As cloud computing becomes a mainstream, it is essential for enterprise servers to improve capacities and data transmission speeds. Apacer is taking cloud computing as one of its core areas of development, and has created the Apacer SAFD 25A - a SATA 3.0 SSD that boasts both capacity and performance gains to address the needs of this industry. This is a high-end SSD targeted for cloud-based computing, featuring outstanding efficiency, based on high IOPs, and a large storage capacity of 512GB. It aims to optimize data storage variables in cloud computing centers by providing speed within a stable and power-saving operating environment.

By using the exceptional features of SSDs such as anti-shock, anti-vibration, low-power consumption, and high-speed data transmission, Apacer expects to help enterprise servers to improve their data access constraints and, in doing so, take the place of traditional hard drives. This can all be accomplished in tandem with cutting a large amount of the cooling cost, providing ground-breaking efficiency to create an increasingly reliable operating environment.

While the PC enthusiast community know MSI more to be the people behind some quality motherboards, graphics cards, and notebooks, apart from a few lesser known product lines, the Taiwanese company has a few completely undocumented products. A "case" in point (mind the pun) is its Interceptor line of gaming PC cases, whose launch spread across early 2012, was completely undocumented by MSI public relations. Solid State Drives (SSDs) will soon be MSI's newest frontier, according to no less than LSI-SandForce.

Apparently, MSI has signed up LSI-SandForce as a provider of SSD controllers. The page on the company website that lists all "SandForce-Driven" SSDs includes a column for MSI (including its company logo), with the models column being marked "Coming Soon." This is not the first time MSI got involved with SSD. The company's high-end GT60/GT70 gaming notebooks come with a self-designed SSD RAID solution, that makes use of SanDisk-branded mSATA SSDs in RAID 0 configuration. We have sought more information from MSI.

Corsair, a worldwide designer and supplier of high-performance components to the PC gaming hardware market, today announced that the Carbide Series 300R Compact PC Gaming Case is now available in a windowed version.

First released in January, the Carbide 300R PC case has won accolades for its compact, streamlined, builder-friendly design. The new Carbide Series 300R windowed version of the case of features a side window that gives PC builders the ability to demonstrate their modding skills while also showcasing internal PC components, such as Corsair's PC performance tuned Vengeance DDR3 memory, GS Series power supplies, Hydro Series CPU coolers, and Air Series cooling fans.

Intel is planning a series of price cuts for its three current consumer SSD lines, the SSD 320, SSD 330, and SSD 520. The new prices could take effect from August, and will render several models with price per GB under $1. While prices of most lower-capacity SSD 320 series products are left untouched (partly because they are being phased out of the market), those of the 300 GB and 600 GB are cut significantly. The 300 GB SSD 320 could get a price cut from US $519 to $464, while that of the 600 GB SSD 320 could go down from $1,059 down to $879.

Intel's current mainstream SSD line, the SSD 330, could face price cuts on some of its best selling models. The 60 GB model could see its price go down from $94 to $69, the 120 GB from $149 to $104, and the 180 GB from $234 to $154. Intel's performance SSD line, the SSD 520 series, sees prices cut for nearly every model. The 60 GB model is down from $109 to $99, 120 GB from $189 to $139, 180 GB from $279 to $199, 240 GB from $349 to $259, and 480 GB $809 to $594. The new prices restore competitiveness of Intel's consumer SSD lines against competitors' offerings, as SSD prices continue on their free-fall.

Plextor, a leading developer of high-performance digital storage equipment, announces the launch of its newest Solid State Drive (SSD), the M5S Series, featuring an enhanced and sustained read/write speed up to 73,000/70,000 IOPS. The M5S Series performs faster than its award-winning predecessors with overall enhanced performance. With its exclusive firmware technology, Plextor is proud to offer a consistent high quality and high-performance SSDs that will ensure the sustained optimal read/write speed after long periods of time and continued to excel in performances.

