Intel Corporation today announced the Intel Solid-State Drive (SSD) Professional Family, including the Intel Solid-State Drive Pro 1500 Series. The new business-class SSDs are engineered specifically for easy IT deployment and secure manageability, and offer a lower total cost of ownership (TCO) with enhanced performance.

Migrating to SSD-based PCs can improve employee productivity by as much as 13 percent, according to research by J. Gold Associates. The Intel SSD Pro 1500 Series allows IT departments to increase employee uptime and reduce cost with its advanced manageability and security features. The Intel Stable Image Platform Program ensures that key drivers are in place and makes transitioning to the Intel SSD Pro 1500 Series simple and predictable. The ability to remotely manage assets and diagnose issues at the drive level means fewer deskside visits, so PC maintenance and repairs require less time.Image courtesy of HotHardware

OCZ Technology Group, Inc., a leading provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) for computing devices and systems, will showcase the company's latest enterprise storage and acceleration solutions at the 2013 High Performance Computing (HPC) for Wall Street Show in booth 201 at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City on September 9. One of the largest shows catering to the HPC market, it is an ideal venue for OCZ to showcase solid state storage products designed for addressing big data performance and low latency for financial applications.

OCZ will unveil the upcoming Aeon Series 3.5" SSD, a Non-Volatile Memory (NVM) SAS drive specifically targeted to meet the stringent requirements of latency sensitive applications currently being mired by legacy hard-disk drive (HDD) infrastructures. Designed for demanding transactional environments such as high-frequency trading (HFT), Aeon delivers the speed and ultra low latency read and writes of DRAM with the persistence and scalability of storage. Aeon reduces file system overhead in enterprise appliances while accelerating applications and improving overall I/O efficiency, along with providing unlimited endurance supporting an infinite number of drive writes per day without wearing out or slowing down.

Plextor (www.plextor.com), leading developer and manufacturer of high-performance digital media and storage equipment, gave a sneak preview of the upcoming M6 Drive and M.2 form factor SSD solutions at the IFA show in Berlin.

Plextor M6 Series
The M6 is the anticipated successor to the Plextor M5 Series. The M6 is a 2,5", 5 mm solid state drive for the consumer market and is scheduled to come in the following versions: a version for the high performance segment, the Pro version; and a version to cater the needs of average computer users, the S version. The M6 features the next generation of Plextor's proprietary TrueSpeed technology that works in tandem with the Marvell 88SS9187 controller for enhanced performance and reliability.

ASUS announced its first socket LGA2011 motherboard after Intel's Core i7 "Ivy Bridge-E" family launch. Sticking to the simplified model naming scheme introduced by its LGA1150 motherboard lineup, the board is named X79-Deluxe, and is styled just like them (black PCB, black expansion-slots, gold heatsinks). It is expected to ship with out of the box support for Intel's latest HEDT chips. The board is built in the standard ATX form-factor, drawing power from a combination of 24-pin ATX and 8-pin EPS connectors. It uses a 10-phase VRM to power the CPU socket, which is wired to eight DDR3 DIMM slots, and four PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slots. A couple of PCI-Express 2.0 x1 slots, wired to the PCH, make for the rest of its expansion.

Storage connectivity includes eight internal SATA 6 Gb/s ports, of which just two are wired to the X79 PCH, four SATA 3 Gb/s ports, and two eSATA 6 Gb/s. Out of the eight USB 3.0 ports on this board, you get six on the rear panel, two by header. The X79 Deluxe features the latest WiFi GO! module by ASUS, which lends it 802.11 ac WLAN, and Bluetooth 4.0 support. Of the two gigabit Ethernet ports on the board, one is driven by an Intel-made controller. 8-channel HD audio, and a number of USB 2.0/1.1 ports make for the rest. Among the ASUS-exclusive features are USB BIOS Flashback, EPU, TPU II, ASUS SSD Caching, and USB 3.0 Boost. The X79 Deluxe from ASUS is expected to go for US $349.99. Find a comprehensive review at the source.

Super Talent Technology, a leading manufacturer of NAND Flash storage solutions and DRAM memory modules, announces its NGFF SSD lineup.

