Patriot Memory, a global provider of premium memory module and flash memory solutions, today announced it will be showcasing its award-winning products at CeBIT, which will be held in Hannover, Germany March 3-8, 2009. CeBIT attendees can expect to see Patriot's full line of DRAM and flash memory solutions.

"Europe was our second largest market in the world in 2008 and continues to show incredible growth potential," says Johnny Van Esch, General Manager for Patriot Memory, B.V. "CeBIT gives us the opportunity to meet with new and existing customers and to showcase our newest products for 2009 and beyond."

With no official word from Corsair and no leaked information before now, a 128GB Solid State Drive (SSD) has appeared on the UK Online Retailer Scan.co.uk. Named simply, the Corsair S128, with a product code of CMFSSD-128GBG1D, Corsair's product description reads, "Corsair solid state disk drives set a new standard for reliability in desktop and notebook storage solutions. Corsair solid state disk drives utilize specially selected Samsung components to enable a life expectancy of over 100 years and OEM level compatibility and performance consistency." With the mention of Samsung components, could these simply be rebranded units? Or has Corsair branched off into yet another section of the industry?

Bloomberg reports that Intel is planning on releasing a new, higher-capacity solid state drive, which will provide users with up to 320GB of storage capacity. In Q4 this year, the company will begin selling a total of eight new drives with capacity of 320GB, that will be part of Intel's Extreme and Mainstream SSD series. The chips used for these drives will be build using 32-nanometer production technology, Intel's most advanced manufacturing method for the time being. The source also clamins that Intel has already contacted its partners and informed them for the new drives.
The world's largest chipmaker also plans to introduce a new product called "Braidwood" that's slated for Q4 2009 too. It will include as much as 16GB of flash memory that will create "better responsiveness and boot-up time." Though it's unclear whether this solution will be integrated into Intel based motherboards or it will stand for an optional separate storage drive, made only for installing operating systems.

Kingston Digital, Inc., the Flash memory affiliate of Kingston Technology Company, Inc., announced today it is shipping the first two products in its SSDNow line of solid-state drives (SSD) with the SSDNow E Series and SSDNow M Series. Kingston is targeting its SSDs to Fortune 1000 companies and select vertical markets. The SSDNow E Series is specifically designed for the enterprise server environment while the SSDNow M Series is built for the road warrior who demands ultimate performance from a notebook PC. The Kingston SSDNow E and M Series use Intel's solid-state drives, which are the best-performing drives on the market.

"We are thrilled to enter the solid-state drive market with our SSDNow E and M Series SSDs. The combination of the fastest SSDs in the world along with Kingston's tremendous distribution capabilities and legendary customer service will position us to succeed in this arena," said Mark Leathem, director of Flash business development, Kingston Digital. "The performance capabilities of these first two offerings are off the charts and our enterprise customers will be very pleased to use them in servers and corporate laptop computers."

Transcend Information, Inc., the leading manufacturer of memory products, proudly announces the release of its stylish new 1.8-inch portable solid state drive (SSD) - the SSD18M. Combining the speed and durability advantages solid-state technology with the versatility of eSATA and USB connection interfaces, Transcend's SSD18M is an innovative new type of storage device that offers fashionable good looks and high-capacity mobile storage convenience. Unlike traditional hard disk drives, this handy device is made of reliable NAND flash memory that contains no moving parts, which not only eliminates the possibility of mechanical failure resulting from vibration and shock, but also provides substantial weight savings and reduced power consumption. With both eSATA and USB2.0 interface options, this portable SSD features the ultimate in connection flexibility, offering guaranteed speed along with multi-platform compatibility. Its new high-speed eSATA interface provides a maximum read speed of 90MB/s and write speeds of 50MB/s, while its USB2.0 interface assures maximum compatibility with all types of notebook and desktop PCs.

pureSilicon is demonstrating the highest-density SSD available today: the 1TB Nitro Series. This represents a major advance for the storage industry since it combines maximum density with high performance and low power demand. Four of these drives deliver 4TB in the same space as a standard 3.5-inch HDD, so server footprint requirements and energy consumption in data-intensive applications can be considerably reduced.