Plextor's M5S SSD features a sustained computing performance with its exclusive firmware technology, including Instant Restore, Global Wear Leveling, and Bad Block Management. Besides the sustained long-term high speed performance that greatly strengthens the efficiency of data transfer, Plextor exclusive technology also helps stabilize and improve the sustainability of its SSDs. The new-generation M5S also inherits True Speed, a Plextor's exclusive high-speed sustaining and non-declining performance technology that featured random read/write speed up to 73,000/70,000 IOPS as well as the continuous read/write speed up to 520/390 MB/s. The M5S SSD can truly responds to the complex access environment of the computer and bring a superb computing performance under stable speeds.

Unigen Corporation, a leading OEM designer and manufacturer of enterprise-grade flash storage, DRAM, and wireless communication modules, today announced the launch of its 6Gb/s mSATA and mini mSATA solid state drive modules for embedded applications.

The modules are available in three models. The Unigen Model 2202 and 2204 feature high random access performance, while Model 2512 is optimized for incompressible data or multimedia files such as video, image, and audio files. These new SSD modules will be available for shipment in August 2012.

Fujitsu today expanded its mobile portfolio -- debuting the versatile STYLISTIC Q702 business hybrid tablet featuring an 11.6-inch AH-IPS HD, dual digitizer, multi-touch display for pen or touch input -- and a productivity-enhancing optional attachable keyboard docking station that turns the sleek tablet into a traditional notebook. For business professionals requiring a tablet with a keyboard attached at all times, Fujitsu has refreshed the LIFEBOOK T902 convertible tablet PC, featuring a frameless 13.3-inch HD+ anti-glare widescreen display -- the largest screen available with touch and pen support. Fujitsu designed the STYLISTIC Q702 hybrid tablet and the LIFEBOOK T902 tablet PC with the goal of being used with Windows 8.

The STYLISTIC Q702 hybrid tablet is designed to accommodate various work-styles. Ideal for on-your-feet computing, the STYLISTIC Q702 is perfect for use in healthcare, education, retail POS, insurance and anywhere where a tablet is the preferred solution, but it doesn't end there. Attach the optional keyboard dock and your tablet transforms into a notebook complete with WLAN, USB, and VGA connectivity as well as an additional battery. Complete all your keyboard intensive tasks with the keyboard dock and then, with the flip of a switch, you're back in tablet mode. You only need to take with you what you need when you need it.

Corsair, a worldwide designer and supplier of high-performance components to the PC hardware market, today announced the Force Series GS solid-state drives (SSDs). The new SSDs, which offer the fastest overall performance in Corsair's SandForce-based lineup, will initially ship in capacities of 180 GB and higher. As with other Force Series drives, the Force Series GS SSDs are based on the SandForce SF-2200 SSD Processor, but add toggle NAND flash memory to boost random write speeds up to an amazing 90,000 IOPs.

The Force Series GS SSDs feature SATA 6 Gb/s connectivity for compatibility and performance, TRIM support to maintain performance over time, and lower power operation for longer battery life. Their 2.5" form factor, combined with an included 3.5" adapter, allow easy installation into notebooks or into desktop PCs.

Nearly two months after releasing Firmware Update 1.4RC for its Vertex 4 series solid state drives (SSDs), OCZ released yet another firmware update, which pushes sequential speeds further up. The new firmware update version 1.5 beta increases maximum read speed on the 128 GB, 256 GB, and 512 GB variants of Vertex 4 to 560 MB/s (up from 550 MB/s), while maximum write speeds are increased by 6.5% on average. The 256 GB variant sees the highest write performance increase, by around 10%. The update can be applied using OCZ Toolbox.

Despite the increase in adoption of SSDs in the industrial computer sector, price remains a major concern. Apacer seeks to address this issue with a quality SSD product. Apacer, one of the world's top ten PC SSD suppliers, has introduced a large-capacity MLC wide-temp SSD with CF and SD interfaces designed for industrial computer systems and automatic applications. Favorably priced, the product employs the vendor guaranteed flash chip, which means it can run stably under industry-level extended-temperature (-40°C ~ 85°C) environments. It stays reliable even at very high or very low temperatures, which makes the SSD a great storage solution suitable for the military, aviation, automobile, oil-well drilling and other industries.

