Today at the 2012 International Consumer Electronics Show, iconic brand Victorinox Swiss Army (VSA), the exclusive marketer of Victorinox USB Flash Memory devices, announced the launch of two new portable storage additions - the Victorinox SSD and Victorinox Slim 3.0. VSA brings more than 125 years of trusted precision, quality, function and versatility to its newest consumer electronics innovations, which is a burgeoning product category for the brand.

The Victorinox SSD (Solid State Drive) and Victorinox Slim 3.0 USBs offer unprecedented data storage capacity with security measures fit for protecting the most confidential of personal and professional documents. Each pocket-sized device packs anywhere from 16 GB to one terabyte of storage capacity, is equipped to withstand a range of environmental and daily use factors, and remains true to the Swiss Army legacy of flawlessly designed products that endure.

Verbatim, the global leader in data storage technology including USB flash drives, portable hard drives, solid state drives, CDs, Blu-ray disks and memory cards, announces the availability of its 2.5" SATA Solid State Drives (SSD) and upgrade kits.

Available in both SATA II and SATA III interfaces, Verbatim SSDs featuring ultra-fast data transfer rates, faster system boot-up, shut down, and increased system responsiveness. Verbatim's new SSDs are the ideal hard drive replacements for users seeking a performance and reliability upgrade. Verbatim SSDs contain no moving parts, resulting in greater mechanical stability and reliability, increased shock resistance, silent operation, and reduced power consumption for increased battery life.

The OCZ Technology Group has just announced that, in the third quarter of fiscal year 2012 (the three-month period ended November 30th), its revenue reached a record $103.1 million, up 94% on-year and up 31% sequentially. As expected, the company's bread and butter were once again solid state drives as they alone generated sales of $95.5 million (up 130% on-year and up 34% over Q2 FY 2012).

Despite the boost in revenue, OCZ still reported a net loss of $0.9 million for the quarter, but it's an improvement compared to Q3 FY 2011 when the company's losses were of $8.3 million.

German TV tuner maker Elgato has today announced an external solid state drive featuring Thunderbolt connectivity. Known simply as the Thunderbolt SSD, Elgato's drive measures 83 x 21 x 131 mm, it weights 270 grams, has a 'rock-solid' metal enclosure, and is capable of transfer speeds of up to 270 MB/s.

The Thunderbolt SSD will ship next month in 120 GB ($430) and 240 GB ($700) capacities.

Indilinx, a leading provider of solid state drive (SSD) processors and a subsidiary of OCZ Technology Group, announces OCZ Indilinx SSDs based on the acclaimed Everest Series SATA 3.0 (6 Gbps) platform are shipping in LG Electronics' thinnest notebook yet, the Super Ultrabook Z300 based on the Intel Ultrabook initiative.

"We are excited to continue our partnership with LG Electronics and provide our Indilinx Everest based OEM SSDs for integration into the company's exciting new Super Ultrabook Z300," said Ryan Petersen, CEO of OCZ Technology. "These custom OEM Indilinx SSDs are the ideal solution for the Z300's ultra slim and stylish form factor, and help deliver a superior overall computing experience for customers with quicker transfer speeds and faster boot up."

OCZ seems to have put SSD chip development in overdrive since it's already showing off the Everest 2 controller although the first-gen Everest silicon has barely been out for a few months. Codenamed IDX400M00-BC, the new Everest chip is supposed to deliver sequential read/write speeds of up to 550/500 MB/s, up to 90,000 4 KB random write IOPS, and significantly improved small block performance.

The first solid state drives based on the Everest 2 are expected at the end of Q2.

On site at the Storage Visions conference in Las Vegas, the OCZ Technology Group (OCZ for short) has revealed to the world its newest portable storage solution, the Lightfoot solid state drive featuring Thunderbolt support.

Encased in a metal shell (resembling that of the OCZ Enyo), the Lightfoot makes use of a Marvell controller, is capable of transfer speeds of up to 750 MB/s and is set to be available in 128 GB, 256 GB, 512 GB and 1 TB capacities. Unfortunately OCZ didn't say when Lightfoot will ship or how much it will cost.

HighPoint Technologies, Inc., an industry leading HBA and storage solutions manufacturer, has announced a new milestone in 6Gb/s SSD storage performance. Recent driver and firmware updates for the best-selling RocketRAID 2700 series of 6Gb/s SAS HBA's dramatically improve the performance of RAID and non-RAID SSD configurations.

