Panasonic announced the new Let's Note AX2, 11.6-inch notebook that converts to a tablet. The AX2 is designed for the Windows 8 era, and features a new start key on its screen bezel. The AX2 is updated with a 1366 x 768 pixel 11.6-inch capacitive touchscreen, a DoCoMo module that gives it LTE and WiMAX support.

Under the hood is an Intel Core i5-3427U (1.80 GHz with 2.80 GHz Turbo, 3 MB cache) or Core i5-3317U (1.70 GHz, 2.60 GHz Turbo, 3 MB cache) "Ivy Bridge" dual-core processor options, 4 GB of dual-channel DDR3 memory, 128 GB SSD, and connectivity that include WiMAX/LTE, 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, SDXC, HDMI, and USB 3.0. The screen bezel embeds a 720p HD web-camera. The AX2 comes with Windows 8 Pro pre-installed. Prices range from 160,000 JPY (US $2,057) to 250,000 ($3,214).

MSI announced the GX60, an AMD-powered gaming notebook first spotted at this year's Computex event. The notebook is powered by an AMD A10-4600M quad-core "Trinity" APU, Radeon HD 7970M discrete graphics processor with 2 GB GDDR5 memory, and up to 16 GB dual-channel DDR3-1600 MHz memory. Its storage components include 128 GB SuperRAID SSD, 750 GB hard drive, Blu-ray writer or Blu-ray + DVD-RW combo drive. The 15.6-inch anti-glare screen packs 1920 x 1080 pixels resolution. Other gaming-grade features include Bigfoot Killer NIC, keyboard made by SteelSeries, and HD webcam. Pricing differs with optional components.

Today LaCie announced its award-winning Rugged hard drive is the first storage solution to feature both Thunderbolt and USB 3.0 technology on a high-performance SSD. These cutting-edge technologies make the new LaCie Rugged the fastest bus-powered solution on the market.

"Since LaCie introduced the Rugged, it has been a favorite of creative professionals," said Philippe Spruch, CEO, LaCie. "It's trusted and always with them through the content creation process. Today, LaCie gives the ultimate solution to those professionals. The most impressive speeds I've seen to revolutionize their productivity."

Panasonic, an industry leader in rugged, reliable mobile computers since 1996, today announced upgrades to its semi-rugged Toughbook 53 notebook computer. Panasonic's semi-rugged notebooks have built a reputation as reliable and versatile devices that deliver high-performance computing in demanding markets like insurance, construction and the military. The updated Toughbook 53, the latest in the line of products that created and continues to define the semi-rugged category, is now available with an Intel Core i5-3320M vPro processor (3MB cache, up to 3.3 GHz) with Intel Turbo Boost Technology. Other upgrades include expanded storage and improved connectivity options.

RunCore, the leading manufacturer of high-performance and rugged solid state drives (SSDs), today introduced its latest Enterprise-Grade SSD, the RunCore Kylin III PCIe SSD. With an application that includes databases, web servers, analytical engines, high performance computing servers and other similar applications, requiring ultra low latency and high bandwidth are some of the features supported by Kylin III PCIe. It significantly increases performance density while attaining a lower total cost of ownership (TCO) which was never attained before.

Kylin III PCIe provides terabytes of memory-speed with constant data access, offering an IOPS profile that is equivalent to a SAN, with hundreds of HDDs attached. To increase greater capacity, bunch of Kylin III PCIe can be configured and RAID together, offering a nearly linear scaling speed.

Green House has today revealed to the world its newest solid state drive family, the GH-SSD32A Series which is made up of four models, all 2.5-inch in size and all equipped with MLC (multi-level cell) NAND Flash memory and a SandForce SF-2281VB1 controller.

Green House's SSDs also feature a SATA 6.0 Gbps interface, TRIM support, and a three-year warranty. The GH-SSD32A line includes 60 GB (550 MB/s read speed, 480 MB/s write speed), 120 GB (550/500 MB/s), 240 GB (550/500 MB/s) and 480 GB (540/420 MB/s) drives.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the world leader in advanced memory technology, today announced its new lineup of high-performance SSDs designed for use in personal computers. The new series supporting SATA 6.0 gigabit-per-second (Gb/s) interface comes in two tracks; one for general computing purposes and another, an advanced lineup dubbed 'PRO' for serious users.

