German brand EOLIZE expands its portfolio by announcing a value for money Mini-ITX Case. EOLIZE SVD-NC11-02 aims for private and corporate customers who are looking for solid and reliable NAS Server as well as Home Server chassis. It has much in common with a Barebone chassis and can be used as such but additionally offers features such as two Hot Swap Modules.

Both Hot Swap Modules are located behind the decently designed front door and are able to fit two either 3,5 inch (8,89 cm) or 2,5 inch (6,35 cm) drives such as HDD or SSD. One further 2,5 inch sized HDD/SSD may be mounted inside the SVD-NC11-02 Mini-ITX chassis. This drive can be used as a system drive to install an appropriate Operating System and necessary Software. Additionally one 5,25 inch (13,3 cm) bay is located in the front giving enough space for a DVD, CD or Blu-ray drive as well as other commonly used bay accessory. SVD-NC11-02 Mini-ITX chassis is furthermore equipped with an I/O panel in the front offering two USB 2.0 connectors, one Mic and one Audio-out connector.

OCZ Technology Group, Inc., a leading provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs), today launched the Indilinx Everest-based Octane SATA 3.0 and SATA 2.0 SSD series, striking the ideal balance between capacity, physical size, and speed. In addition to being the world's first SSD to achieve up to a 1TB capacity in a compact 2.5 inch format, OCZ's Octane SSD series combines high-speed data transfer rates with record-breaking access times to provide a superior user experience and improved application performance.

"OCZ has reached an important milestone in the development of its own controller technology," said James E. Bagley, Senior Analyst with Storage Strategies NOW. "The high sustained performance, even with compressed files, the rapid boot feature and high access speeds using SATA 3.0 protocol puts their controller technology in the major league."
"Until now SSDs have been tailored for specific applications, forcing users into a product which maximizes performance for a narrow band of applications, but is significantly lacking in others," said Ryan Petersen, CEO of OCZ Technology. "The Octane Series solves this problem by providing the highest level of performance across varied workloads including mixed file sizes and mixed compressible and uncompressible data, all while nearly doubling NAND flash endurance."

Finally a fix for the BSOD/disconnect bug that has been plaguing users for months is available for SF-2200 based SSDs. OCZ uses these, has been testing this new firmware for several weeks and now believes that it's fit for release. The new firmware is at version 2.15 for OCZ drives and 3.3.2 for drives that SandForce's standard numbering system. As with any firmware update, it should be used cautiously, all data backed up and perhaps used on a non-mission critical Windows install for a while, for confidence. Note that there may be more unresolved issues and new ones introduced.

OCZ Technology Group, Inc., a leading provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) for computing devices and systems, today launched the Deneva 2 and Intrepid Series mSATA SSD lineup for OEM clients. These small form factor drives are designed for a wide range of embedded applications including slim servers, tablets, dual drive notebooks, and network security devices, delivering superior performance over hard drives while meeting the stringent reliability, security, and cost-saving needs of enterprise storage environments.

Embedded system designers require small format, cost-effective SSD solutions that do not compromise performance or reliability. Unlike standard drives, OCZ mSATA SSDs are much smaller with no outer housing, making them an easy to deploy storage solution for mobile computing, boot modules for virtualization applications, or HDD caching, allowing for high capacities, high performance, and low power consumption in a very compact form factor.
"OCZ Deneva 2 and Intrepid mSATA solid state drives provide OEMs with the flexibility to address storage and caching requirements within innovative form factors, including embedded and dual-drive devices and blade servers," said Ryan Petersen, CEO of OCZ Technology Group. "These new SSDs are available in a wide range of capacities and configurations to deliver exceptional scalability, performance, and endurance, all with a compact and energy efficient design."

CyberpowerPC., a leading manufacturer of custom gaming PCs, today announced the Gamer Scorpius line, a series of desktop gaming PCs based on AMD's new FX-series "Bulldozer" CPU series.