As the cost-per-gigabyte ratio of Nand Flash Chips continues to improve, SSD's have become the storage device of choice for many PC enthusiasts, gamers and media professionals. Multi-SSD configurations, once regulated to ultra-high-end workstations and enterprise servers, are now realistic propositions for the high-performance personal computing market. HighPoint SAS 6Gb/s HBA's are the ideal storage companion for such configurations. The RocketRAID 2700 series has been performance tuned to support today's fastest 6Gb/s SSD's, boosting transfer rates by as much as 50%.

Crucial, a leading global brand of memory and storage upgrades, today introduced a 7 mm version of the award-winning Crucial m4 SSD to meet the need for thinner storage devices. With the same performance delivered by the standard 9.5 mm Crucial m4 SSD, the new ultra-slim 7 mm version supports the latest thin and light form factor laptop models, such as the Lenovo ThinkPad T420G, Acer Aspire 6920G, and new Intel-inspired Ultrabook devices.

The 7 mm Crucial m4 SSD is available in 64 GB, 128 GB, 256 GB, and 512 GB capacities. The 512 GB capacity offering is one of the highest-capacity storage drives - magnetic or solid state - available in the market today for laptops with a 7 mm tall drive bay.

LSI Corporation announced that it has completed the purchase of SandForce, Inc., the leading provider of flash storage processors for enterprise and client flash solutions and solid state drives (SSDs). With the addition of innovative flash-based storage solutions that accelerate application performance, LSI assumes a leadership position in the rapidly growing market for flash storage processors for ultrabook, notebook and enterprise SSD and flash solutions.

"Customer response to the announcement has been very positive and we are pleased to now be able to fully demonstrate the benefits of the combined technology capabilities of LSI and SandForce," said Jeff Richardson, executive vice president and chief operating officer. "Together, we offer the broadest storage technology portfolio in the industry, and are well positioned to help customers manage their growth and the explosive growth in data across enterprises and the cloud."

MSI is rolling out its new generation GT685-the ultimate gaming machine. In addition to featuring the Intel second generation Core i7 quad core processor, it is the first laptop to sport the nVidia GeForce GTX 580M, the world's fastest discrete graphics card, 32G DDR3 of memory, and accelerated dual hard disk architecture. It comes with Dynaudio and THX TruStudio Pro smart wrap around sound as well as a full HD screen. You'll be impressed by how smoothly online 3D games play and with the edge that your new GT685 gives you against opponents.

The machine won the CES 2012 award for product innovation, seen by many as the highest honor of the high tech industry. MSI, where designing high-end record-breaking gaming notebooks is par for the course, will continue to design faster, more powerful notebooks that follow in the tradition of its gaming NBs best epitomized in the MSI GT685. The GT685 utilizes the wildly anticipated nVidia GeForce GTX 580M top-end discrete graphics card which boasts 384 more CUDAs (Compute Unified Device Architecture) than the previous generation with advanced 256 bit broadband and 2GB GDDR5 of display memory. You will be awed by how smooth 3D games run and the new edge you enjoy in battles will help you rack up wins.

OCZ Technology Group, Inc., a leading provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) for computing devices and systems, today announced that the OCZ Deneva2 30GB and 60GB mSATA SSDs, part numbers D2CSTEMS1A10-0030 and D2CSTEMS1A10-0060 have been tested with Intel Smart Response Technology and have passed the performance benchmarks for the 'While Using' portion of the responsiveness requirements in the 2012 Ultrabook Definition.

"We are pleased with the results that Intel has achieved with our Deneva 2 mSATA products," said Tobias Brinkmann, VP Partner Relations at OCZ Technology Group. "The Deneva 2 SSDs have a very small footprint making them ideal for the slim and stylish Ultrabook designs, and also deliver exceptionally fast bootup and data transfer speeds for a superior instant-on and overall more responsive computing experience."

Team Group Inc. has overcome the economic stagnation to make another success through slow and steady strategies. iSuppli, the leading research institution, released the latest market statistics of Q2 2011, indicating that the firm ranks no.8 in Flash category in the top 3 Taiwan manufacturers; ranks no. 7 in USB category, moving one place up from the previous quarter; and maintains position as the 12th largest DRAM manufacturer.

According to the President of Team Group, Danny Hsia says that "Team Group Inc. has dedicated itself to Taiwan as well as overseas markets for a long time, and the branding operation has matured. A survey of iSuppli showed our excellent performance, while winning the 10th Deloitte Technology Fast 500 Asia Pacific award is also recognition of Team's potential and competitiveness."