Samsung's tiered offering for professional and general user environments provides consumers a broader choice of SSDs to best suit their personal requirements.

Seagate announced the Seagate Cloud Builder Alliance, a new strategic partner category within the company's existing Seagate Partner Program. The new program provides technical information, customer insights, market knowledge and delivers partners the tools needed to expand their businesses providing cloud storage technology. The Seagate Cloud Builder Alliance highlights system builders that design, integrate, and deliver custom servers and storage systems used in cloud data centers.

Through the Cloud Builder Alliance, partners will receive business and technology planning, sales and marketing resources, lead generation, training and certification, and system reference design development from Seagate Design Centers globally. The program will also equip members with dedicated sales tools including a cloud sales playbook, market insights and customer presentations. Select partners will collaborate with Seagate on solution development and reference designs, PR and marketing initiatives, and strategic direction and business planning. Seagate Cloud Builder Alliance participants include Ciara Technologies, Intequus, NuCloud Global, Supermicro, Xyratex, and ZT Systems to name a few.

As hard drives stared at oblivion in the Ultrabook segment, with Intel planning to slim the specification down even further, leaving room for nothing but bare SSDs, WD pulled a rabbit out of its hat with the revolutionary 5 mm-thick hybrid HDD. Following its September 10 announcement, 5 mm-thick hybrid HDDs have reportedly sparked great interest in notebook vendors, which prompted WD to pull its mass-production schedule from Q1 2013 to end of 2012.

Three months after launching the MiniStation Thunderbolt Buffalo Inc. is preparing to release another portable storage solution supporting both Thunderbolt and USB 3.0 connectivity. Known as the MiniStation HD-PATU3S Series, this new drive will feature a sleek aluminum body (like the MiniStation Thunderbolt) and will pack a solid state drive allowing for read speeds (over Thunderbolt) of up to 382 MB/s (compared to the 109 MB/s claimed to be delivered by a Thunderbolt-enabled portable HDD).

Buffalo says the HD-PATU3S Series includes 128 GB and 256 GB models. No word on pricing yet.

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).

SP/Silicon Power, the world's leading provider of memory storage solutions today launches the new Slim series 7 mm 2.5" SSD for the new generation of ultra slim notebook. Built in a slim and stylish enclosure, the new SSD unleashes the full potential of the 6 Gbps SATA III interface to further expand computing experiences and mobility.

Unlike the standard 9.5 mm SSD, SP Slim series features a new slim 7mm form factor for easy integration into the latest mobile computing platforms. Presented in a chic aluminum metal body, the Slim series SSD perfectly complements Ultrabook in design, and its impressive transfer rates make it the ideal SSD upgrade solution. Powered by the latest SandForce technology, SP Slim series can significantly reduce boot time, quickly load applications and provide higher reliability and durability over traditional hard drive.

Monster Digital, a leading innovator and developer of advanced memory and storage solutions, is broadening its selection of Solid State Drives (SSD), making it easier for just about anyone to adopt leading-edge SSD technology with its new ultra-high speed "Daytona Series" Solid State Drives. The 2.5" Daytona Series SSDs are conservatively rated with 550/515 read/write speeds, 60k IOPS, are over provisioned for extended reliability. Packaged in a super thin 7 mm universal fit stainless steel case, they are available as bare drives in capacities of 90GB, 120GB, 240GB and 480GB for suggested retail prices of $99.99, $109.99, $229.99, and $479.99 respectively. Monster Digital Daytona Series bare drives are available now on Amazon.com, at Fry's Electronics and PC Mall.