Apacer's next-gen MLC wide-temp SSD includes an CF card compliant form-factor with CFA 4.1 specifications and an SD card supporting the SDHC Class 10 standard. The CF card adopts the standard 50-pin connector; the data transfer mode is up to PIO-6, Multi-Word DMA-4 and Ultra DMA-5, available in capacities from 8GB to 32GB. It features sequential read/write speed of up to 55/20 MB/Sec, which is about 3 times faster than that of its predecessor. The industrial SD card version supports the ver. 2.0 standard as defined by the SD Association, available in capacities from 4GB to 32GB. It also effectively enhances file transmission speeds thanks to sequential read/write speeds of up to 19/14 MB/sec.

As more and more consumers is concerning about SSD for its attributes of high performance and fast booting, world renowned memory and flash modules manufacturer, KINGMAX, recently launches mSATA SSD MMP20; not only convenient for user to make their own hybrid disk (HDD+SSD), but also suitable for small form factor systems. KINGMAX SSD features "Premium Selected" quality; all flash ICs are strictly screened and the whole SSD is 100% tested before shipping.

For many notebook users, it sounds appealing to upgrade system by SSD; however, it might compromise capacity or overspend when replacing original HDD by 2.5" SSD. KINGMAX MMP20 mSATA reconcile this dilemma. It can be directly install inside notebook on Mini PCI-E slot, and even tiny size is capable as normal 2.5" SSD. Using mSATA SSD as a system disk and keeping original HDD allows the "Hybrid Disk" to have qualities of fast booting, high performance and large capacity.

ASUS unveiled a 1 liter (volume equivalent) sized nettop, the EeeBox EB1030, powered by Intel Atom "Cedar Trail" platform. It measures just 219 x 172.5 x 29 mm, weighing 690 g. Under the hood is an Atom D2550 dual-core processor, clocked at 1.86 GHz, backed by 1 GB of DDR3 memory, and 320 GB storage. Upgrade options include up to 4 GB of memory, and 500 GB HDD or 32 GB SSD.

Most basic network and peripheral connectivity options are present, including 802.11 b/g/n, gigabit Ethernet, stereo audio with 5.1 channels over SPDIF, legacy serial, and display outputs that include HDMI and D-Sub. The EeeBox EB1030 starts at €296. The company plans two other models, the EB1031 featuring Atom D2700 processor, and the EB1033, which tops the EB1031 up with NVIDIA GeForce GT 610M graphics.

Other World Computing (OWC), a leading zero emissions Mac and PC technology company, announced today the OWC Mercury Aura Pro Express/Mercury Aura Envoy as the industry's first high-performance Solid State Drive upgrade and bus-powered enclosure bundle for 2010-2011 MacBook Air computers. Representing a 'Dream Team' of performance and convenience, the Mercury Aura Bundle includes a Mercury Aura Pro Express SSD that offers nearly 8x the factory maximum storage capacity along with extreme data rate speeds up to or exceeding 500 MB/s - representing up to 68 percent faster real-world speed than the factory Flash SSD. After installing the Aura Pro Express in the MacBook Air, the factory SSD is easily converted into an external storage solution inside the Mercury Aura Envoy to complete the two-in-one storage upgrade.

QNAP Systems, Inc. is extending the number of compatible peripherals for its Turbo NAS products. The additions, including five 500GB to 1TB 2.5-inch internal SATA hard drives, ten 2.5-inch 60GB to 480GB internal Solid State Drives, two USB Wi-Fi adapters, and one USB camera are now fully compatible. The expanded peripherals are expected to give users greater convenience and deployment flexibility.

RunCore, leading developer and brand manufacturer of high-end Solid State Drives (SSDs) and storage solutions, is officially launching the world's first single chip SATA II DOM SSD for advanced embedded SSD solutions, the RunCore Mini DOM. With a miniature size of no more than 43.38 mm(L) × 27.75mm(W), the RunCore Mini DOM, is the very first single-chip SSD utilizing the SATA II interface reaching up to 113MB/s read and 50MB/s write speeds. The Mini Dome is available in a wide capacity range from 8 GB up to 64 GB. Being able to withstand extreme temperatures between -55℃ and 95℃ RunCore's Mini DOM is designed for usage in a variety of different mission-critical system setups even under most demanding circumstances.

Shuttle Computer Handels GmbH, the European subsidiary of Shuttle Inc., one of the leading developers and manufacturers of compact PC solutions such as the world-renowned XPC Mini-PC Barebones, today announces the launch of the third generation of its award-winning and completely fanless XS35 model from their slim PC series.

