The pursuit of speed for IT products is always endless. Therefore, Apacer devotes to breakthroughs and innovation in technology and is fully prepared to provide the high-speed storage products to customers before the R & D of the next-generation product. Apacer launches the new generation of SDM5 (SATA Disk Module), which adopts the SATA 3 (6 Gb/s) high-speed transmission interface, Toggle DDR 2.0 NAND Flash, as well as the specifically designed 2-Channel bidirectional structure. The sequential read/write speed reaches 315/145 MB/Sec and provide an excellent performance of high speed read, all of which enable the SDM5 to be one of the fastest storage solutions in the next generation IT products.

Apacer SDM5 connector adopts standard 7-pin Signal and 15-pin Power male SATA connector. To provide greater flexibility, Apacer rolls out two new designs - perpendicular (at 90°) and parallel (at 180°) - for 22-pin SATA connectors.

IntelliProp, Inc., a leader in innovative semiconductors for Data Storage applications, announced today the availability of a new, SATA SSD (Solid State Drive) Flash Controller, the IPA-SA129-CT. The new device was developed at IntelliProp's Longmont design center using their internally developed cores (SATA, flash, ECC, AES) and logic. The first customer development is preparing for production.

The IPA-SA129-CT is an SSD (Solid State Drive) flash controller for Serial ATA (SATA) applications supporting SATA 6 Gb/s speeds. The IntelliProp IPA-SA129-CT (code named "Apache") features enterprise class ECC:BCH error correction, True End-to-End CRC, AES-XTS-256bit encryption and supports both MLC and SLC flash. The data path for read and write IO's of the IPA-SA129-CT controller is managed by IntelliProp's proprietary hardware accelerator engines to provide consistent, low latency access to user data. This data path architecture focuses on maximizing IOPS and throughput while allowing the embedded processor cycles to be dedicated to garbage collection and background management tasks.

Dell unveiled its newest line of Ultrabooks, the Latitude 7000 series, which includes the 12.5-inch E7240, and 14-inch E7440. Both feature otherwise similar specs, which should narrow your search down to how big your Ultrabook should really be. Both are about 20 mm thick, feature 1366 x 768 pixels resolution with their displays, Core i3 "Haswell" 1.70 GHz dual-core processors, 4 GB of RAM, 128 GB SSD storage on the E7240, and 320 GB HDD storage on the E7440. The Latitude E7240 is priced at US $1,169, while the E7440 goes for $1,049.

Virtium, a leading provider of storage and memory solutions for industrial embedded systems, today introduced its DecaStor line of solid state drives (SSDs). Designed to help embedded systems OEMs rely on a ready supply of SSDs in hard-to-find capacities, Virtium DecaStor 2.5 and 1.8-inch SSDs are ideal storage solutions for applications designed around 80, 160 and 300 gigabyte (GB) capacity points. DecaStor SSDs also feature 10-channel controllers, which deliver compatible transfer speeds for a wide range of networking, industrial, in-flight entertainment, PoS terminals, gaming equipment and mobile monitoring systems.

"Most of our OEM customers design their applications around specific capacity points," said Gary Drossel, vice president of product strategy at Virtium. "Migrating to different capacities is not as easy as it is in the client space and often creates the need for software changes that must be re-qualified. Virtium saves industrial embedded OEMs from this software effort with drop-in 1.8 and 2.5-inch SSD replacements previously offered by suppliers that are now opting to pursue the data center and client markets."

Serial ATA International Organization (SATA-IO), the industry consortium dedicated to sustaining the quality, integrity and dissemination of Serial ATA (SATA) technology, today announced the ratification of its revision 3.2 specification. The latest specification includes SATA Express, a new specification that enables the coexistence of SATA and PCIe storage devices, as well as enhancements in power management, new SATA form-factors, and optimizations for solid state hybrid drives (SSHDs).

"SATA technology continues to evolve to accommodate ever-changing storage industry requirements," said Mladen Luksic, SATA-IO President. "The updates featured in the revision 3.2 specification, such as SATA Express and enhancements for emerging solid state hybrid drives, are driven by current market trends. These new features demonstrate SATA-IO's ongoing commitment to providing low-cost, high-performance storage solutions."

