Leveraging more than 50 years of design and qualification experience, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi GST) today announced its new Ultrastar solid state drive (SSD) family. The new Ultrastar SSD400S family comes in 100GB, 200GB and 400GB capacities, featuring both 2.5-inch 6Gb/s Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) and 3.5-inch 4Gb/s Fibre Channel (FC) interfaces. As the world's first jointly developed SAS and FC enterprise-class SSDs, the Ultrastar SSD400S family combines Hitachi's proven enterprise hard disk drive (HDD) expertise with Intel's extensive capabilities in developing high-endurance 34-nanometer (nm), single-level cell (SLC) NAND flash memory and advanced SSD technology. This combination provides unique value to customers who are increasingly looking to tiered storage as a method of managing the escalating performance, capacity, endurance and reliability demands of today's data centers.

"Hitachi's strategic investment and commitment in the enterprise market is evident with the new Ultrastar SSD family. Our new SSD product family not only symbolizes our market opportunity to serve evolving cloud data center infrastructures, but also delivers value to our customers in terms of increasing data center performance and reducing total cost of ownership," said Mike Cordano, executive vice president of Worldwide Sales and Marketing, Hitachi GST. "We have a strong track record of working with global enterprise customers and are proud to report favorable responses to the Ultrastar SSD400S family. With qualifications now underway, we anticipate volume shipments to commence in the first half of 2011."

OCZ Technology Group, Inc., a leading provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) and memory modules for computing devices and systems, has acquired certain assets of privately held Solid Data Inc., a provider of solid-state storage systems and solutions based in Santa Clara, California.

OCZ acquired the Solid Data assets for a total consideration of approximately $950,000, consisting of restricted common stock and cash. As a result of the acquisition, OCZ will gain access to DRAM-based and Fibre-Channel ("FC")-based SSD controller technology for implementation in future OCZ solutions. In combination with OCZ's existing SSD technologies, the acquired Solid Data IP enables OCZ to offer a wider range of enterprise-grade SSD products to OEMs, including proprietary FC-based SSDs and low-latency DRAM/Flash hybrid solutions.

ATP, a leading flash memory manufacturer known for its high quality, durable flash and DRAM memory modules announced its newly released Vertical Slim SATA Embedded Module. With its small size and ratified JEDEC standard, MO-297, the Vertical Slim SATA Embedded Module is an ideal fit for embedded solid state storage applications. The compact design of the Slim SATA solution makes the module the ideal structure for SSD solutions that have space constraints and require high performance and reliability.

The ATP Vertical Slim SATA Module adheres to the JEDEC standard, as well as CE, FCC and RoHS industry compliance and regulatory standards. The small size (54mm(L)x39.8mm(W)x4.0mm(H) and high density of the Vertical Slim SATA makes the module an ideal replacement for the 2.5" HDD. It offers an alternative solution for space constrained embedded applications such as IPC, Blades, Advanced TCA, Networking hosts, POS machines, and enhances the capability, performance and reliability of different applications. The ATP Vertical Slim SATA Module is available in 2GB to 16GB capacities.

Greenliant Systems, a leader in energy-efficient, highly secure and reliable solid-state storage products, has begun sampling its new SATA interface NANDriveTM GLS85LS product family to select customers seeking high-endurance, high-performance, fully-integrated, embedded flash solid-state drives (SSD). Greenliant's award-winning NANDrive combines an integrated SATA NAND controller and the widest range of NAND flash capacities-2, 4, 8, 16, 32 and 64 GB-in a multi-chip package.

For OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) requiring the durability and speed of SSDs in very small form factors, Greenliant's SATA NANDrive devices are 14mm x 24mm x 1.85mm. The NANDrive is offered in a 145 ball grid array (BGA), 1mm ball pitch package for easy, space-saving and cost-effective mounting to a system motherboard, and is ideal for data storage applications in portable computing, set-top box, industrial, automotive and networking systems.

Intel may be not very far away from releasing its third generation of solid state drives (SSDs), but that doesn't stop the company from updating its current "Postville" (Gen. 2) X25-M series of SSDs. The company recently listed a new 120 GB model, carrying the part number SSDSA2MH120G2K5. The drive comes in the 2.5" SATA form factor, and uses a SATA 3 Gb/s interface. It makes use of 34 nm MLC NAND flash chips, and offers read/write speeds of 250 MB/s and 70 MB/s, respectively. The TRIM command is supported. The X25-M G2 120 GB is priced at around €210.