"Even our dealers keep telling us how impressed they are with the quietness of this model," says Tom Seiffert, Head of Marketing & PR at Shuttle Computer Handels GmbH. "It's very rare that the elimination of a particular component has been greeted with such positive comments. However, we've certainly achieved this by doing away with the use of fans."

ADATA Technology, a leading manufacturer of high-performance DRAM modules and NAND Flash storage application products, today announced the launch of the XPG SX910 solid state drive, a significant broadening of the popular and powerful XPG line of storage products. The SX910 features a 7% capacity increase over common SSDs that use a SandForce controller, delivering a powerful combination of capacity and high performance with a five-year warranty.

The XPG SX910 uses new optimized firmware to maximize utilization of the NAND Flash components, allowing for full use of the available storage capacity. This zero percent over-provisioning in the design and engineering of the SX910 is implemented with no loss to performance- Maximum 4k random read/write speeds are 50,000 and 85,000 IOPS respectively, with sequential read and write speeds reaching 550 and 530 MB/sec, respectively.

LSI Corporation today introduced its latest MegaRAID 6 Gb/s SAS+SATA controllers and host bus adapters (HBAs) featuring the PCI Express 3.0 interface.

Seven new LSI MegaRAID controllers are offered with four or eight ports and provide a powerful combination of intelligent performance, enterprise RAID data protection and proven interoperability. Three new LSI HBA models provide state-of-the-art connectivity for servers and appliances in a variety of enterprise-level environments including corporate datacenters, the cloud and high-performance computing.

"In the face of massive data growth, system builders and resellers are racing to meet increasing demand for larger, more scalable systems that deliver reliability and high performance," said Brent Blanchard, director of worldwide channel sales and marketing, LSI. "The addition of PCIe 3.0 on the new MegaRAID controllers and HBAs brings dramatically higher levels of performance and allows greater system design flexibility, with proven LSI product quality and reliability."

SanDisk Corporation, a global leader in flash memory storage solutions, today announced the acquisition of Schooner Information Technology, Inc., an enterprise software company located in Silicon Valley that develops flash-optimized database and data store solutions. Schooner's products complement SanDisk's growing portfolio of enterprise solid state disk (SSD) and flash-optimized software offerings that enable customers to accelerate the performance of data-intensive applications and reduce overall cost of ownership. Schooner's team of database and flash optimization experts have joined SanDisk's Enterprise Storage Solutions (ESS) team. Schooner's products will be optimized for SanDisk's enterprise SSD portfolio as well as for enterprise SSDs from third parties.

Schooner's products are currently deployed by U.S. and international customers, including several Fortune 500 companies. Designed to fill the gap between stock do-it-yourself open source solutions and expensive high-end database deployments, Schooner's products deliver enterprise-grade performance, powering data center consolidation at a lower cost. Engineered for flash acceleration and enhanced with enterprise features, Schooner's products deliver up to five times the throughput of competing configurations. In addition, they deliver near in-memory response times to mission critical applications along with enterprise-grade replication and failover capabilities. In-memory database solutions are enabling breakthroughs in database and Business Intelligence applications that are only possible with solid state memories. Schooner's ability to combine DRAM and flash memory seamlessly in a single solution offers near DRAM performance at a lower cost.

Seagate Technology plc the worldwide leader in hard disk drives and storage solutions, and DensBits Technologies Ltd ("DensBits") the inventor of the world's first Memory ModemTM have announced today a strategic agreement for the development of low-cost, high-performance Solid State Drives ("SSD") for the consumer and enterprise markets. In conjunction with the agreement, Seagate has made an undisclosed equity investment in DensBits.

Seagate and DensBits are joining forces, to develop future products that are intended to provide customers with significant cost savings, extremely high reliability, and unparalleled performance. Under the agreement, DensBits' Memory ModemTM controller technology will be integrated with Seagate's various storage technologies to power a wide range of consumer and enterprise applications including 3 bits/cell ("TLC") 1Xnm Flash-based consumer-grade SSD, and 2 bits/cell ("MLC") 1x nm Flash-based enterprise-grade SSD.