The new Gamer Scorpius series combines AMD's new FX CPU, Socket AM3+ (900 series chipset motherboard), and AMD Radeon HD 6000 graphics into a desktop gaming rig that has a boost in performance of 50 percent over the previous generation of AMD desktop platforms at a low cost. The new AMD FX CPU provides fully unlocked processor clock multipliers that ensure maximum speed while processing to enable an unrivaled PC enthusiast experience for multi-display gaming, mega-tasking and High-Def content creation.

Memoright, a leading provider of solid state drive (SSD) products, unveils its latest SSD solutions HTM series which delivers constant sequential performance and constant random access performance and allows MLC- based SSDs to deliver longer life span for enterprise storage.

As Memoright's Chairman and CEO Eric Kao stated in the keynote speech of Flash Memory Summit, "one size does not fit all in SSD world." SSDs are not simply as a faster version of HDDs. If SSD's performance characteristic does not match data access patterns, SSDs will not perform as expected and sometimes can be slower than HDDs.

Following up on the successful launch in May this year of the S511 SATA III solid state drive, which received an enthusiastic industry response and multiple awards, ADATA Technology has introduced the industry's fastest high-performance XM13 mSATA solid state drive. This display of the company's increasingly strong R & D capabilities establishes a firm foundation for ADATA in the Small Form Factor (SFF) applications market.

The "rapid start" usage of Tablet PCs has had an impact on the consumer desktop market, causing rising hopes and expectations for performance. The future market is expected to demand that boot devices combine the power of rapid, efficient operation with a thin profile and price competitiveness. To this end, ADATA has set its sights squarely on the market trends of the near future, applying the full force of the company's development capability and years of experience in memory storage. The result is the introduction of the XM13 mSATA SSD, incorporating mSATA memory cache, low power consumption, and implementing the latest Sandforce controller.

It looks like Intel has concrete plans with its SSD lineup moving into 2012. A roadmap slide sourced by VR-Zone reveals that its main SSD lines feature major additions or replacements that will take shape by the third quarter of 2012. To begin with the enterprise-grade 700 Series, Intel will have launched SSD 720 "Ramsdale" family of PCI-Express SSDs with SLC NAND flash memory, and SSD 520 "Cherryville", a successor of SSD 510; by the end of 2011. These products will lead the lineup through, with no changes in the first quarter of 2012.

In 2012, Intel will launch "Ramsdale MLC" PCI-Express SSD, a variant of Ramsdale that uses MLC-HET NAND flash memory, that increases capacities, while offering endurance roughly comparable to SLC, if not as fast as it. Capacities will double over Ramsdale SLC, into 400 GB and 800 GB. Around that time, Intel will also launch SSD 500 Series "King Crest", a new 2.5-inch SATA 6 Gb/s SSD that succeeds SSD 520 "Cherryville" family, and makes use of 25 nm MLC-HET NAND flash instead of standard 25 nm MLC NAND flash. Its capacity options are unknown.

Here's a development that will bring joy to those that prefer to hear mechanical noises from their hard discs instead of the inky silence of the new solid state drives. The current perpendicular magnetic recording technology used in today's hard discs are due to hit a brick wall within a couple of generations or so. This will finally give SSDs the chance to make mechanical drives obsolete once and for all when their capacities increase and the prices drop. To get around this, TDK intend to use lasers coupled with a high coercivity material to achieve this capacity improvement. The coercivity value of a material is a measure of how difficult it is to magnetize ie how strong the magnetizing field needs to be. A material with low coercivity, is easy to magnetize, but it can also lose its magnetic imprint (north and south domains) easily, especially with densely packed data and is easy to erase with stray magnetic fields and to some extent, physical shock. Conversely a material with a high coercivity value can be damned hard to magnetize, but will keep its magnetic imprint much more stably and crucially for data storage, can retain much smaller magnetic domains, giving rise to greatly increased storage capacity for all that ever increasing avalanche of crucial data, such as music files, dodgy videos and humungous video game installs.