Active Media Products, manufacturer of small form factor SSDs and unique USB drives, today launched the SaberTooth Z4 line of consumer grade 1.8-inch PATA ZIF SSDs as a performance upgrade solution for many popular notebook models. The new SaberTooth Z4 SSDs support sequential read and write speeds of up to 80 MB/sec and 38 MB/sec respectively.

The SaberTooth Z4 measures 2.8 x 2.1 x 0.2 inches (70 x 54 x 5 mm) and uses an industry standard PATA ZIF interface so it is interchangeable with standard 1.8-inch ZIF HDDs. It was designed specifically for consumer and professional laptop upgrades. The Z4 uses highly reliable MLC NAND Flash as the storage medium.It features garbage collection, wear leveling and bad block management built into the firmware to maintain a high level of performance and reliability over the life of the drive. The SaberTooth Z4 series delivers substantially faster bootup, application load and shutdown speeds than conventional PATA HDDs. It is one of the fastest and easiest ways to upgrade dozens of different netbooks and UMPCs to higher performance and more local storage.

Toshiba Corp. (Toshiba) and Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc. today announced the Blade X-gale SSD series, an innovative new form factor in high capacity, high performance solid-state storage. Available now, the new drives are offered in capacities of 64-gigabyte (GB), 128GB and 256GB, with a maximum sequential read speed of 220 MB per second (MB/s) and a maximum sequential write speed of 180 MB/s. Ideally suited for integration into space-sensitive products, including tablet PCs, laptops, mini-mobile and netbook PCs, Toshiba's latest SSD offering helps these devices achieve a super slim profile.

"Delivering a product that enables superior user experience in a smaller footprint is the ultimate goal," noted Scott Nelson, vice president, Memory Business Unit, Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc. "The density of MLC NAND enables the creation of smaller form factor high density storage solutions, and Toshiba, as the technology leader for NAND storage solutions, will continue to innovate in this space."

Zalman made its entry into the solid state drive (SSD) business by unveiling two lines of SATA SSDs in the 2.5 inch form factor. It includes the value-oriented S-series, and the performance-oriented N-series. Available in 32 GB, 64 GB, and 128 GB, the S-series models make use of a JMicron controller with up to 260 MB/s of read speeds, and 60 MB/s writes for the 32 GB model, 120 MB/s writes for the 64 GB one, and 210 MB/s for the 128 GB one. The Zalman S-series 32 GB, 64 GB, and 128 GB SSDs are expected to be priced at US $99, $149, and $249, respectively. These drives do support the TRIM function.

The N-series SSDs make use of a SandForce SF-12xx controller, with sequential read speeds of up to 280 MB/s and 270 MB/s writes, consistent for both the 64 GB and 128 GB models. The N-series 64 GB model is priced at $169, and 128 GB model at $289.

Kingston Digital, Inc., the Flash memory affiliate of Kingston Technology Company, Inc., the independent world leader in memory products, today announced the launch of its next generation SSDNow V+ solid-state drive (SSD), the Kingston SSDNow V+100. The new V+100 provides corporations with a viable solution to extend the life of currently installed client systems while meeting user performance expectations.

The new drive features enhanced garbage collection that is not OS dependent, making it a solid upgrade path to extend the life cycle of older client systems. The V+100's drive performance has also been increased by 25 percent, enabling more efficient data transfer over the previous generation. In addition, a new 96GB capacity has been added to the family offering a broader range of choices to enterprise customers.

Walton Chaintech Corporation, manufacturer of memory modules and computer components and accessories, today announces three brand-new APOGΣΣ SSD series to demonstrate its capability in fulfilling consumers' requirement in high-speed and large storage equipments. The APOGΣΣ A-series, C-series and L-series all incorporate the mainstream SATA II interface, and yet, each offers unique features and targets at different segment of gamers, price-sensitive and entry-level consumers, respectively.

The APOGΣΣ A-series SSD offers unsurpassed solid performance without sacrificing its cool, quiet and energy efficient operation conditions. Built with SATA II interface, it can be easily integrated into today's mobile and desktop platforms.