Team Group has just launched new more roomy and refined 256GB Combo solid-state drives. These MLC drives deliver a super read and write speeds of 170MB/Sec and 100MB/Sec respectively. They use the latest SATA 3gbps interface for internal use in computers or mini-USB when an external connection is necessary. The 2.5-inch Combo SSDs also come in a number of different capacities - 32GB, 64GB and 128GB. All drives ship backed by a 2-year warranty.

SanDisk Corporation today also unveiled its third-generation family of solid-state drives (SSDs). Using multi-level cell (MLC) NAND flash memory technology, SanDisk's G3 Series establishes new benchmarks in performance and price-performance leadership in the SSD industry. Designed as drop-in replacements for hard-disk drives (HDDs) in notebook PCs, the initial members in the SanDisk G3 family are SSD C25-G3 and SSD C18-G3 in the standard 2.5" and 1.8" form factors, respectively, each available with a SATA-II interface. Available in capacities of 60, 120 and 240GB, the unit MSRPs are $149, $249 and $499, respectively.

OCZ now has a formidable lineup of solid state drives (SSDs) based on the multi-level cell (MLC) design, top to bottom with the Vertex series on the top with read/write speeds of 200 MB/s and 160 MB/s respectively, aided by a large 64 MB cache; along with the entry-level Solid series offering speeds of 155 MB/s, 90 MB/s.

The company is now looking to fill the price/performance gap between Vertex and Solid series with the introduction of the Apex series SSDs. The new set of SSDs will replace the Core series on the shelves bringing better performance at similar price-points. DailyTech took a few quick snaps of these SSDs in its preliminary coverage of the CES. The Apex series SSDs will come in capacities of 30GB, 60GB, 120GB and 250GB, and will offer read/write speeds of up to 230 MB/s (read) and 160 MB/s (write). The come with the standard SATA 3.0 Gbps interface. OCZ might be, as with most companies, choosing CES as the occasion to launch these products. The pricing and availability isn't known as of now.

According to reports by TechConnect Magazine, the third generation of the SATA interface could be introduced as early as the second quarter of this year. The Serial ATA International Organization (SATA-IO), who have developed the technology, are expected to finalize specifications, with the launch of products sporting the new interface at the same time. The first backwards compatible drives to feature the new interface are expected to be solid state drives (SSD), followed by hard disk drives (HDD) shortly after. The main advancement is doubling the bandwidth from 3Gbps to 6Gbps, but until the official announcement of the final specifications are released, we will not know what further changes are in store.

Lexar Media, a leading global provider of memory products for digital media, today announced the immediate availability of the new Crucial.com Netbook Upgrade Center for purchasing DRAM memory, Solid-State Drives (SSDs) and flash memory cards suitable for most netbook products now available in the market. Netbooks, simplified notebooks designed to be affordable, energy efficient, and smaller in size, are growing in popularity with consumers because of their practical price point and no-nonsense capabilities. The Crucial.com Netbook Upgrade Center will help customers optimize the performance of their netbooks with the right upgrades and accessories. The complete line of DRAM, SSD, and flash memory netbook upgrades are now available at Crucial.com, Crucial.UK, or Crucial.EU.

ASUS is preparing the industry's first notebook with a 512 GB solid-state drive (SSD). The ASUS S121 comes in an ultrathin form-factor while carrying hardware that puts it in the grey-area between netbooks and UMPCs.

The S121 comes with a 12-inch LCD screen with a compact yet rugged chassis. It is powered by an Intel Atom processor running at 1.33 GHz and 512 MB of RAM. Its storage is care of a rather massive 512 GB SSD. Its availability and price isn't known at this point, though we suspect that with the exclusiveness built around this product coupled with ASUS categorizing it outside its ULPC/netbook lineup, it will carry a rather high price tag.

Samsung Electronics announced today at the Storage Visions 2009 Conference that it has developed a 100GB single-level cell (SLC) solid state drive for use in servers for applications such as video on demand, streaming media content delivery, internet data centers, virtualization and on-line transaction processing. As an alternative to traditional 15K rpm hard disk drives (HDDs), the new performance-optimized 100GB Enterprise SSD can process IOPS (input/output per second) more than 10 times faster than the fastest 15K rpm SAS HDD available. Designed to remove the system performance bottleneck in enterprise storage applications, the high-performance 2.5-inch enterprise drive reads data sequentially at 230 megabytes per second and writes sequentially at 180 MB/s. The 100GB SSD's advanced performance is attributed to a sophisticated 8-channel controller, improved NAND flash and special drive firmware, all developed by Samsung. The drive also consumes only 1.9 watts of power in seek mode and 0.6 watts in idle mode, reducing power and heat loads to minimum. Samsung intends to start mass producing the 100GB SS805 drive in the first quarter of 2009.