Corsair, a worldwide designer and supplier of high-performance components to the PC gaming hardware market, today announced worldwide retail availability of the 480 GB Force Series GT SSD and 180GB and 480GB Force Series 3 SSDs.

As solid-state drives reach wider adoption rates, Corsair's new SSD models address growing market demand for fast, high-capacity drives. The 180GB Force Series 3 targets consumers and IT professionals who want an affordable step up from 120GB, and the 480GB models are ideal for high-performance notebook PC users who require massive SSD storage capacity in a single drive. The top of the line 480GB Force Series GT SSD is designed for video editing, competitive gaming, and other applications for which extraordinary performance is required.

OCZ Technology Group, Inc., a leading provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) for computing devices and systems, today announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire the UK Design Team and certain assets from PLX Technology, further strengthening the company's global research and development team.

PLX's UK Design Team has built a reputation for designing innovative and reliable system-on-chip (SOC) solutions and the acquired engineering team's expertise provides OCZ with additional resources for controller design. Through the acquisition of the engineering team and the license of intellectual property (IP), OCZ will be able to accelerate solid state drive development, reducing its time to market for next generation SSD products, while also reducing development costs.

Sharkoon introduces two micro-ATX cases, which despite its compact form factor, can contain graphic cards up to 36 cm in length: The Sharkoon MS120 mATX and the Sharkoon 140 mATX are especially aimed at gamers who are looking for a handy companion at LAN parties and at the same time not wanting to miss out on extra-long graphics power.

The two black finished cases differ in their front fan configurations: The MS120 is equipped with two blue illuminating 120 mm front fans behind a mesh insert. The MS140 instead features a blue illuminating 140 mm front fan. The MS120 is a little taller at 375 mm than the MS140 at 368 mm.

Plextor Japan introduced its latest generation of solid state drives (SSDs) in the 2.5-inch SATA form factor. The drives take advantage of the SATA 6 Gb/s interface. The lineup currently consists of two models, the 128 GB PX-128M2P, and the 256 GB PX-256M2P. Both drives make use of Marvell 88SS9174 controller, and Toshiba TH58TV68D2FDA88 Multi-level cell (MLC) NAND flash built on the 34 nm process.

The 128 GB model features a 256 MB DDR3 cache, while the 256 GB model is backed by 512 MB DDR3 cache. Sequential speeds vary between the two models. The 256 GB drive can transfer data at 500 MB/s read and 440 MB/s write; while the 128 GB drive transfers at 500 MB/s read and 320 MB/s write. The drives feature SMART, NCQ, TRIM, Bad Block Management, Instant Restore, and Plextor TrueSpeed firmware. The 256 GB drive is priced at 46,800 JPY, an equivalent of US $610, while the 128 GB model is priced at 21,800 JPY, or $284.

Fusion-io, Inc., pioneer of shared data decentralization, today announced the next evolution of its ioMemory platform for powering application acceleration and data center optimization. The company that broke performance barriers, brought you the first enterprise MLC products, dramatically enhanced reliability metrics for enterprise flash, and redefined server side flash has done it all over again with the new ioDrive2 and ioDrive2 Duo.

"Customers have grown to expect nothing but groundbreaking products from Fusion-io. Today, we are proud to raise the bar once more with the ioDrive2," said David Flynn, Fusion-io CEO and Chairman. "Just as many competitors gauge success by Fusion-io performance standards, we developed the ioDrive2 to outperform the original ioDrive on all measures. Companies around the world trust ioMemory to supply critical data to their trading platforms, ERP systems, virtual environments, enterprise applications and databases, and now, they can rely on the ioDrive2 to accelerate even more of the data that powers our information economy."

Greenliant Systems, a leader in energy-efficient, highly secure and reliable solid state storage products, has started volume production of its SATA interface NANDrive solid state drives (SSDs). The GLS85LS product family has the same pin-out across all capacities-2 GB, 4 GB, 8 GB, 16 GB, 32 GB and higher in the future-which simplifies system-level board design.