Plextor, leading developer and manufacturer of high-performance digital storage devices, is slated to give a sneak preview of their new M6 SSD at the Flash Memory Summit and Exhibition August 13-15 to be held at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA.

The M6 features the next generation of Plextor's proprietary TrueSpeed technology working in tandem with the Marvell 88SS9187 controller for enhanced performance and reliability. The new drive will also feature the latest generation of A19 Toggle NAND flash from Toshiba and an ultra-slim 5 mm casing. Additional product specifications and a formal release date are expected to be announced in the coming months.

Sony is raising the status of its VAIO Duo, Pro and Fit models by releasing a limited number in a lustrous, rich, glossy red. The VAIO | red edition is distinctly Sony featuring exquisite details, extreme portability and speedy performance. The signature red finish is achieved by a variety of painting techniques on different materials, including carbon fiber and aluminum. Multiple paint layers are individually applied and hand-polished, building layer upon layer of rich, lustrous color. To give it that extra glossy finish, a durable protective UV coating creates an extra vibrant sheen with gorgeous depth and richness.

In addition to premium luxury design, the new VAIO | red edition is fused with the power of Sony's display technologies, exceptional camera quality and audio technology. "Sony has a tradition of designing products built on passion and innovation," said Pedro LaFarga, SVP, Sony VAIO & Networked Products Division. "The new VAIO | red edition is the ultimate in superior PC technology and ensures VAIO users truly experience a level of quality that exceeds expectations. Nothing matches the inspiring look and sheer presence of Sony VAIO Red."

PNY Technologies, a leading manufacturer and supplier of memory, imaging and graphics solutions, today introduces the sleek and durable SSD Prevail 5K, the latest in PNY's new line designed for the high-performance, enterprise market. Like its predecessors, PNY's SSD Prevail 5K delivers a solid combination of performance, price and endurance.

The PNY SSD Prevail 5K, is equipped with high performance features such as eMLC NAND memory modules. This drive is designed for use in a professional environment such as CAD/CAM workstations or video editing, RAID server storage or cloud computing.

Avant Technology has shipped its 1 Terabyte (1 TB) and 2 Terabyte (2 TB) Enterprise class Solid State Drives, effectively doubling the capacity of the largest SSDs available up to this point. These 1 TB and 2 TB drives merge the capacity of an HDD with the performance of an SSD to create the ultimate 2.5" drive. Enabling this capacity increase is the unique SATA bridge technology provided by IntelliProp Inc. in Longmont, CO. Avant and IntelliProp will be showcasing this technology at the 2013 Flash Memory Summit.

"The Avant and IntelliProp teams have worked closely to integrate IntelliProp's device with our drive design expertise to enable a family of high capacity SSD drives with excellent uncompressible data write performance. These drives set the stage for continued advancements in data storage and Avant will be at the leading edge." - Paul Goodwin, Avant Technology Chief Technology Officer.

Kingston Technology Europe Co LLP, an affiliate of Kingston Technology Company Inc., the independent world leader in memory products, today announced a series of Na'Vi branded products , developed in collaboration with the world's multiple champion eSports club Natus Vincere. The long and productive partnership of Kingston and Na'Vi has helped to create a series of bright & stylish branded products. Having won seven world championships and more than 2.5 million dollars in prize money, unlike anyone else, the professional players of Natus Vincere team, know which technical resources are necessary in order to become a champion.

The Na'Vi branded limited edition products are primarily aimed at gamers and enthusiasts, who require high performance and reliability, as well as all fans of Na'Vi and eSports, who want to own this unique product to show their support. The Na'Vi Limited Edition collection includes the SSD drives based on the high performance, award winning HyperX 3K model, available with a capacity of 120 GB or 240 GB, as well as top quality HyperX Genesis memory module kits.

eASIC Corporation, a provider of NEW ASIC devices today announced a strategic investment by Seagate Technology. In addition to the equity investment, eASIC and Seagate also are exploring opportunities to jointly develop custom silicon solutions for Seagate's portfolio of Solid State Drives (SSD) that would combine Seagate's expertise in SSD with eASIC's expertise in fast time-to-market, low-cost and low-power custom silicon solutions.

