Micron Technology, Inc. today announced another new storage industry milestone-the integration of its 20nm NAND flash storage media into a high-endurance, high-capacity enterprise system. San Jose-based Skyera is using Micron's 20nm, 128 gigabit (Gb) multilevel cell (MLC) NAND flash storage media to pack an astounding 44 terabytes (TB) into a single, compact enterprise storage system for big data, cloud computing, and virtualization applications. Skyera's Skyhawk system uses more than 3,000 Micron flash storage components, creating a high-capacity, high-performance storage solution that fits into a 1U form factor-about the size of a pizza box.

Both the end system and the components have earned industry awards for innovation. The Skyhawk storage system's impressive capabilities earned it Best of Show at this year's Flash Memory Summit in August. In February, UBM TechInsights recognized Micron's groundbreaking 20nm MLC NAND (developed jointly with Intel); giving it their top honor-Semiconductor of the Year. This 20nm process technology is critical to creating storage media with the capacity, endurance, and cost-effectiveness required for enterprise storage on this scale-and Micron's device is the only MLC NAND available in a 128 Gb density.

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 is working on a fleet of devices that take advantage of Microsoft's new Windows 8 operating system. These include touch-capable Ultrabooks, tablet hybrids, and all-in-one desktops. Samsung's Windows 8 Ultrabook lineup begins with Series 5 Ultra Touch. Starting at $809.99, these 13-inch Ultrabooks are powered by Core i3 "Ivy Bridge" dual-core processors (upgradable to Core i5 for $50 extra), 4 GB of RAM, 1366 x 768 pixels touchscreen display, and 500 GB HDD accelerated with 24 GB cache-SSD. It tips the scales at 1.73 kg. Samsung's second Ultrabook in the new lineup is the premium Series 9 Ultra Touch, starting at $1,300 for 13-inch and $1,400 for 15-inch.

Moving on, Samsung has two lines of Windows 8-loaded notebooks, starting with Series 3, which is available in a variety of hardware and screen size options, priced in the range of $450 to $900; and Series 7 15-inch notebook, which starts at $1,100. Samsung's new all-in-one lineup begins with Ativ SmartPC 500T and 700T, powered by Intel Atom Z2760 and Core i5, respectively, with memory ranging between 2 GB to 4 GB, featuring 64 GB to 128 GB SSD storage. The 500T starts at $649.99, while the 700T starts at 1,199.99. Samsung's mid-range all-in-one offering is the Series 5, which starts at $800, featuring a 21.5-inch HD screen. Its premium all-in-one PC offering is the Series 7, which starts at $1,100 for 23.6-inch and $1,700 for 27-inch variants. These devices will be launched closer to that of Windows 8, slated for October 26.

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 was unable to file its Form 10-Q for the second quarter of fiscal year 2013 (Q2'13), which ended on August 31, 2012, on time as the Company's financial statements are still under review.

The Company continues to work diligently to complete the financial review. While we are hopeful that the review will be completed in the near future, we cannot currently estimate the exact date. Thus we are also unable to estimate the filing date of the Form 10-Q.

Yet another ASUS-branded Windows 8 mobile PC has went up for pre-order this week and it is a 0.8-inch-thick ultrabook boasting a 14.1-inch (1366 x 768) touchscreen. Named VivoBook S400, ASUS' creation runs Windows 8 Home Premium (64-bit) and features a 1.7 GHz Core i5-3317U processor, 4 GB of RAM, a 24 GB SSD, a 500 GB (5400 RPM) hard drive, Intel GMA HD graphics, 802.11 b/g/n WiFi, an HD camera, plus one USB 3.0 and two USB 2.0 ports.

The VivoBook S400 costs $699 and will ship on October 26.

With two weeks to go until the official launch of Windows 8, ASUS has given the green light to pre-orders of its Win8-running TAICHI 21 convertible notebook featuring two 11.6-inch touchscreens. The back-to-back displays of the TAICHI 21 have an IPS panel, support up to 10-finger touch, and offer a maximum resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels.

ASUS' multiple monitor mobile machine runs Windows 8 Home Premium (64-bit), is less than an inch thick, and also packs an Intel Core processor (a 1.7 GHz i5-3317U or 1.9 GHz i7-3517U), Intel GMA HD graphics, 4 GB of RAM, a 128/256 GB SSD, stereo speakers with Bang & Olufsen ICEpower technology, 802.11 b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0, dual HD cameras, two USB 3.0 ports, and a 6-cell battery enabling up to 5 hours of operation.