Measuring 14mm x 24mm x 1.95mm, in a 145 ball grid array (BGA), 1 mm ball pitch package, SATA NANDrive devices are one of the smallest SSDs, giving OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) flexibility when designing data storage into their embedded products. The BGA package can be soldered directly onto the motherboard-no extra connectors are needed-providing added stability to the SSD.

CM Storm, of the Cooler Master Group, unleashes a truly magnificent feat of engineering into an arena that represents the future of warfare; the Trooper full-tower chassis. Capable of lightning fast redeployment, it's the first in its class to include an ultra-strong carrying handle; allowing a gamer to travel with the finest system configurations available with relative ease. CM Storm Trooper includes features that are most coveted by gaming enthusiasts in that it has full dust filter coverage, a fan controller, an external SSD drive hot-swap dock and two uniquely designed modular hard drive cages. These features give CM Storm Trooper the ability to adapt to workstation or water-cooled gaming configurations easily.

ADATA Technology, a leading manufacturer of high-performance DRAM modules and NAND Flash application products, today announced the release of the S510 Solid State Drive (SSD), a mid-range version of the company's flagship S511. Implementing the SATA III (6Gb/sec) specification, the S510 is aimed at the growing pool of users who recognize the cost and performance advantages of solid state drive upgrades for both desktop and portable computers.

The performance advantages of the SATA III transfer specification are becoming well-known among consumers, and the S510 capitalizes on this trend with native support through adoption of the SandForce SF-2200 series chip. Its read and write speeds are twice that of SSDs using the older SATA II specification, and in real world test simulations reached 550/510MB read and write speeds respectively, with 4K random write speeds as high as 85,000 IOPS.

Micron Technology, Inc., introduced a new version of its popular RealSSD C400, featuring self encryption for unmatched data security. The C400 SED (Self-Encrypting Drive) is based on the Trusted Computing Group (TCG) Opal specifications and provides a hardware-based answer for the increasing wave of data breaches that continue to impact computer users and enterprises worldwide.

Security breaches caused by malicious attacks are on the rise, according to the recent Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report. While it's notable that the increase in small-scale external attacks doesn't rely on highly sophisticated approaches, encryption is widely credited as the first choice for the most affordable security solution for deterring such intrusions.

LaCie announced the Little Big Disk Thunderbolt Series is now available for purchase. It is the first portable solution to feature the shocking 10Gb/s speeds of Thunderbolt technology. This next-generation Little Big Disk is the first product in LaCie's series of high-end Thunderbolt solutions.

Designed for the most demanding applications, the LaCie Little Big Disk Thunderbolt Series will bring a new level of performance to creative workflows and professional storage users. It offers ultra-fast data transfers, complete system backup in minutes, and faster content editing than ever before.

OCZ Technology Group, Inc., a leading provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) for computing devices and systems, today launched its Synapse Cache Series 2.5" SSDs. The new Synapse SSDs are optimized for caching applications and leverages Dataplex cache software to dynamically manage the Synapse SSD in conjunction with standard hard disk drives (HDDs), to provide users with SSD-level performance across the entire capacity of the HDD.

"The industry has shown that it craves the performance advantages that SSDs provide, however, many users still value the high capacities associated with HDDs," said Tobias Brinkmann, Director of Product Management, OCZ Technology Group. "We see the Synapse Cache SSDs integrated with Dataplex software as a big win for a large number of customers who value SSD performance but still require HDD capacity. We are proud to be the first to offer this no-compromise approach to enabling high-performance and high-capacity storage for virtually any PC platform."

Addonics Technologies today announced the Addonics 2.5" and 3.5" Snap-In Disk Array removable drive systems that are ideal solutions for increasing hard drive storage in both small and large computing systems.

The Addonics 2.5" Snap-In Disk Array is a high density removable hard drive system that supports installing up to four 2.5" SATA hard drives or SSDs into one standard 5.25" drive bay. This compact form factor makes it an ideal solution for increasing hard drive storage in small computers, mini ATX systems or for applications that require a large number of drives.

Shuttle Computer Handels GmbH, 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 sales launch of a Mini-PC for second-generation Intel Core processors.