As FLASH memory continues to evolve at a rapid pace from 2 bits per cell, 1xnm (MLC) to 3 bits per cell 1xnm (TLC) and the industry continues to adopt a wide variety of host interfaces such as PCI Express, NVMe and SoP (SCSI over PCI Express), Seagate and eASIC seek to deliver high-performance, low-cost and low-power SSD solutions for the consumer, enterprise and cloud computing.

Schenker Technologies UK Ltd, subsidiary of Schenker Technologies GmbH today announced their most powerful 13.3" HD portable laptop to date. The XMG P303 packs a punch with a top of the range 4th gen Intel Core i7 2.80 - 3.80 GHz quad core processor, three storage drives and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 765M with 2GB GDDR5 memory, NVIDIA's best in class gaming graphics available for a laptop of this size. Under a year ago, the sheer performance of the P303 was physically impossible in a chassis so small, the P303 is a breakthrough for laptops" remarked Neil Richards, Managing Director, Schenker Technologies UK.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the world leader in advanced memory technology, today announced that it has begun mass producing the industry's first three-dimensional (3D) Vertical NAND (V-NAND) flash memory, which breaks through the current scaling limit for existing NAND flash technology. Achieving gains in performance and area ratio, the new 3D V-NAND will be used for a wide range of consumer electronics and enterprise applications, including embedded NAND storage and solid state drives (SSDs).

Samsung's new V-NAND offers a 128 gigabit (Gb) density in a single chip, utilizing the company's proprietary vertical cell structure based on 3D Charge Trap Flash (CTF) technology and vertical interconnect process technology to link the 3D cell array. By applying both of these technologies, Samsung's 3D V-NAND is able to provide over twice the scaling of 20nm-class planar NAND flash.

Plextor, leading developer and manufacturer of high-performance digital storage devices, and Maingear, leading custom designer of high performance PC systems, have announced a strategic partnership. Plextor is currently center stage with their ultrafast SSD technology. This makes for a perfect match with Maingear that has a sterling reputation for award winning custom PC systems that are individually tuned for peak performance.

Plextor and Maingear featured a collaborative exhibit at last month's E3 - the annual gaming expo held at the Los Angeles Convention Center. The 2013 show was attended by upwards of 50,000 gaming enthusiasts.

Greenliant Systems, a leader in energy-efficient, highly secure and reliable solid state storage products, has entered the removable solid state drive (SSD) market and is sampling its new mSATA ArmourDrive GLS86 product line. Based on SATA NANDrive, using Greenliant's internally developed NAND controller, mSATA ArmourDrive is designed for applications that require industrial temperature capability, high reliability and long-life data storage.

mSATA ArmourDrive operates at extreme temperatures between -40 to +85 degrees Celsius with 1-bit-per-cell (SLC) or 2-bits-per-cell (MLC) NAND flash memory, which gives customers a dependable, industrial temperature mSATA SSD using cost-effective MLC NAND. Addressing the needs of space-constrained embedded systems, mSATA ArmourDrive measures 29.85mm x 50.80mm x 4.80mm (JEDEC MO-300).

sTec, Inc., a leading global provider of solid-state storage solutions, today announced it has expanded its s800 family of Serial Attached Storage (SAS) solid-state drives (SSDs) with the introduction of the industry's first generally available Micro SAS SSDs. Additionally, sTec announced that the new small-form-factor (1.8-inch) Micro SAS SSDs are available with stringent 256-bit AES-XTS encryption, enabling hardware-level security in cloud computing, data centers and web-based applications, as well as in government and defense environments where data protection is crucial. The new sTec Micro SAS drives are available directly from sTec and through its distribution channel.

Uniquely designed for blade servers, caching and high-density computing environments, the new Micro SAS drives provide storage-system developers with the smallest enterprise-class SAS SSD form factor yet. They meet the demanding performance, footprint and power requirements of today's enterprise-storage applications.