OCZ Technology Group, Inc., a leading provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) for computing devices and systems, today announced that its 2.5-inch SATA III Deneva 2 SSD series, supporting multi-level cell (MLC) synchronous and asynchronous NAND formats, are now compatible with QNAP Systems Inc.'s Turbo NAS products. The addition of Deneva 2 SSDs into QNAP's Turbo NAS peripherals compatibility list represents the first successful enterprise certification of OCZ SSDs into this platform and the third successful certification of OCZ SATA III SSDs, joining OCZ Vertex 3 and Agility 3 SSDs on the list.

With the industry's fastest transactional performance for SATA III-based drives, Deneva 2 SSDs deliver up to 80,000 input/output operations per second (IOPS) performance (random 4K writes) and a maximum bandwidth of 550 MB/s. They also support best-in-class enterprise endurance and reliability, featuring power loss data protection, minimal write amplification, intelligent block management and wear-leveling, security encryption, and advanced error correction.

At IDF 2012, NEC showed off its newest 13.3-inch Ultrabook, the LaVie Z. Made of a magnesium-alloy chassis, the notebook tips the scales at just 875 g, and is just 15 mm-thin. Its 13.3-inch screen features a native resolution of 1600 x 900 pixels. Under the hood are Intel Core i7 "Ivy Bridge" dual-core processor clocked at 1.90 GHz, with Intel HD 4000 graphics; 4 GB of dual-channel DDR3 memory, 128 GB SSD storage, and connectivity that includes USB 3.0 and HDMI. Bluetooth and 802.11 b/g/n make up network interfaces. The screen is decked with a 1.3 MP web-cam. It ships with Windows 7 pre-installed.

Akitio is proud to announce that our new one-bay, portable Thunderbolt storage device, the "Neutrino Thunderbolt Edition" is now available for shipping! The Neutrino will ship with a 120GB Intel 330 Series SSD. This complete Thunderbolt storage solution also comes with a Thunderbolt cable (a $49 value), so all you need to do is just plug it in and it is ready to use. The small 2.5" form factor makes it extremely portable and since it is bus-powered, there is no need for a power adapter. Just slip it into your pocket and you are ready to go! The Neutrino is the perfect solution for video editors, photographers and anyone else who wants or needs to transfer large amounts of data.

The Neutrino will retail for $299.99 (not inc. tax), making it the most affordable Thunderbolt SSD storage device on the market. Thunderbolt is the newest high speed I/O technology that was designed for optimum speed, performance, simplicity and flexibility. Thunderbolt is currently the fastest method of transferring data between a PC and other peripherals such as external storage devices and displays. It is able to provide simultaneous, bi-directional transfers of up to 10 Gbps over a single channel.

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.

Century Japan released Greenline 2.5-inch (model: CGL25U3S6G), a SATA HDD/SSD enclosure that takes advantage of the USB 3.0 SuperSpeed interface, and UASP (USB-attached SCSI protocol). UASP gives the enclosure superior performance over standard USB mass-storage device protocol, particularly during random-access. UASP streamlines the command pathway, allowing multiple commands to be transacted between the host and the drive, simultaneously. Internally, the enclosure supports SATA 6 Gb/s interface. The enclosure bears a sleek piano-black finish with a green highlight. Measuring 84 x 135 x 14.5 mm (WxDxH), its dry-weight is 67 g. Slated for late-September, it is expected to be priced at 2,980 JPY (US $38).

HP today announced four new consumer all-in-one (AiO) PCs, including two additions to the HP ENVY line that feature the latest touch-technology innovation in a small footprint, one-cord solution.

"The clean look of an all-in-one PC and the ease of one-cord set-up are key reasons customers turn to HP," said James Mouton, senior vice president and general manager, Personal Computer Global Business Unit, HP. "The Spectre design is art as well as a powerful entertainment hub. Across our rich line of all-in-ones, we continue to drive value and differentiation that have earned us sales of more than 5 million all-in-ones."

