has extensive expertise in promoting products and servicing local customers through the region's retail channels. This new partnership with OCZ will strengthen the commitment to provide consumers access to the latest products for high-performance systems and workstations.

"We are pleased to partner with Joint Harvest to support the growing high performance computing market in China," said Wayne Eisenberg, Senior Vice President of Global Sales, OCZ. "Joint Harvest shares our commitment to provide customers with leading-edge solutions along with comprehensive support services, and we look forward to making our solid state drive and power management products more readily available to customers in this important region."

OCZ Technology Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: OCZ) (the "Company"), a leading provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) and power management solutions for computing devices and systems, today announced that it has signed definitive agreements with various institutional and accredited investors to raise gross proceeds of approximately $13 million in a private placement of Senior Secured Convertible Debentures and Warrants. The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions. The Senior Secured Convertible Debentures are secured by a lien on all of the assets of OCZ Technology Group, Inc. and its subsidiaries, and are subordinate to the Hercules Technology Growth Capital, Inc. ("Hercules") Loan and Security Agreement. The debentures carry a 9 percent interest rate per year, payable in cash, and will mature on the one year anniversary of the closing date. The debentures are convertible into shares of OCZ Technology common stock at a conversion price of $1.70 per share.

In connection with the offering of the debentures, warrants will also be issued at closing that provide investors the opportunity to purchase common stock equal to 75 percent of the number of shares into which the debentures will be convertible, and at a strike price of $0.75 per share. The warrants will have a 5 year term from the closing date. Both the conversion price of the debentures and the exercise price of the warrants are subject to price adjustments in relation to anti-dilution events. "This new financing provides OCZ with additional capital to continue the transformation of our business as the Company continues to focus on delivering high performance, client and enterprise solid state storage solutions," stated Rafael Torres, CFO of OCZ Technology. In addition, OCZ Technology also announced that it has retained Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. as financial advisor to assist the board of directors in evaluating various strategic alternatives available to the Company.

OCZ Technology Group, Inc., a leading provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) for computing devices and systems, today announced the general availability of its ZD-XL SQL Accelerator which was first showcased live at Interop 2013 and won the Best of Show Award in the Data Center and Storage category. This award-winning product is a tightly integrated hardware/software storage solution that accelerates and optimizes Microsoft SQL Server database applications in enterprise environments.

ZD-XL SQL Accelerator includes a high-performance flash-based PCIe solid-state drive working in combination with innovative acceleration and caching software to deliver the right and relevant SQL Server data when the application needs it. Through a user-friendly advanced graphical user interface, ZD-XL provides simple step-by-step implementation wizards that guide database administrators (DBAs) through best practice models of its flash-based resources to deliver easy and efficient deployment into SQL Server environments.

OCZ Technology Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: OCZ), a leading provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) and power management solutions for computing devices and systems today announces selected preliminary financial results for the first quarter ended May 31, 2013, subject to customary closing and audit procedures.
Preliminary revenue for the first quarter of fiscal 2014 is estimated to be between $50 and $55 million. The sequential decrease in revenue was primarily due to the continued tight supply of NAND flash. The Company's revenue mix continued to shift towards the mainstream and higher-end client markets, as well as enterprise and OEM solutions as the Company continued to focus on these end markets. At the end of the quarter there was an additional $23 million of shippable backlog that was unrealized in the quarter due to supply constraints.

Gross margin continued to improve and is estimated to be between 17% and 20% for the first fiscal quarter as revenue generated from our Enterprise solutions increased sequentially. The Company continued to reduce its operating expenses by further reducing non critical spending. The Company's break-even level continues to improve due to these actions. Operating expenses for the first quarter are estimated to be between $20 and $22 million, which include restatement related expenses of approximately $1.5 million and stock compensation charges of approximately $2 million. Cash flow improved as we reduced our quarterly cash usage to approximately $6 million in the quarter. Cash ended the quarter between $6 and $7 million with total debt outstanding of $10 million. The Company expects that it will require access to additional capital which it is currently in the process of securing.

OCZ Technology Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: OCZ), a leading provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) and power management solutions for computing devices and systems, is updating investors on its restatement process.

"We know that our restatement efforts are top of mind for all investors. This process has taken longer than we expected due to a number of items. Complexity of the transactions, as well as resource issues, were the main drivers for the additional time needed. Rafael Torres, our new CFO, joined us in late March with significant restatement experience and has filled key financial leadership positions and improved the technical depth of the finance organization," stated Ralph Schmitt, CEO of OCZ Technology. "Through these improvements, we have implemented a more rigorous review process that has also resulted in the identification of additional restatement items that have taken some time to review, document and conclude on. Taking these items into account, we believe that we are on track to becoming current with our SEC filings before the end of August."