In its 20th year of service, Cooler Master, an industry leading chassis, thermal solution, power supply, peripheral, and accessory manufacturer, today announced the successor to a world renowned chassis line, the Cosmos II. Incomparable in design and specifications, the Cosmos II comes in as among the first of its type. It is an Ultra Tower; a benchmark for all enclosures that exist and all that follow.

Inspired by luxurious supercars, the exterior of the Cosmos II melds aluminum, steel, and mesh into an elegant artistic piece. It utilizes a high-grade aluminum for its primary construction and form. This is supplemented by steel and mesh to add to strength, stability, and overall appeal. It maintains its trademark Cosmos profile and outlook with its reinforced aluminum rails while being further refined for today's advancements in air/water cooling, peripheral support, and styling. Following the supercar feel, the large aluminum side panels swing wide open with a small press of a button. Aluminum sliding doors adorn the well equipped fan and LED control and I/O ports function panel on the top of the case along with the front drive bays. These serve to obscure unsightly cabling and protect drive bays and devices.

ASUS unveiled a designer variant of its N45SF entertainment notebook, dubbed N45J Mystic Edition. The N45J is ASUS' tribute to its homeboy, singer-songwriter Jay Chou. He starred in the action flick The Green Hornet. The notebook aesthetically has a big transition from its black+silver color scheme in its N45SF avatar. It's decked in white overall, with a dash of blue (the right shade, that misses being dubbed baby-blue by a whisker). On its lid is some urban art, which could have been adopted by the album-art of Jay Chou's label. There are also his autographs on the lid and the palm-rest.

That aside, this 14-incher packs a 1600x900 pixel display, is driven by 2nd generation Core processors (options include Core i7-2670QM/2630QM, Core i5-2430M/2410M, and Core i3-2330M/2310M), up to 8 GB of dual DDR3-1333 memory, NVIDIA GeForce GT 555M graphics with 1 or 2 GB VRAM, and a variety of storage options, including SSDs, high-capacity slow HDDs, or lower-capacity faster (7200 rpm) ones. DVD SuperMulti, BD-ROM, or BD-RW can be opted for. The audio is backed by punchy Bang & Olufsen ICEpower speakers. 720p web-camera, WiFi b/g/n, Bluetooth 3.0, and 3 -in-1 card reader, make for the rest. We don't have the pricing info. It will most likely only be launched in Taiwan and Greater China region, where Jay Chou is likely to have a big following.

Galaxy, better known for its NVIDIA GeForce graphics cards in the western world, sells more than that in its home country China, where it unveiled its Laser GT series consumer SSDs. Built in the common 2.5-inch SATA form-factor these drives use the SATA 6 Gb/s interface, and are driven by SandForce SF-2281 SSD controllers. Pictured below is its 120 GB model. The drive offers maximum sequential transfer speeds of 550 MB/s (read), and 500 MB/s (write), with 4K random performance of 30,000 IOPS reads, and 41,000 IOPS writes. It makes use of MLC NAND flash with 5,000 rewrite cycle life. The 120 GB Laser GT variant is priced at 1,399 RMB, that's about US $221.

Taiwanese company Akasa announced the HDM-23 multi-utility 5.25-inch drive enclosure. This enclosure occupies a 5.25-inch drive bay in your case, and converts it an exposed 3.5-inch bay, or a discrete 2.5-inch bay for SSDs. The exposed 3.5-inch bay can then be used for devices such as fan-controllers in the 3.5-inch form-factor, card readers, such as the one pictured below (not included), or ye olde floppy disk drives. The 3.5-inch bay has mounting holes at the right spots to hold drives in the 2.5-inch form-factor, such as most of today's SSDs. Lastly, there are mount holes on its underside, to which you can attach a 140 mm fan. The enclosure measures 149 x 154 x 42 mm (WxDxH), about as big as an optical drive. It is priced at 880 JPY or about US $11. It will reach stores in late January, 2012.

Next month at CES 2012 in Las Vegas (January 10-13), Chinese company RunCore Innovation Technology (RunCore for short) is set to show off a trio of NAND-based storage solutions, the Xapear, Falcon and Pro V 7mm solid state drives.

The ultrabook-friendly Pro V 7mm SSDs come with a SATA 6.0 Gbps interface and deliver read/write speeds of up to 540/500 MB/s, while the Falcon Series models are known to have SATA 6.0 Gbps connectivity and a Marvell controller (no word on speeds through).

The Xapear drives are a bit special because they feature both automatic AES128 encryption and RFID (radio-frequency identification) support so as to ensure a high level of data security. Moreover, the Xapear allows users to check drive status or activate a self-erase function via mobile phone. Other specs were not revealed but will surely be available at RunCore's CES booth.