ASUS ROG today announced RAIDR Express, the first PCI Express-based SSD in the world with a DuoMode feature that allows it to work with either legacy (traditional) or modern UEFI BIOS. Aimed at hardcore gamers and PC enthusiasts demanding a faster and more reliable computer experience, RAIDR Express combines the best compatibility and great performance with incredible durability.

With 240 GB capacity, sequential 830 MB/s read and 810 MB/s write speeds, and bundled with tons of features that maintain the high-speed performance and extend the lifespan, RAIDR Express is made for real speed-demons. Boasting the gorgeous ROG red and black design with double-sided metal shielding and an incredible 620,000 hours mean time between failure (MTBF) to ensure quality, RAIDR Express is built to last.

Last week we had reported that Dell is working on a new power-packed mobile workstation dubbed the Precision M3800. At SIGGRAPH, Dell will take the wraps off their next-generation portable workstation. On their corporate blog, the company confirmed much of the rumored specifications which include:

• 4th Generation Intel Core i7 quad-core CPU
• NVIDIA Quadro GPU
• 16GB RAM
• QHD+ (3,200 x 1,800) multi-touch display
• 1TB HDD, or 512GB SSD

Despite being loaded to the brim, the Dell Precision M3800 will compress everything into a 0.7" thick body, which weighs in at 4.5 pounds. There's still no word on the pricing, but that should slip out soon. Whatever it'll be, it sure won't be cheap.

Intel launched its newest line of high-performance client SSDs, the SSD 530 series. Built in the 7 mm-thick 2.5-inch, 80 mm M.2, and mSATA form-factors, with SATA 6 Gb/s interface, these drives come in capacities starting from 80 GB. In the 2.5-inch form-factor, the SSD 530 series is available in 80 GB, 120 GB, 180 GB, 240 GB, 360 GB, and 480 GB variants; the 80 mm M.2 and mSATA form-factors it will be sold to OEMs in 80 GB, 120 GB, 180 GB, and 360 GB.

In its product brief, Intel didn't mention performance numbers specific to capacities, but gave out numbers applicable to all capacities - up to 540 MB/s reads, up to 490 MB/s writes, up to 41,000 IOPS 4K random reads, and up to 80,000 IOPS 4K random writes. The series is built around the latest version of SandForce SF-2281 controller with a few LSI refinements. It's based on Intel's 20 nm MLC NAND flash. The SSD 530 series, at least in the 2.5-inch form-factor, are expected to displace SSD 525 and SSD 520 series models from their current price-points.

The Acer Aspire S7-392, successor to the original Aspire S7 which was unveiled back in Computex 2012, has finally landed in the states. With a beautiful design and an ultra-high resolution display along with packing Intel's newest 4th generation Haswell based Core processors, Acer's refreshed Aspire S7-392 turned quite a few heads this year at Computex 2013.

OCZ Technology Group, Inc., a leading provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) for computing devices and systems, today announced the general availability of its ZD-XL SQL Accelerator which was first showcased live at Interop 2013 and won the Best of Show Award in the Data Center and Storage category. This award-winning product is a tightly integrated hardware/software storage solution that accelerates and optimizes Microsoft SQL Server database applications in enterprise environments.

ZD-XL SQL Accelerator includes a high-performance flash-based PCIe solid-state drive working in combination with innovative acceleration and caching software to deliver the right and relevant SQL Server data when the application needs it. Through a user-friendly advanced graphical user interface, ZD-XL provides simple step-by-step implementation wizards that guide database administrators (DBAs) through best practice models of its flash-based resources to deliver easy and efficient deployment into SQL Server environments.

SK hynix memory solutions (SKHMS) is pleased to announce that Dr. Khandker Nazrul Quader has joined SKHMS as President and CEO effective June 21, 2013. "It has been nearly one year since SK hynix acquired controller expertise through the acquisition of Link-A-Media Devices, now SK hynix memory solutions (SKHMS)," stated Dr. Park, President and CEO of SK hynix and Chairman of the Board of SKHMS. "The addition of Dr. Quader's leadership with his extensive background in NAND technology and design, Advanced Non-volatile memories and DRAM storage technologies and his extensive experience and expertise in Multi-level Flash memory management systems will further leverage the value of the SKHMS team, especially at this time of significant market growth in the areas of Flash memory based storage solutions. It is my pleasure to welcome Dr. Quader as part of SK family."