SK Hynix announced its launch of client SSD (Solid State Drive). The SSD features faster speed and low power consumption than HDD (Hard Disk Drive) so it is expected to replace the HDD as another type of storage for PCs and other applications.

The first ever SK Hynix's client 2.5" SSD consists of ONFI synchronous NAND Flash memory using 20nm class process and densities of 128GB (Gigabyte) and 256GB are available. It significantly improves the speed and reliability by adopting SATA III interface with data transmissions at 6Gb/s (Gigabits per second). This high performance SSD generates sequential read speeds of 510MB/s (Megabytes per second) and sequential write speeds of 470MB/s. It is three or four times faster than the traditional HDD.

Hard drive prices refuse to budge after last year's floods that struck manufacturing facilities in Thailand, even as manufacturers turn record profit. The solid-state drive market, on the other hand, is finally rolling with competition, high volume production, and advancements in NAND flash technologies. With memory majors such as Hynix adding new NAND flash manufacturing facilities to their infrastructure, SSD is expected to finally get its big break in the mainstream market.

SSD prices, according to price aggregators, are on a free-fall. Models which once held relative pricing as high as $2 per gigabyte, and going deep within the $1 mark. For example, Crucial's widely-praised M4 256 GB SSD has a price per GB of 'just' $0.82, and a market price around $200, something unheard of, for a 256 GB SSD with transfer rates of over 500 MB/s. With SSD major OCZ Technology releasing new generations of drives under the Vertex 4 and Agility 4 series that use Indilinx processors, older Vertex 3 and Agility 3 models are being phased out, some of these are seeing sub $1/GB prices. Intel is also responding to market trends, with prices of its SSD 520 series dropping sharply. Find a boat-load of stats at the source.

Greenliant Systems, a leader in energy-efficient, highly secure and reliable solid state storage products, is now sampling its e.MMC NANDrive GLS85VM embedded solid state drive (SSD) product family to select customers. The new NANDrive devices support the JEDEC e.MMC 4.4 standard and are backward compatible with 4.3. While the JEDEC operating temperature range specification is -25 to +85 degrees Celsius, e.MMC NANDrive operates at full industrial temperatures between -40 and +85 degrees Celsius, giving customers data storage that can withstand the most severe conditions.

e.MMC NANDrive combines Greenliant's internally developed NAND controller with NAND flash die for a fully integrated SSD in a multi-chip package. It is available with 2-bits-per-cell (MLC) or 1-bit-per-cell (SLC) NAND to meet varying customer requirements for lifespan, endurance and performance. Measuring 14mm x 18mm, e.MMC NANDrive is offered in a 100 ball grid array (BGA) package, with 1mm ball pitch for increased long-term reliability.

SK hynix Inc. ('SK hynix' or 'the Company') announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire California-based storage solution company Link_A_Media Devices Corporation ('LAMD'). LAMD, founded in 2004, is a leader in the development of semiconductor system-on-chip (SoC) solutions for the data storage market. These SoC solutions, also called controllers, interface with processors to significantly increase the speed and reliability of Flash memory. Upon completion of the acquisition, LAMD will join SK hynix as a business unit focused on customized NAND based solutions.

As various mobile applications such as smartphones and tablet PCs are being rapidly adopted and cloud computing grows in popularity, the NAND Flash market has been evolving from raw NAND memory solutions for USB and memory cards to value-added products equipped with controllers. The role of the NAND controller in premium products such as e-MMC (embedded Multi Media Card) and SSDs (Solid State Drives) has become increasingly important to meet the high memory densities and improved interface speeds required by end users.

Fujitsu today introduced a trio of commercial LIFEBOOK notebooks -- the full-size 15.6-inch LIFEBOOK E752; the 14-inch thin, light and economical LIFEBOOK S752; and the 13.3-inch high-performance, subcompact LIFEBOOK S762 notebook.

Powered by the new 3rd generation Intel Core i5 or i7 processor, all three LIFEBOOK notebooks feature optional SSD cache or SSD drives with Intel Rapid Start Technology for powering up with the speed of an Ultrabook device. In addition, the notebook trio offers a versatile modular bay allowing users to remove the optical drive to lighten the load when travelling or to install a second battery, which along with the high-capacity standard battery provides up to 15.5 hours of operation.