QNAP Systems, Inc. today officially launched its latest business-class TS-x69L series Turbo NAS. The new TS-x69L series, available in 2, 4, 5, 6, and 8-drive versions, is powered by a high performance dual-core Intel Atom processor, equipped with 1GB DDR3 RAM, which can be upgraded to 3GB optionally. With support for SATA 2.5", 3.5" HDD and SSD up to 4TB, and with dual USB 3.0 ports for high-speed backup, the TS-x69L NAS series is compatible with Microsoft Windows OS, Linux/UNIX, and the latest Mac OS X Mountain Lion, and provides the levels of performance and high-capacity storage required by SMB users.

The TS-x69L series is equipped with 512MB DOM (Disk on Module) with dual firmware image design for system downtime prevention. In the event of corrupted firmware caused by accidental power loss during system boot, the NAS will boot with the backup firmware and then automatically recover the failed one for continuous system uptime.

Corsair, a worldwide designer and supplier of high-performance components to the PC hardware market, today announced that the Neutron Series GTX and Neutron Series solid-state drives (SSDs) are now widely available for purchase. Announced last June at Computex, Corsair's 4th generation SSDs have already won numerous awards, including the Tom's Hardware "Best of Computex 2012" award.

Neutron Series SSDs have continued to garner rave reviews from top experts in the PC and storage technology media. Prestigious awards include the HardOCP Editor's Choice, Storage Review Editor's Choice, HEXUS Performance, Tweaktown Editor's Choice, Hardwareluxx Excellent Hardware, and The SDD Review Editor's Choice awards.

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.

SanDisk Corporation, a global leader in flash memory storage solutions, today announced an affordable, easy-to-install SSD caching solution that lets consumers significantly improve their desktop computer's performance. The SanDisk ReadyCache solution can boost a desktop computer's boot, shutdown and application launch times, allowing consumers to enjoy a more responsive computing experience, while utilizing their existing hard drive's storage.

Easy Upgrade Breathes New Life Into Desktop Computers

The SanDisk ReadyCache product is a performance enhancing caching solution that combines a 32 gigabyte (GB) 2.5-inch SSD that resides alongside a desktop computer's hard drive with ExpressCache software by Condusiv Technologies. The software, sold exclusively by SanDisk, is easily downloaded from the SanDisk website and can be installed on any desktop PC running Windows 7 operating system. After installing the SSD and software, the SanDisk ReadyCache solution's advanced caching algorithms automatically manage data by caching frequently used files to improve overall performance.

Toshiba UK today adds the Satellite U940 to its growing family of high powered, stylish and portable Ultrabooks. Encased in an elegant Ice Silver chassis, and featuring a 35.6cm (14") display, the Satellite U940 is the perfect choice for those looking for a lightweight laptop capable of running more demanding tasks - the perfect companion for taking on long journeys or using away from a mains power source.

Combining a 3rd generation Intel processor for Ultrabooks with dedicated graphics, the Satellite U940 offers a fast and responsive experience when performing everyday tasks, and is capable of running HD multimedia content smoothly. Integrated graphics also allow casual games to be played with ease, whether installed on the system or running from a browser. The slim chassis accommodates powerful stereo speakers enhanced by SRS Premium Sound 3D for a rich sound experience.

WD, a subsidiary of Western Digital Corporation, and a world leader in external storage and connected home solutions, is combining two high-speed technologies to produce one of the fastest and most robust dual-storage systems ever offered. Supported by the Mac OS X operating system, the new My Book VelociRaptor Duo dual-drive storage system becomes the ultimate storage drive for performance hungry Mac computer users and creative professionals.

My Book VelociRaptor Duo provides ultimate speed and performance with two 1 TB 10,000 RPM WD VelociRaptor drives along with two Thunderbolt ports. The 2 TB dual-drive storage system is ideal for editing high resolution video, 3D rendering, graphic design, and other demanding digital media applications. This boost in performance delivers solid state drive (SSD) -like data transfer rates of up to 400 MB/s for greater work-flow productivity. The dual-drive storage system offers RAID 0 for performance or RAID 1 for protection; and the twin Thunderbolt ports offer daisy-chaining multiple My Book VelociRaptor Duo drives and other high performance peripherals without impacting data transfer speeds or performance. The My Book VelociRaptor Duo also comes complete with a Thunderbolt cable in the box and is user-serviceable.