Super Talent's NGFF lineup is based on the M.2 form factor for next generation notebooks. NGFF DX1 is 22.00 mm x 80.00 mm x 3.5 mm that supports speeds of up to 480/400 MB/s sequential read and write with a SATA-III interface. These space saving SSDs are the perfect solution for next generation mobile computing. The NGFF DX1 also has an internal cache to further speed up application load times and is easily mounted without any cables.

In the swarming SSD market, what better way to blast your way from obscurity to worldwide attention, than launching a ludicrously fast SSD? KingSpec unveiled the MC2J677M1T, a PCI-Express SSD that's tested to be capable of sequential speeds as high as 2.5 GB/s (gigabytes per second). Pictured below, the drive is an almost full-height add-on card with PCI-Express 2.0 x8 bus interface. The card seats a high performance SATA 6 Gb/s RAID controller by LSI (under that fan-heatsink), which is wired to eight mSATA 6 Gb/s ports, holding the eight sub-units.

The eight mSATA SSD sub-units on the MC2J677M1T each hold 120 GB of data (totaling 960 GB). Each sub-unit runs a JMicron-made controller, Intel-made MLC NAND flash, and Nanya-made DRAM cache. The LSI RAID controller is designed to be plug-and-play, i.e., the drive is bootable, and you won't need an F6 driver during Windows installation to detect the drive. A quick ATTO benchmark run by TheSSDReview, which has one of these drives, yielded sequential read speeds well past 2,500 MB/s.

Transcend Information, Inc. (Transcend), a worldwide leader in storage and multimedia products, today announced the addition of the SSD630I 2.5" Industrial Temp SATA Solid State Drive (SSD) and the 96GB SSD630 2.5" SATA SSD as part of its industrial SSD lineup. The new 2.5" industrial SSDs present enterprises with a more extensive product selection to meet the strict performance, stability, and capacity requirements of mission-critical industrial applications.

SSD630I Industrial Grade 2.5" SSD
Transcend's industrial grade SSDs undergo strict qualification to guarantee dependable, long-term performance in a wide temperature range. The SSD630I Industrial Grade 2.5" SATA II 3 Gb/s SSD has been extensively tested to confirm effective operation between -40ºC and 85ºC, making it suitable for computing systems that are often exposed to extreme temperature conditions such as industrial PCs and indoor/outdoor DVR surveillance equipment. Moreover, with speeds reaching 260 MB/s, storage up to 128 GB, excellent shock and vibration resistance, and low power consumption, the SSD630I offers many additional advantages for use in industrial environments.

Schenker Technologies UK Ltd, subsidiary of Schenker Technologies GmbH, today announced their XMG C703 super thin 17" gaming laptop. Housed within its sleek black aluminum chassis is a 4th Gen Intel Core i7 processor and NVIDIA Geforce GTX 765M graphics making the C703 one of the most powerful laptops in its class; and at only 22mm thin and weighing just 2.6kg, it's the worlds thinnest and lightest too at this specification. "The C703 has to be our most stylish laptop yet" remarked Neil Richards, Managing Director, Schenker Technologies UK, "Not only does it look and feel beautiful; the sheer power under the hood, light-weight design and up to 6 hour battery life makes it extremely versatile."

SanDisk Corporation (NASDAQ: SNDK), a global leader in flash memory storage solutions, today commemorates its silver anniversary by ringing The NASDAQ Stock Market Opening Bell. The event is the latest in a series of 2013 activities that mark the transformative impact SanDisk's technologies have had on businesses and consumers over the past quarter century. SanDisk's anniversary celebrations also include the company's 5,000-person workforce volunteering in charitable programs throughout the year in all countries in which SanDisk operates.

From launching the world's first solid state drive (SSD) in 1991 to introducing the industry's multi-level cell (MLC) flash technologies using two bits (X2) and three bits (X3) per cell, SanDisk's innovations have driven dramatic transformations across the electronics industry. SanDisk's flash memory innovations have enabled new markets and devices from digital photography to USB drives to smart phones, tablets and thin-and-light notebooks. Today, SanDisk is bringing flash memory to enterprise storage and transforming the data center.