Joining the string of product launches that coincide with the 2009 CES event, is Imation's solid state drive (SSD) offerings under two distinct product classes: M-Class and S-Class. Both these product lines are available in the 2.5-inch and 3.5-inch form factors and use the standard SATA interfaces. While the M-Class SSDs use SATA-150, the S-Class use SATA-300 interface. They come in unformatted capacities of 32, 64 and 128 GB.

These drives have company-rated data transfer speeds of around 150 MB/s (read) and 90 MB/s (write) for the M-Class, and 130 MB/s (read) and 120 MB/s (write) for the S-Class. Apart from these drives, Imation also announced "upgrade kits" that include necessary tools to migrate an image of the older hard drive to these newer ones, saving the task of reinstalling software. The M-Class SSDs hit the stores in February with prices of $179.99 and above, while the S-Class series are slated for March.

G.Skill has also expanded its solid-state offerings, by introducing the new Titan SSDs. Available in 128GB and 256GB models, the 2.5-inch Titan drives make use of MLC (multi-level cell) NAND flash chips, have a second generation SATA 3.0 interface and a MTBF (mean time between failure) of 1.5 million hours. The drives also have built-in EDC/ECC data protection. The manufacturer claims sequential read and write speeds of up to 218MB/s and 162MB/s respectively. The G.Skill SSDs are covered in a strong metal alloy housing and ship with a 2 year warranty.

SanDisk Corporation today unveiled its next-generation of flash memory-based solid-state drives for adoption in various netbooks. Dubbed SanDisk pSSD-P2 and SanDisk pSSD-S2, the new flash drives feature SATA interface and come in capacities of 8, 16, 32 and 64-gigabytes. They are made using SanDisk's reliable 43-nanometer Multi-Level Cell (MLC) flash memory. SanDisk also claims that its new pSSDs are going to be very cheap when released, but unfortunately there's no exact information to confirm their words.
"Netbooks represent the fastest growing PC segment in 2009 and 2010 yet widespread adoption of SSDs in netbooks has been limited by speed, capacity and cost constraints," said Rich Heye, senior vice president and general manager, Solid-State Drives (SSD), SanDisk. "With the significant improvements in performance, capacity and low pricing, these SSDs are a perfect fit for the exploding netbook market."
SanDisk's second generation pSSD drives are slated to be available in February 2009.

G-Technology, a Fabrik company and manufacturer of premium storage solutions for the Apple Mac community, today announced a new family of external drives based on 2.5" solid state drive (SSD) technology - the G-DRIVE mini SSD (120GB and 250GB) and the RAID 0/1 G-RAID mini SSD (250GB and 500GB).

Known for delivering performance, style and reliability, G-Technology has married its premium design with state-of-the-art solid state drives, making the new G-DRIVE mini SSD and G-RAID mini SSD the most rugged and durable external drives in the market. As high-performance, plug-and-play storage devices, they are ideal for extreme users who capture, offload and edit digital content in challenging remote environments. Because the drives have no moving parts, each drive can withstand extreme shock up to 1500Gs and can endure higher altitudes, vibration and temperatures when compared to traditional hard drive-based solutions. Leveraging inherent benefits of SSDs, the new G-DRIVE mini SSD and G-RAID mini SSD also provide higher data transfer rates, lower seek times and use less power, all while delivering a cooler, quieter operation.

In the CES 2009, to be held in Las Vegas from January 8, MSI will once again capture the world's eyes with its prolific R&D and designs. In addition to introducing the whole new U-series models, MSI will launch the new All-In-One Wind NetOn models and MSI's first dual-core Atom All-In-One models. G-series notebooks, the first series surmounting 10000 points on 3Dmark, will also be exhibited. With such a strong cast, MSI will successfully become the focus on the international stage once again.