The TAICHI 21-DH51 with a Core i5 CPU and a 128 GB SSD costs $1,300 while the 21-DH71 with a Core i7 chip and a 256 GB drive goes for $1,600.

Buffalo has today announced that its newest, SSD-equipped MiniStation portable drive will become available early next month. Pictured below, Buffalo's drive measures 81 x 130 x 23 mm, it weights 260 grams, it has an aluminum body, both Thunderbolt and USB 3.0 connectivity, and is capable of transfer speeds of up to 382 MB/s (via Thunderbolt).

This dual interface offering is backed by a one-year warranty, it comes with Thunderbolt and USB cables, and will ship in 128 GB (~ $496) and 256 GB (~ $796).

Japanese company Marshal announced the MAL-4725NAS, a compact NAS box which can enclose a 2.5-inch SATA HDD or SSD. Driven by a 750 MHz ARM 11MP processor, the box features 256 MB of RAM and the same amount of NAND flash storage to house its Linux-based operating system (Fedora 12 ARM). Its software provides most consumer NAS features including FTP, SMB, print server, NFS, AFP, DLNA, and iTunes. Gigabit Ethernet is its only network interface. The 2.5-inch drive bay supports drives as thick as 12.5 mm. Its limited local storage can be expanded with flash drives, enclosures, and other mass-storage devices thanks to an eSATA and two USB 2.0 ports. Measuring 123 x 123 x 33 mm, it weighs about 536 g. Slated for October 20, it is priced at 13,800 JPY (US $176).

Although the near-term prospects for ultrabooks have dimmed significantly, the solid state drives (SSDs) employed by these next-generation notebooks and other products are so diversified in their uses and so compelling in their value proposition that their growth outlook has decreased only slightly.

SSD shipments in the first half of this year amounted to 12.9 million units, according to the IHS iSuppli Memory & Storage Service at information and analytics provider IHS. Shipments reached 10.5 million in the third quarter and will rise to 17.5 million units in the fourth, amounting to a total of 28.0 million units in the second half-more than double the total shipped during the first six months of the year, as shown in the figure below. This is down from the previous forecast of 13.0 million in the third quarter and 20.0 million in the fourth.

AMD's Radeon RAMDisk software, launched along with its desktop A-Series "Trinity" APUs, is being pitched to consumers as a trial software. A combination of A-Series "Trinity" APUs and AMD-certified memory lets you use the software to create a RAMDisk which works in conjuction with the primary HDD/SSD much in the same way as Intel Smart Response tech or NVELO Dataplex, it's just that the cache SSD is replaced by the system memory, an infinitely faster and more durable caching medium. The software juggles data from the primary drive to the RAMDisk based on its heat (frequency of access). Used with DDR3-1600 MHz memory, users could see data access speeds of up to 25.6 GB/s (gigabytes per second), a 1,700-times speedup over conventional HDD. When off the trial, a license to use the software can be bought for $19.

Mushkin, Inc., an industry-leading designer and manufacturer of high-performance and mission-critical computer products, today announced that its new line of slim 7 mm Mushkin Chronos Deluxe Solid-State Drives (SSDs) geared for the new generation of ultrabooks that has started shipping worldwide.

Continuing the tradition of Mushkin's award-winning Chronos Deluxe SSDs, the new drives unleash scorching-fast read and write speeds, cutting-edge SandForce technology, and unmatched performance for the dollar. Featuring high-speed synchronous MLC NAND, advanced controller technology, optimized NAND management and a SATA 6 Gb/s interface, Mushkin now offers enthusiasts the ability to upgrade their PC or notebook that pushes the limits of slim computing.

Iomega, a global leader in data protection, today announced the worldwide availability this month of the new Iomega StorCenter px12-450r Network Storage Array, multi-protocol networked data storage for small and medium business, remote office/branch office installations and distributed enterprises. The StorCenter px12-450r features the new Intel Xeon Processor E3-1200 v2 Product Family, 8GB RAM, improved user supportability and the option of 4TB hard disk drives (HDD). Additionally, the StorCenter px12-450r utilizes the latest version of the EMC LifeLine software, an advanced operating system that makes EMC's enterprise class expertise and cloud capabilities available to a broad range of users.