It could soon become possible to overclock the controller and NAND flash of your SSD, if Intel has its way. The company is set to demonstrate how to overclock Intel-branded SSDs using its Xtreme Tuning Utility (XTU), at IDF 2013, which goes underway this September. The item on Intel's IDF itinerary marked "AIOS001" deals with seminars on overclocking Intel's next-generation HEDT (high-end desktop) platforms. X-bit Labs believes Intel could talk about SSD overclocking during that session.

Options to tweak SSDs were discovered when poking around the code of an unreleased XTU version. XTU is a unified software utility by Intel, which lets you tweak CPU, memory, and system cooling on systems running Intel Desktop Boards. Among the things end-users should be able to tweak, apart from the controller clock-speed, are the NAND flash bus-speed. Taking away interface overheads and other round-offs, 560 MB/s appears to be the practical maximum bandwidth SATA 6 Gb/s SSDs have been able to achieve. It could always be handy getting your SSD a few dozen more MB/s sequential speeds at the expense of stability.

Hot on the heels of its successful public beta, Synology advances DiskStation Manager (DSM) 4.3 to an official release. Building on its award-winning OS, DSM 4.3 brings dynamic new ways for users to share and display their digital assets; as well as expand on its feature-rich back-end for business. The private cloud has gotten even better. Cloud Station is now 30% faster with delta-updates. Linux users are now supported with an official desktop client. DS Cloud has been enhanced with selective sync; allowing users to select which file types, even down to which documents get synced. "For accessing and sharing digital assets, your private cloud just got a lot better," said Thadd Weil, Public Relations Manager at Synology America Corp.

August 26, 2013 - OCZ Technology Group, Inc., a leading provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) for computing devices and systems, and Mellanox Technologies, a leading supplier of high-performance, end-to-end interconnect solutions for data center and storage systems, have collaborated together to deliver flash I/O storage performance and complete fault tolerance (FT) to VMware clusters on top of on-host server flash and hard disk drives (HDDs). These SAN-less, fault tolerant capabilities will be presented in OCZ's booth (#711) at VMworld 2013, Moscone Convention Center, today through August 29th.

The combination of the Mellanox ConnectX-3 EN 40 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) network interface card (NIC) with OCZ's VXL Software replicates VMware datastores in virtualized SAN-less clusters. The combined solutions deliver industry-leading Ethernet connectivity, intelligent and efficient cache and flash volume distribution of PCI Express (PCIe) flash resources while enabling High Availability (HA) and Fault Tolerance (FT) services of VMware clusters.

Kingston Digital, Inc., the Flash memory affiliate of Kingston Technology Company, Inc., the independent world leader in memory products, today announced the SSDNow E50, the company's latest enterprise-class solid-state drive (SSD). SSDNow E50 enables performance-focused organizations that do not have heavy endurance needs to obtain the same enterprise-level performance as Kingston's SSDNow E100 but at a more cost-effective price point. A leader in memory solutions since 1987, Kingston will exhibit at VMworld (Booth 1647) to showcase the new drive.

SSDNow E50 allows companies to take advantage of enterprise-level SSD performance for tasks such as data caching, frequently accessed data within applications, online transactional processing and virtualization performance. SSDNow E50 helps alleviate I/O latencies and server bottlenecks by providing greater IOPS and higher bandwidth.

Mach Xtreme Technology Inc., a worldwide leader in top performance, high reliability and user-friendly designed PC components, today unveiled EXPRESS Series PCIe SSD add-on card. The MX-EXPRESS is implementing advanced dual-controller technology and is based on an unique driver-less design. Based on an innovative design, the low-profile MX-EXPRESS PCIe 2.0 x2 SSD card delivers an enhanced desktop computing experience with much faster application loading times, ultra-fast data access and shorter boot-ups of today's and future high-end desktops featuring PCIe 2x / 4x /16x interface.

The MX-EXPERSS continues our tradition of catering to power users who want the fastest and smoothest performance. It meets extreme data transfer needs, utilizing a PCIe 2.0 bandwidth. This add-on card is fully compliant with AHCI standard and thus is truly plug and play solution where no drivers are needed. The MX-EXPRESS PCIe SSD card puts the very latest storage technology in users' hands and sets a new benchmark for SSD add-on cards. In addition, this series maintains the highest level of read and write performance though the life of the SSD, making it a must have item for any serious enthusiast.