"I'm very excited to join and lead the SKHMS (formerly Link-A-Media) team at a time when the flash memory industry is poised for phenomenal growth in SSD and mobile markets," said Dr. Quader. "The integration of the controller solution know-how of SKHMS combined with the Advanced Non-volatile memories and DRAM technologies and the manufacturing capabilities of SK hynix is producing leading-edge products across multiple market segments. Full vertical integration of controller hardware, advanced flash memory systems architecture, firmware, NAND, other forms of non-volatile memory, and DRAM coupled with high volume memory manufacturing capability is quite rare in the industry and allows our customers to have a one-stop storage solution provider with the capacity, support and expertise the industry demands. The combined focus of SK hynix and SKHMS provides excellent opportunity to become a market leader in Enterprise, Client and Mobile storage."

NETGEAR, Inc., a global networking company that delivers innovative products to consumers, businesses and service providers, today announced ReadyNAS 3220 and ReadyNAS 4220, powerful new additions to the award-winning ReadyNAS product family (www.netgear.com/readynas). The new devices are the latest network-attached-storage (NAS) products to run on the revolutionary ReadyNAS OS, introduced in March 2013, that delivers high value, high performance storage with enterprise features to small and medium-sized businesses (SMB). Available for the first time in 2U rackmount form with 12-bay capacity, the new ReadyNAS 3220 and 4220 enable easy storage for businesses supporting up to 500 concurrent users.

NETGEAR has taken features and capabilities previously available only from expensive, large-enterprise vendors and dramatically simplified deployment and manageability to provide SMBs with affordable, powerful, and reliable NAS storage. ReadyNAS 3220 and 4220 feature a sleek new interface and the ReadyCLOUD web portal for full file management from any browser. Moreover, the newest members of the portfolio are the highest performing ReadyNAS solutions available and support 10GbE infrastructures, boast the latest in performance capability, and include innovative technologies such as unlimited snapshots and cloud-managed replication for dramatically reducing any possibility of data loss. Each device is virtualization-ready with iSCSI support, thin provisioning capability, and certification for interoperability with VMware and Microsoft - powerful tools for businesses taking advantage of virtual infrastructures.

Intel issued a product change notification (PCN), marked 112432-00, which attempts to improve the reliability of the system under heavy wireless network stress. A design flaw in Intel's reference NUC boxes equipped with wireless LAN and Thunderbolt came to light late last year, when a reviewer at TechReport discovered that when under stress, the mPCIe WLAN card can overheat, causing the neighboring mSATA SSD to malfunction. In its latest PCN, Intel included a 9.5 mm-thick flexible thermal pad on the top panel, which draws heat from the SSD, and conducts it to the chassis.

Dutch site Tweakers.net has reported that Dell is planning to introduce a new Precision series mobile workstation laptop. Dubbed the Precision M3800, this workstation on-the-go will pack a super high resolution display to the tune of 3,200 x 1,800 pixels. Phew, that's a lot of pixels, and all of them will be spread across 15.6-inches of diagonal real estate. Also in tow is a powerful Intel Core i7-4702MQ quad-core Haswell processor, 16 gigs of RAM, option between a 1 TB HDD or 512 GB SSD (hint, pick the SSD) and of course, the 15.6" 3,200 x 1,800 display (which can also be swapped with a 1080p panel... Right!)

The Dell Precision M3800 will reportedly measure just 18mm in thickness (0.7 inches) and weigh less than an average newborn, in just 2KG (about 4.4 pounds). The publication mentions that the starting price of the workstation will be $1,699, but could go up to $1,999 (you got to pay for the pixels). Of course, nothing's official. All we can do is wait for Dell to go official with the device, and hope that the specifications mentioned come true.