OCZ Technology Group, Inc., a leading provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) for computing devices and systems, today announced its board of directors has appointed Ralph Schmitt as the Company's president and chief executive officer effective immediately. Ralph Schmitt has been a member of the Company's board of directors since April 2011.

"I am pleased to announce that OCZ's board has appointed Ralph Schmitt as the Company's president and chief executive officer," said Adam Epstein, OCZ's lead independent director. "Ralph's knowledge of OCZ's business, customers, and target markets along with his extensive management experience and technical expertise make him the ideal person to lead OCZ through the next phase of its development."

Drobo, makers of award-winning data storage products for businesses and professionals, today introduced several new models of its fast-growing family of business storage systems. Included in the group are both higher- and lower-end models of Drobo's flagship product, the Drobo B1200i, which features a unique patent-pending tiering technology that allows customers to easily and affordably enjoy both the performance benefits of SSD technology and the capacity of traditional hard drives (HDD) in a single system.

The new models, which include several higher-capacity and lower-priced versions of the Drobo B800 series, also embrace 3 TB hard-drive technology, giving Drobo customers even more affordable capacity with the traditional Drobo ease-of-use.

Today LaCie announced that the Little Big Disk Thunderbolt Series, design by Neil Poulton, now features SATA III SSDs (6 Gb/s interface). With read speeds up to 635 MB/s, the LaCie Little Big Disk is the fastest portable Thunderbolt solution on the market. It can transfer a 50 GB project in less than two minutes or edit six uncompressed 422 streams at the same time. A game changer for content creators and professional users - the LaCie Little Big Disk delivers fibre channel rackmount speeds in a portable solution.

"We saw an opportunity to make the LaCie Little Big Disk even faster and jumped on it," said Erwan Girard, Professional Business Unit Manager, LaCie. "The new LaCie Little Big Disk can complete tasks in minutes that used to take hours. This saves our customers time and therefore money."

With the ever-evolving technology and standard of transmission interface, Apacer launched its latest mPDM (mini PCIe Disk Module) modular SSD. It adopts "One lane PCIe 2.0" interface to satisfy the application requirement of high-speed transmission. Compared to PCle 1.0, the broadband speed is boosted to 5 Gb/s and the product capacity reaches up to 100 GB, which will offer higher transmission speed and larger storage capacity for high-end application such as network storage or enterprise servers.

The mPDM complies with AHCI advanced motherboard controller interface and the enterprise standard NVMHCI non-volatile memory host controller interface. Besides, the featured hot plug and plug-in-and-play functions ensure the compatibility and competitive edge of the ultra-small (50.8 x 29.8 mm) SSD.

Super Talent Technology, a leader of NAND Flash storage solutions, today announced their fourth-generation Value SSD (VSSD), the VSSD Bolt. The new VSSD Bolt is perfect for business and home users who want the performance and durability gains of solid-state drives without breaking the budget.

The Bolt features a second-generation SandForce processor and offers fast read/write speeds of up to 250 MB/s - up to three times faster than previous-generation VSSDs. TRIM support and S.M.A.R.T. Command Transport (SCT) technology keep the Bolt performing like new and help prevent data loss by reporting on a number of reliability indicators.

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.

Eurocom, is shipping the NVIDIA Quadro K5000M professional class graphics cards in its Scorpius Mobile Workstation. The NVIDIA Quadro K5000M is designed to accelerate design and content creation for professionals with up to 4GB GDDR5 memory and 1344 CUDA cores. NVIDIA Quadro K5000M is manufactured on the newest 28nm kepler based GPU architecture from NVIDIA and is the most powerful professional-class mobile GPU from NVIDIA, delivering unseen efficiency and compute power.

The EUROCOM Scorpius with NVIDIA Quadro K5000M is ideal for professional applications such as video editing, color correction, compositing, design visualization and GPU-accelerated ray-traced 3D rendering. NVIDIA Quadro GPUs are designed and built to provide leading performance, reliability, compatibility and stability with applications like Adobe Creative Suite 5.5, Autodesk 3DS Max, Autodesk Autocad 2011, Autodesk Inventor 2012, Avid Media Composer, Dassault Catia, Dassault Solidworks, Siemens X, ANSYS, MATLAB, Dassault Simulia, among many others.