OCZ Technology Group, Inc., a leading provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) and power supply units (PSUs) for computing devices and systems, today announced that Joint Harvest, a leading distributor of IT and computer technology products in China, is now authorized to distribute OCZ's complete line of SSDs and PSUs. With deep roots in China's IT market, Joint Harvest has extensive expertise in promoting products and servicing local customers through the region's retail channels. This new partnership with OCZ will strengthen the commitment to provide consumers access to the latest products for high-performance systems and workstations.

"We are pleased to partner with Joint Harvest to support the growing high performance computing market in China," said Wayne Eisenberg, Senior Vice President of Global Sales, OCZ. "Joint Harvest shares our commitment to provide customers with leading-edge solutions along with comprehensive support services, and we look forward to making our solid state drive and power management products more readily available to customers in this important region."

Performance, speed, reliability and last but not least, a decent price are the most sought-after characteristics of every SSD from the user standpoint. Following these criteria, Polish manufacturer of memory modules and SSDs has just launched an all-new lineup for their in-house manufactured SSDs named GOODRAM SSD C Series.

On the occasion of Goodram brand 10th anniversary, Wilk Elektronik SA the company behind the brand, has just launched an all-new lineup of Goodram SSD drives. Goodram SSD C Series are consumer-grade drives dedicated for demanding users who are looking for a combination of performance and value.

MSI, world-renowned manufacturer of gaming hardware is officially introducing a new 27-inch, All-in-One Gaming PC: AG2712A. The MSI AG2712A features the Intel Core i7 3630QM quad-core processor, AMD's top-of-the-line Radeon HD 8970M discrete graphics card, and up to 2GB GDDR5 of graphics memory for the best gaming experience. The AG2712A comes with a brand new designed bezel, emphasized by its red lines which correspond with the colors of MSI's Gaming product lines. Furthermore, the AG2712A is equipped with Military Class 4 components and a Flicker-free anti-glare display. In cooperation with Plextor, MSI developed and integrated two SSD drives optimized for the AG2712A, which work in RAID 0 configuration. The AG2712A will become generally available in Europe by end of August of this year.

Corsair has today announced a new addition to its solid state drive offer, the Force LS Series models which are powered by a Phison controller and make use of Toshiba MLC NAND Flash memory. These SSDs have a 2.5-inch form factor (7 mm high), SATA 6.0 Gbps connectivity, TRIM support, and deliver sequential read/write speeds of up to 560/535 MB/s.

The Force LS SSDs are backed by a three-year warranty and come in 60 GB ($70), 120 GB ($110) and 240 GB ($200) capacities.

NZXT is happy to announce the arrival of the Phantom 630 Windowed Edition. Featuring a much desired full-sized window, the new Phantom 630 offers a window more than twice the size of the original. Naturally, all of the high performance features of the Phantom 630 are retained, including its fully modular, interchangeable hard drive cages, phenomenal liquid cooling support and discrete rear-mounted SSD trays behind the motherboard.

Along with an integrated 30-watt single channel fan controller, the Phantom 630 also features a split-level motherboard tray, offering unrivaled cable management and airflow capabilities. Further minimizing cable clutter, the Phantom 630 is equipped with a rear-mounted multi-port fan hub for a simple and clean fan controller setup. With complete support to accommodate a variety of high performance builds, the redesigned window is perfect for showing off any beautiful build. Additionally, NZXT will offer a standalone window upgrade panel that is compatible for both the Phantom 630 and the H630 chassis.

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Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the world leader in advanced memory technology, today introduced the first solid state drive (SSD) based on its industry-leading 3D V-NAND technology. Samsung announced its new SSD, designed for use in enterprise servers and data centers, during a keynote at the Flash Memory Summit 2013 here.

"By applying our 3D V-NAND - which has overcome the formidable hurdle of scaling beyond the 10-nanometer (nm) class*, Samsung is providing its global customers with high density and exceptional reliability, as well as an over 20 percent performance increase and an over 40 percent improvement in power consumption," said E.S. Jung, executive vice president, semiconductor R&D center at Samsung Electronics and a keynote speaker at the Flash Memory Summit. "As we pioneer a new era of memory technology, we will continue to introduce differentiated green memory products and solutions for the server, mobile and PC markets to help reduce energy waste and to create greater shared value in the enterprise and for consumers."