Orico unveiled its latest HM01 series performance SSD, which was pictured in a recent review by Expreview. Built in the standard 2.5-inch form-factor, these drives take advantage of the SATA 6 Gb/s interface. These drives use a Marvell-made controller, and MLC NAND flash memory. The HM01 series will be available in three capacities: 64 GB, 128 GB, and 256 GB. While the 256 GB variant offers read/write speeds of up to 500 MB/s (read) and 440 MB/s (write), the other variants offer speeds of up to 500 MB/s (read) with 330 MB/s (writes). The company did not give out pricing/availability details.

Zalman's newest line of solid state drives, the F1-series, started selling in Japan. These drives are slated for launch tomorrow. These drives are a typical implementation of the SandForce SF-2281 controller, backed by MLC NAND flash memory. The F1-series is available in three sizes, 60 GB, 120 GB, and 240 GB; priced at 11,980 JPY (US $153), 19,800 JPY ($254), and 39,980 JPY ($513), respectively. The drives take advantage of the SATA 6 Gb/s interface, and are built in the 2.5-inch form-factor. The drives offer read speeds of up to 560 MB/s, and up to 530 MB/s writes. The 60 GB and 120 GB models offer 4K random write performance of 30,000 IOPS, while the 240 GB one offers 45,000 IOPS.

Mouse Computer Japan (MCJ) introduced its latest notebook for gamers on the move, the i950PA5-SP. With its 17.3-inch form-factor, it classifies more as a desktop replacement, making it quite the LAN Party-animal. Under its hood is an Intel Core i7-2960XM quad-core processor clocked at 2.70 GHz (3.70 GHz max. turbo), a whopping 32 GB of RAM, two Intel SSD 320 series 120 GB drives in RAID 0, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580M graphics with 2 GB GDDR5 memory, Blu-ray writer, WiFi b/g/n, and Bluetooth 3.0. The 17.3-inch display packs a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels. The i950PA5-SP is priced at 299,880 JPY, that's US $3,850.

Chinese data storage solutions provider Orico unveiled its new P5K line of portable hard drives. These drives feature rugged brushed-aluminum bodies. The drives are available in variants that feature both eSATA 3 Gb/s and USB 3.0, and those which feature just USB 3.0. Some of these variants even pack internal SSDs instead of HDDs, with a single "direct" PCB that holds both the host interface logic and the SSD. Unfortunately, these designs are still in the realm of CGI, and the manufacturer did not publish detailed specifications.

Sharkoon presents another series of cases: Available in three color editions, the Sharkoon T28 offers a lot of space especially for hard drive installation, thankfully due to the removable hard drive cage, and also perfect for extra-long graphic cards.

Externally the Sharkoon T28 offers a black body and a rectilinear mesh front design. Power and Reset buttons are elegantly chromed. In regards to the front connectors, Audio In/Out stands ready between three USB2.0 ports and a USB3.0 interface. An acrylic window on the left side panel gives an insight into the interior of the colored mainboard tray. Choose from three color editions: Red, green, and for the first time after numerous customer suggestions, blue. Also, the operating and hard drive LEDs illuminate in the edition color as well as the three pre-installed 120 mm fans. Two fans rotate in the front, the third in the back. All possess a 4-pin power supply and a 3-pin mainboard connector.

Super Talent Technology, a leading manufacturer of NAND flash storage solutions, today announced the Storage POD Mini, a portable SSD that will change how you think about external storage.

External hard disk drives have made it easy to back-up important data and move data from one machine to another but its performance was limited and always slower than an internal hard drive. Thanks to USB 3.0 and SSD technologies, it is now possible to create a USB storage solution that is smaller, lighter and more rugged than a traditional HDD. A blue anodized, all-aluminum enclosure enables this drive to be both lightweight and rugged yet measure a mere 110 x 68 x 10 mm (roughly the same size as an internal 2.5" HDD; without the enclosure) It fits easily in your pocket and requires no power adapter. It's the perfect travelling companion.

Monster and SDJ Technologies have recently teased the very first solid state drives coming out under the Monster Digital brand, the 'Le Mans' Series. These drives feature a 2.5-inch form factor, a SandForce SF-2200 controller, Toshiba-made synchronous MLC (multi-level cell) NAND Flash memory, a SATA 6.0 Gbps interface, and deliver read and write speeds of up to 550 MB/s and 515 MB/s, respectively.

The Le Mans family of SSDs will ship in Q1 2012 and will include 80 GB, 120 GB, 240 GB and 400 GB models. The drives' prices were not announced but such info should be made available early next month at CES 2012.