Stealth.Com Inc., a leader in the industrial computer and peripherals market has released a new ultra small PC designed specifically for in-vehicle/mobile/embedded applications. Stealth's model LPC-100M is a rugged small form PC that operates from 10-26 VDC power input making it ideal for DC powered applications typically found in vehicles and remote applications.

According to Stealth CEO, Ed Boutilier; "One of the unique attributes the LPC-100M mobile computer possesses is a user selectable smart power control interface. Start-up and shut-down times are user definable allowing for safe application launching along with a controlled shutdown period. This is absolutely critical in preventing data corruption when power sources are interrupted in mobile and field environments."

OCZ Technology Group, Inc., a leading provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) and memory modules for computing devices and systems, announces the launch of The RevoDrive X2 PCI-Express SSD, a follow-up to the successful launch of the first RevoDrive, with increased performance and capacity to serve high-performance computing consumers. The RevoDrive X2 upgrades the original architecture to deliver unprecedented speed up to 740 MB/s and up to 120,000 IOPS, nearly triple the throughput of other high-end SATA-based solutions with a substantial reduction in the total cost of ownership (TCO) to the consumer. The product is available now through OCZ's global channel.

"The original OCZ RevoDrive SSD was designed to be the first high-performance, bootable PCIe SSD solution and has become a popular choice for demanding computing applications that require faster, more reliable storage," said Ryan Petersen, CEO of OCZ Technology. "Building on the success of the original design, we are excited to introduce the RevoDrive X2, which delivers both increased performance and capacity, making the RevoDrive X2 a viable option for a wide spectrum of applications that include professional graphic design, multimedia rendering, and workstations. With our recently announced new state-of-the-art SSD manufacturing facility in Taiwan, OCZ will continue to be at the forefront of developing and deploying game-changing solid state storage solutions."

Other World Computing (OWC), the leading provider of Mac and PC performance upgrades, storage drives and accessories, announced today the OWC DIY Hard Drive Kit, the easiest and lowest-cost way to upgrade your laptop hard drive at home, school, or office to a faster (to 7200RPM!), larger (to 1TB!) hard drive or high performance SSD without sending the laptop out for repairs or buying a new laptop. The OWC DIY Hard Drive Kit provides everything you need to increase space and performance for your MacBook, MacBook Pro, Mac mini storage, or PC laptop and be "green" by re-using your "old" hard drive as a new portable external drive.

Public authorities, tax accountants, CPAs, and hospitals - only a few examples for a realm where customer data are highly confidential. Particularly awkward is carrying such data e. g. on an external HDD. For users, who want to protect the data entrusted, here is a safe, practical as well as reasonably priced solution.

In the new ICY BOX IB-SAFE226, an external enclosure, an AES-256 encryption protects the data on the 2.5" SATA HDD. The user needs a physical key and the enclosure with its special chipset. To decrypt the HDD he needs the same key and an appropriate enclosure. Without the key: nothing. So you better do not keep the key too close to the enclosure.

Patriot Memory, a global pioneer in high-performance memory, NAND flash and computer technology, today announced the immediate availability of the Torqx TRB series of solid-state-drives (SSDs). The Torqx TRB series of SSD offer improved system responsiveness with quicker boot times and shorter application loading times over traditional hard disk drive storage solutions.

Patriot's Torqx TRB series, available in 32GB and 64GB capacities, is designed around the latest generation controller from JMicron: JMF616. With a controller level cache of 64MB DDR2, the Torqx TRB series provide stutter-free performance and offer speeds of up to 260MB/s Read and up to 115MB/s Write. To maintain performance integrity over the life of the drive, the Torqx TRB series SSDs include native support for the TRIM command in Microsoft Windows 7.

Months after bringing to the world an updated lineup of iMacs, Mac Pro workstations, and Macbooks barring the Macbook Air, Apple has finally given its due, with a new updated Macbook Air. Apple's ultra-thin, and ultra-light notebook is now available in two sizes, 13-inch and 11-inch. Internally, there are no radical changes. It still uses a Core 2 Duo, clocked at 1.40 or 1.60 GHz for the 11-inch and 1.80 GHz or 2.13 GHz for the 13-inch version with 3 MB (11-inch) or 6 MB (13-inch) of L2 cache , 2 GB of DDR3 memory (with the option to choose 4 GB), and NVIDIA GeForce 320M integrated graphics. Unlike with the older generation, the new Macbook Air uses SSDs on all available variants, it's hardwired on its motherboard (apparently to minimize space), and comes in capacities of 64~128 GB (11-inch) or 128~256 GB (13-inch).