ADATA Technology, a leading manufacturer of high-performance DRAM modules and NAND Flash storage application products, today announced the launch of the Premier Pro SP310 mSATA solid state drive. Targeting consumers who are looking for a cost-effective upgrade to the SATA III specification, the SP310 supports Intel Smart Re4sponse Technology (SRT), which permits for the use of an mSATA SSD as a cache drive in conjunction with a traditional hard disk. This hybrid configuration delivers speeds comparable to systems with SSDs as primary drive.

The Premier Pro SP310 offers read and write speeds up to 410 MB/s and 180 MB/s respectively, with maximum 4K random write of 45,000 IOPS. Capacities of, 32, 64, and 128 gigabytes provide greater flexibility for system builders, in that the SP310 can be either a cache drive in a hybrid configuration, or primary storage (boot drive). In either setup, the improvements in booting and file loading speed are remarkable for such a low investment.

Mushkin, Inc., an industry leading designer and manufacturer of high performance and mission critical computer products, has announced the company will be at the 2013 Flash Summit. The leading performance solutions manufacturer will be present at the AVANT Technologies booth and will be showing off the Scorpion Deluxe and Ventura Ultra for the first time.

"Participating in the Flash Summit is a great opportunity for us to show just what we are getting ready to release and how we continue to innovate. We are confident in the Scorpion Deluxe and Ventura Ultra, and there is no better way to express that than to display just how fast and powerful they are," said Nicolas Villalobos, Director of Global Marketing at Mushkin, Inc.

OCZ Technology Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: OCZ) (the "Company"), a leading provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) and power management solutions for computing devices and systems, today announced that it has signed definitive agreements with various institutional and accredited investors to raise gross proceeds of approximately $13 million in a private placement of Senior Secured Convertible Debentures and Warrants. The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions. The Senior Secured Convertible Debentures are secured by a lien on all of the assets of OCZ Technology Group, Inc. and its subsidiaries, and are subordinate to the Hercules Technology Growth Capital, Inc. ("Hercules") Loan and Security Agreement. The debentures carry a 9 percent interest rate per year, payable in cash, and will mature on the one year anniversary of the closing date. The debentures are convertible into shares of OCZ Technology common stock at a conversion price of $1.70 per share.

In connection with the offering of the debentures, warrants will also be issued at closing that provide investors the opportunity to purchase common stock equal to 75 percent of the number of shares into which the debentures will be convertible, and at a strike price of $0.75 per share. The warrants will have a 5 year term from the closing date. Both the conversion price of the debentures and the exercise price of the warrants are subject to price adjustments in relation to anti-dilution events. "This new financing provides OCZ with additional capital to continue the transformation of our business as the Company continues to focus on delivering high performance, client and enterprise solid state storage solutions," stated Rafael Torres, CFO of OCZ Technology. In addition, OCZ Technology also announced that it has retained Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. as financial advisor to assist the board of directors in evaluating various strategic alternatives available to the Company.

SanDisk Corporation, a global leader in flash memory storage solutions, today announced the company is enhancing its solid state drive (SSD) line-up for businesses with the addition of the nimble and power-efficient SanDisk X210 SSD. The SATA-based X210 SSD is an ideal solution for IT decision-makers looking to maximize data center performance or enhance the responsiveness of PCs and notebooks. The new SSD is available now through SanDisk's SSD hardware and software sales channel, the SanDisk Commercial Business Channel.

"Since launching SanDisk's commercial SSD channel earlier this year, we have received a tremendous response from businesses that have seen significant advantages from incorporating SanDisk solid-state technology into their data center and workplace PCs and notebooks," said Tarun Loomba, vice president of Storage Solutions marketing at SanDisk. "Leveraging SanDisk's most advanced flash memory technology and smart power-saving capabilities, the X210 SSD is an exceptionally fast and cost-effective storage solution for this growing market, and a great addition to our SanDisk SSD portfolio."