Following the popular MSI Wind Netbooks, U100 and U90, MSI will introduce some more portable netbook in CES, including MSI U115 Hybrid, and will also announce that MSI U120 is "WiMAX Ready". Moreover the first netbook capable of running SSD/HDD simultaneously, and MSI X-Slim Series X320, the 13" super portable notebook of just about 1.3 kg.

A-DATA Technology Co., Ltd., a worldwide leader in high performance memory products, announced today that it is launching XPG Dual SSD 3.5" RAID Enclosure to expand its portfolio of SSD solutions.

The A-DATA XPG Dual SSD 3.5" RAID Enclosure is a complete RAID solution through the use of two 2.5" SATA SSDs and/or HDDs mounted on one standard 3.5" form factor drive cage. This multifunctional RAID enclosure can be used as two separate drives, as a redundant drive to protect against drive failure, combined to become one high-performance drive or combined to become one large drive. By utilizing the hardware DIP switch on the back of the unit or included software utility, all these different RAID configurations and more can be set in an instant. Connection via SATA or USB enables easy direct access.

Advanced Media, Inc., is a manufacturer and marketer of the Ridata brand of electronic storage products, and digital accessories. The company is pleased to announce Ridata 233x Lightning Series CompactFlash cards plus a SATA Converter RAID 1. Compatible Ridata CF cards range in capacity from 512MB to 32GB. The adapter allows a CF card to function as a Solid State Drive (SSD). In the case of a hard drive failure, the CF card via the converter appears as an ordinary hard drive to any OS and can be configured as a boot device.

"Many of our portable device customers would like to try an SSD without the bigger price tag. Our industrial customers face the problem of waiting for long hard disk drive (HDD) rebuilds that may cause over heating issues. By using our CF card and SATA converter, users can hot swap the HDD with the card and converter saving storage rebuild time with low temperatures and high transfer speeds," commented Harvey Liu, president of Advanced Media, Inc.

MSI today announces U115 Hybrid. The very first notebook computer in the world that is capable of operating both SSD and HDD hard drives simultaneously, combining all the features of SSD and HDD in the U115 Hybrid for your enjoyment.

With MSI Exclusive Hybrid Storage Technology, in the "ECO on" mode, the battery life of U115 Hybrid is super long. This amazing battery life can escalate the mobility and the productiveness of the U115 Hybrid, which can also make your daily lives much more convenient.

A DRAM major is incomplete without a product lineup that includes solid-state drives (SSDs). Kingston is looking to fill the void in its lineup with SSDs. The company looks to update is lineup as early as by January 2009. Due to time constraints and to play safe with intellectual property terms, the company looks to source its products from manufacturing sources, with a monthly shipment goal of 10,000 units, according to a DigiTimes report.

Kingston co-founder David Sun stated that Kingston does not intend to cover the manufacturing part at this stage, as SSD technology involves numerous intellectual property (IP) items. Therefore, Kingston will enter the market follow the same path as for NAND flash products (memory cards and flash drives), by securing supply for its SSD products with Intel, Sun indicated.

Intel is expanding its award-winning Intel X25-M and X18-M SATA Solid-State Drive (SSD) family by announcing the production release of a 160 gigabyte (GB) capacity drive in a 2.5-inch form factor. The product is shipping now, and a 1.8-inch 160GB version will begin shipping next month. There's one more thing worth mentioning for these multi-level cell-based drives - their read and write speeds - and they are sustained read of 250MB/sec and 80MB/sec write. Get more information and product details here.

Toshiba Corporation today announced the expansion of their line up of NAND-flash-based solid state drives (SSD) with the industry's first 2.5-inch 512-gigabyte (GB) SSD and a broad family of fast read/write SSDs based on 43 nanometer (nm) Multi-Level Cell NAND. The new drives provide a high level of performance and endurance for use in notebook computers, gaming and home entertainment systems, and will be showcased at International CES 2009 in Las Vegas, Nevada from January 8 to 11, 2009.

Micron Technology today announced it has worked with Sun Microsystems to develop a new single-level cell (SLC) enterprise NAND technology that dramatically extends the lifespan of flash-based storage for enterprise applications. The result of the collaboration has yielded production devices capable of achieving one million write cycles, a milestone that will help prepare the industry for new uses in solid state storage set to come from Sun, Micron and others. The new technology delivers the highest write/erase cycling capability of any NAND technology available on the market.