It is over the hood that most changes are made. The unit is now thinner at 0.11-0.68 inch (0.3-1.7 cm), lighter at 1.06 kg for the 11-inch and 1.32 kg for the 13-inch. Apple claims to have learned a lot from iPad's design. It's given the new Macbook Air a larger glass trackpad that uses high-precision multi-touch surface used in Apple's touch products, which enhance the user-interface beyond just doing the work of a pointing device. The screen used has high pixel density, with 1440 x 900 pixels for the 13-inch and 1366 x 768 pixels for the 11-inch model. A high-resolution Facetime web-camera is fitted. The Macbook Air provides all the software capabilities of any other Mac, the Mac OS X Snow Leopard OS and iLife are bundled. Battery life has also gone up, 5 hours for the 11-inch and 7 hours for the 13-inch. Prices start at US $999 for the 11-inch model and $1,299 for the 13-inch one, and go up depending on the optional components chosen.

The High Speed Data Link (HSDL) interface, designed by OCZ as an alternative to SATA and SAS, for high data-rate and high I/O solid-state drives (SSD) in an enterprise environment, gained quite some attention. Funky Kit scored a sample, and got the chance to dissect OCZ's first SSD that makes use of the HSDL interface, the IBIS 160 GB. OCZ also found a novel way to propagate HSDL, by bundling a single-port PCI-Express x4 addon card. Upon taking apart the card, one can understand exactly how it works. Under the hood, there are two main PCBs, one that houses a HSDL-based 2-port SATA RAID controller, and the other, which holds two independent SandForce-driven SATA SSD sub-units.

Two two SSD sub-units are striped in an internal RAID 0, which is kept abstract to the host. The HSDL itself is technically very similar to PCI-Express, in being a point-to-point serial data link. The IBIS SSD is rated to have read-write speeds of 740 MB/s and 690 MB/s, respectively, with 4KB random write performance of 100,000 IOPS. The drive connects to its host PCI-E addon card over a proprietary-design cable, while retains the SATA power connector input of conventional SATA devices. The drive itself adheres to the 3.5" PC form-factor. More pictures can be found at the source.

OCZ Technology Group, Inc., a leading provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) and memory modules for computing devices and systems, has announced the opening of a new SSD manufacturing plant in Taipei, Taiwan slated to begin operation on Monday, October 25.

A testament to the Company's dedication to market leadership, the new facility features best of class manufacturing, as well as test and burn-in technology required by the Company's growing OEM client base. The new facility increases the Company's SSD manufacturing capacity to 140,000 units a month from 50,000 units a month internally, accommodating the growing demand for both client and enterprise OCZ SSDs.

Iomega Corporation, an EMC company and a leading innovator in digital storage and protection solutions for consumers and small and medium businesses, today announced new host-powered Iomega External USB 3.0 SSD Flash Drives, rugged solid state drives utilizing the blazing fast speed of the USB 3.0 interface and the security of built-in encryption - the perfect portable storage device for high-end users, creative professionals and others who demand the best in performance, security and portability.

Leveraging EMC's world class solid state expertise and implementation in enterprise network storage solutions, Iomega's new pocket-sized 1.8-inch external USB 3.0 SSD Flash drives will be available in early November in 64GB, 128GB and 256GB capacities.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the world leader in advanced memory technology, announced today the industry's first production of a 3-bit-cell (3bit), 64 gigabit (Gb) NAND flash using 20 nanometer (nm)-class process technology. The highly advanced new chip can be used in high-density flash solutions such as USB flash drives (UFDs) and Secure Digital (SD) memory cards.

"Samsung has repeatedly provided the market with leading-edge NAND flash solutions, including the introduction of 30nm-class, 32Gb 3-bit NAND flash last November," said Seijin Kim, vice president, Flash Memory Planning/Enabling, Samsung Electronics. "By now entering into full production of 20nm-class 64Gb 3-bit devices, we expect to accelerate adoption of our high-performance NAND solutions that use Toggle DDR technology, for applications that also require high-density NAND."