Acer America, the number two notebook provider, today announced that the Acer Iconia W700 tablet PC, a high-performance mobile PC in a tablet PC form factor, will be available for the U.S. market. Acer's first Windows 8-based tablet PC for the U.S., the Iconia W700 features a versatile, portable design that delivers a first-rate touch and typing experience for productivity-focused PC users.

The Acer Iconia W700 tablet PC with Windows 8 delivers excellent performance using responsive and fast Intel Core i3 and Core i5 (Ivy Bridge) processors, enabling the system to take on spreadsheets, presentations, and more with ease. The powerful processors allow customers to use the Iconia W700 as their main PC for all of their everyday computing tasks, such as content creation, running multiple apps, and sharing multimedia.

AMD Japan teamed up with ASUS to display a concept 100% fanless (silent) HTPC build to buyers at Tokyo's Akihabara electronics shopping district. The build uses Streacom FC5 chassis with a CPU base modified for socket FM2. The base conducts heat from the processor using four copper heat pipes to the aluminum chassis, which doubles up as a heatsink. The build utilizes AMD A10-5700 APU, ASUS F2A85-M Pro micro-ATX motherboard based on AMD A85X chipset, 8 GB of AMD-certified DDR3-1866 MHz memory, and Corsair Force GT SSD. The concept build shows buyers that AMD's "Trinity" APUs are ready, willing, and able to power silent HTPC builds.

OCZ Technology Group, Inc., a leading provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) for computing devices and systems, will showcase its enterprise solid state virtualization solutions at this year's VMworld Barcelona 2012, Exhibit B414, located at the Fira Barcelona Gran Via -- North Entrance, Barcelona, Spain, from October 9th through October 11th.

Featured solutions include OCZ's fourth generation Z-Drive R4 PCI Express (PCIe) SSD and VXL cache and virtualization software that delivers industry-leading flash data caching into VMware virtualized server platforms. This VMware Ready solution distributes flash caching resources on-demand across virtual machines (VMs) to maximize performance, and distributes the flash between VMs based on need, making sure that no VM inefficiently occupies flash when it can be better used elsewhere in the environment. The end result is optimal utilization of flash cache regardless of how many VMs are running concurrently.

Creative technologies developer Modbook Inc. today announced that its highly portable 13.3-inch Mac-based pen tablet computer, the Modbook Pro, will forego the traditional internal storage method of hard disk drives (HDDs) in favor of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs). The standard internal storage option on the Modbook Pro will be a 64 GB solid-state drive, with upgrades possible to increase internal SSD storage to 480 GB.

Modbook Inc. today also announced that the ordering process for the Modbook Pro is scheduled to begin next Wednesday, October 3, 2012. Customers with shipping addresses in the United States will be able to order the Modbook Pro online for shipment as early as mid-November.

The 5.25" device bay has been a long standard in computer history. It started from the 90s legacy industrial PC cases all the way to today's Micro ATX cases. The 5.25" bay has been widely used for optical drives such as DVD and Blue-ray, or with even a single 3.5" hard drive with mobile rack. However, it is almost impossible to use a single 5.25" bay to create complex RAID storage until the MB996SP-6SB Full Metal 6 x 2.5" SATA Hard Drive & SSD Backplane.

Utilizing the standard 5.25" bay form factor, the compact design allows the enclosure to be used in various applications, catering to a wide audience. The MB996SP-6SB excels for use in advanced RAID applications such as building dual RAID 5 arrays or high performance 4 drives in RAID 0 plus RAID 1 array for back up, all in a single 5.25" device bay. The MB996SP-6SB is extremely useful for powerful small servers, gaming rigs, home servers or HTPC's due to its high capacity and space saving design. It is also perfect for users who needs non-RAID JBOD storage and save different contents in different drive locations. It supports wide-range of applications which is the true value of the MB996SP-6SB.

QNAP Systems, Inc. is extending the number of compatible peripherals for its Turbo NAS products, the additions including one Western Digital 3.5-inch 1TB internal SATA hard drive, one Samsung 2.5-inch 512GB internal SSD and forty-five ACTi network cameras.