The XPC Barebone SH61R4 establishes itself as a highly efficient Mini-PC platform for cost-conscious users. It is suitable for all new second-generation Intel Core processors (i3/i5/i7 for LGA1155) as well as energy-saving DDR3 memory and boasts a particularly well-balanced performance/energy consumption ratio. Effective cooling is managed by a system comprising several heatpipes and a large, speed-controlled fan for optimal smoothness when running.

Other World Computing (OWC), a leading zero emissions Mac and PC technology company, announced today the industry's first 6G SSD upgrade for the 2011 Apple MacBook Air 11.1" and 13.3"models. The new OWC Mercury Aura Pro Express 6G SSDs combine award-winning SandForce technologies and Tier 1/Grade A Toggle Synchronous NAND to deliver data rates that are more than 3x faster and capacities that are up to 4x greater than factory available SSD options. Currently available in two sizes--120GB and 240GB--the new 6Gb/s SATA 3.0 Revision models continue OWC's position as the only alternative to factory SSD options for the 2010-2011 MacBook Air. 3G speed models from OWC are also available in capacities of up to 480GB.

The OWC Mercury Aura Pro Express 6G offers 2011 MacBook Air owners a cost-effective SSD upgrade path that delivers higher performance, functionality, and reliability over the factory installed SSD. Because the Mercury Aura Pro Express 6G SSD is SATA Revision 3.0 (6Gb/s) compatible, it can take advantage of the 2011 MacBook Air's built-in 6Gb/s SATA data bus to deliver peak, sustained data rates over 500MB/s, versus the factory installed SSDs, which are limited by SATA Revision 2.0 (3Gb/s) capability.

Intel Corporation announced today its latest solid-state drive (SSD), the Intel Solid-State Drive 710 Series, a purpose-built Multi-Level Cell (MLC) data center SSD and replacement for the Intel X25-E Extreme SSD. While the Intel X25-E was based on more expensive but highly reliable Single-Level Cell (SLC) NAND flash memory, the Intel SSD 710 uses compute-quality Intel 25-nanomenter (nm) MLC NAND flash memory with Intel High Endurance Technology (HET) to deliver the endurance and performance necessary for data center, financial services, embedded, Internet portal, search engine and other demanding storage and server applications, but at a greater value.

"The Intel SSD 710 Series gives enterprise data center and embedded users extreme endurance and performance, enabled by Intel's High Endurance Technology based on Intel 25nm MLC NAND technology," said Rob Crooke, Intel vice president and general manager of the Intel Non-Volatile Memory Solutions Group. "Intel SSDs are widely deployed in the data center due to their performance, reliability and value. Our latest SSD product family offers more than 30 times the write endurance of our current MLC SSDs, plus improved performance and new features, such as power-loss data protection and surplus arrays of NAND for enhanced reliability."

Here are the first pictures of ASUS' latest gaming desktop under its premium Republic of Gamers banner, the ROG CG8565. This black beauty is sculpted with the typical "edgy" design that has been found on recent ROG products. The case has no windows, but its design is enough to be an eyeball-magnet at LAN parties. The case looks well-ventilated with its intricately-designed vents on its top and sides. The front door slides down revealing the front panel, with two USB 3.0 ports, two USB 2.0 ports, audio, multi-format card reader, a Blu-ray ROM + DVD-RW combo drive, and a 3.5-inch SATA hard drive hot-swap bay. The ROG logo glows red when the system is powered on.

Under the hood, the ROG CG8565 is a Sandy Bridge-powered system. It is driven by an Intel Core i7-2600K quad-core processor, that's overclocked out of the box at 4.20 GHz. There are two higher OC presets that's selectable using the ROG panel, OC1 runs the CPU at 4.40 GHz, and OC2 runs it at 4.60 GHz. The CPU makes use of liquid cooling. In all likelihood, the motherboard is an ROG Maximus IV-class. There's 16 GB of dual-channel DDR3-1600 MHz memory.