Mushkin, Inc., a global leader in high-performance and mission critical computer products, today announced a new solid state drive series based on SandForce's enterprise-class SF-2500 and SF-2600 SSD processors. This series further underlines Mushkin's commitment to providing the business sector with the highest performance and reliability solid state storage solutions.

The next generation Mushkin EP Series SSDs will provide significant performance enhancements and add an impressive set of features enabled by the SF-2000 series enterprise processors:

• Up to 500 MB/s read/write sequential transfer rate
• Up to 60,000 sustained random read/write IOPS
• Advanced ECC with up to 55 bits correctable per 512-byte sector (BCH)
• Power/performance throttling for improved energy efficiency and conservation

Viking Modular Solutions, a division of Sanmina-SCI Corporation, today announced it has incorporated the SandForce SF-2000 processor family into its product portfolio, with new solutions ready for qualification in the first quarter 2011. Just released, the SF-2500 and SF-2600 are the second generation SandForce SSD processors for enterprise storage environments, and are designed to enable standard high density NAND Flash memory to reliably operate in SATA- and SAS-based enterprise storage applications without compromising performance.

Viking Modular has quickly developed and perfected SSD solutions in multiple form-factors for this latest generation, offering devices that can deliver 6Gb/s SATA III with performance expectations of 60K IOPS random read and write, and 500 MB/s sequential read and write. In addition, these devices utilize DuraClass technology, architected to leverage advanced SLC and MLC NAND Flash memory, and to deliver best-in-class performance, endurance, security and power efficiency in a single chip solution.

Lexar Media, a leading global provider of memory products for digital media, today introduced a 1.8" footprint version of the award-winning Crucial RealSSD C300 product line. The 1.8" profile, which is approximately 40% smaller than the standard 2.5" drive, provides an excellent solid-state storage option for the most portable products such as ultra-thin laptops, netbooks, and tablet PCs - without sacrificing performance and capacity. Based upon the Micron RealSSD product design and innovation, the new Crucial RealSSD C300 1.8" drive utilizes (multi-level cell) MLC NAND, advanced controller technology, and optimized NAND management, which together improve boot up and application load times dramatically and enhance overall system performance. No moving parts provides for quieter, cooler, and more durable solutions compared to traditional hard disk drives.

Following today's launch of the SandForce SF-2000 series SATA/SAS 6 Gb/s SSD processors, Other World Computing (OWC) announced its first enterprise-grade Mercury Extreme PCI-Express SSDs making use of these controllers. The first products in the company's next-generation Mercury Extreme lineup will start shipping early next year. These include a PCI-Express x16 card with eight SF-2000 series-driven SSDs in an internal RAID, totaling 3.2 TB in capacity, 4,000 MB/s sequential read, and up to 480,000 IOPS. A PCI-Express x8 model is also in the works, perhaps with lesser number of internal SSDs. There's scope for enterprise-grade features making use of SF-2000 series feature-set. SF-2000 series controllers enable features such as native 256-bit AES data encryption, and native command queuing with 32 concurrent operations. Applications of OWC's SSDs include I/O intensive enterprise servers, storage arrays, and high-end workstations in the financial, telecom, web/mail, gaming, public security, retail, and professional media creation/editing industries, according to the company.

OCZ Technology Group, Inc., a leading provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) and memory modules for computing devices and systems, is teaming up with SandForce Inc. to deliver exceptional new SSD products that leverage Serial-ATA (SATA) 6 Gb/s and cost-effective NAND flash components. With the updated architecture, the OCZ Deneva Family will continue to lead the way in the transition from hard disc drives (HDDs) to SSD data storage and IT infrastructures. OCZ is set to begin sample distribution to current and potential clients in the fourth quarter of 2010, with mass production beginning in the first quarter of 2011.

"We have a strong partnership with SandForce and are excited to utilize their new SF-2000 family of SSD processors in our next generation Enterprise and Industrial Solid State Drive products," said Alex Mei, CMO at the OCZ Technology Group. "Together we will be able to offer our enterprise clients a very robust line of ultra reliable 6 Gb/s SSDs in a variety of interfaces ranging from SATA to SAS within our customizable Deneva Series."