Transcend Information, a leading manufacturer of industrial-grade products, today introduced the HSD740 half-slim SATA III 6Gb/s solid state drive (SSD). Featuring the latest SATA specification, Transcend's HSD740 SATA III half-slim SSD delivers peak performance in industrial grade standards, yet offers significantly smaller dimensions and superior long-term reliability than 2.5" form factor hard disk drives.

Transcend's HSD740 half-slim SATA SSDs are comprised of high-quality toggle-mode MLC NAND Flash chips, providing excellent solid-state performance in a lightweight compact package that measures just 54mm x 39mm x 4mm. In addition to their convenient compact size, the HSD740 SSD modules feature a high-bandwidth SATA III 6Gb/s interface that helps deliver fast transfer speeds reaching 510MB/s read and 185MB/s write. As a result, Transcend's new half-slim SATA SSDs offer significantly improved performance benefits, greater design flexibility, and cost savings to manufacturers of mobile computing applications such as Ultrabooks, Industrial PCs and notebooks, gaming systems, and handheld devices.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the world leader in advanced memory technology, today announced that it has developed the industry's first 2.5-inch (SFF-8639) NVM Express (NVMe) PCIe solid state drive (SSD), to open up the high-end enterprise storage market. The newly developed high-speed 1.6 TB NVMe SSD provides a sequential read speed at 3,000 MB/s, which allows it to process 500 GB (gigabytes) of data (equivalent to 100 Full HD movies 5 GB in length) in less than 3 minutes. When compared to other products with similar specifications, this new SSD is 14 times faster than a high-end enterprise HDD for server use, and six times faster than Samsung's former high-end enterprise SSD storage.

The XS1715's random read performance reaches up to 740,000 IOPS (Input Output Operations Per Second), which is more than 10 times as fast as existing high-end SSD storage options. The new NVMe SSD XS1715 comes in 400 GB, 800 GB and 1.6 TB (terabytes) versions. It can also be found on the NVMe Integrators List (IL), which makes it an easy-to-manage and highly reliable solution for data center and server storage customers. System performance can be improved dramatically by upgrading to the NVMe SSD XS1715 from a 2.5-inch HDD or a 2.5-inch SATA SSD.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the world leader in advanced memory technology, today held the 2013 Samsung SSD Global Summit at the Westin Chosun Seoul in celebration of the launch of its new solid state drive (SSD), the Samsung SSD 840 EVO. Along with the announcement of its latest SSD under the theme of "SSDs for everyone", the Samsung SSD Global Summit also explored the future of the global SSD market, which is quickly replacing the HDD market.

"After accelerating the growth of the SSD market by last year's launch of entry-level, high-performance SSDs we are introducing a much faster SSDs with up to 1 TB capacities offering consumers a wider range of choices," said Young-Hyun Jun, executive vice president, memory sales & marketing, Samsung Electronics. "Samsung continues to enhance its SSD brand image by delivering the industry's highest quality solutions and continuously increasing its SSD market share by expanding the adoption of higher density SSDs especially in client PC segments"

Despite its $900-ish retail presence, AMD's 5 GHz eight-core processor, the FX-9590, was designed to be an OEM part, where OEMs could deploy the right motherboard and cooling solution for the 220W TDP chip. One of the first OEMs to [dare to] come out with one such contraption is Japan's Mouse Computer. The company's G-Tune Masterpiece a1500BA1 desktop includes an AMD FX-9590 processor, and Radeon HD 8990 (re-branded HD 7990 "Malta") graphics card as standard equipment.

The Masterpiece a1500BA1 uses a Cooler Master Seidon 120XL to tame the 220W AMD FX-9590, and an unannounced MSI 990FXA-GD80 V2 motherboard to seat it. Other components include Kingston HyperX DDR3-1866 MHz 16 GB dual-channel memory, Samsung 840 Pro 256 GB SSD, an additional 3 TB HDD, a Blu-ray writer, and an unknown 1200W 80 Plus Gold-certified PSU. Windows 8 64-bit comes pre-installed. Based on the 32 nm "Vishera" silicon, AMD FX-9590 is an eight-core processor in the AM3+ package, with 4.80 GHz nominal and 5.00 GHz TurboCore frequency. The 5.00 GHz Turbo state spools up for all eight cores. Backed by a 1-year warranty (besides individual component warranties), the Masterpiece a1500BA1 is priced at a staggering 449,800 JPY (US $4,500).

Samsung Electronics America, Inc. today announced the U.S. launch of the ATIV Book 9 Lite. Taking a page from the celebrated and iconic design of the Book 9 family of PCs, Samsung continues to deliver on the promise of ATIV by offering consumers cuttingedge technology, seamless convergence and unparalleled style in a slim, compact form factor. The sophisticated, yet affordable Book 9 Lite gives users everything they need to stay connected, productive and entertained. It is now available for pre-sale in the U.S. and will be in stores beginning on July 28.

"With the ATIV Book 9 Lite, we created a device that fits the needs of a larger consumer base, while preserving the remarkable design and overall experience delivered by the Book 9 lineage," said Mike Abary, senior vice president of consumer IT product marketing at Samsung Electronics America. "To further streamline the computing experience and offer convenience to users, we built an integrated solution, SideSync, to bring together the mobile and PC ecosystems."

OCZ Technology Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: OCZ), a leading provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) and power management solutions for computing devices and systems today announces selected preliminary financial results for the first quarter ended May 31, 2013, subject to customary closing and audit procedures.
Preliminary revenue for the first quarter of fiscal 2014 is estimated to be between $50 and $55 million. The sequential decrease in revenue was primarily due to the continued tight supply of NAND flash. The Company's revenue mix continued to shift towards the mainstream and higher-end client markets, as well as enterprise and OEM solutions as the Company continued to focus on these end markets. At the end of the quarter there was an additional $23 million of shippable backlog that was unrealized in the quarter due to supply constraints.

Gross margin continued to improve and is estimated to be between 17% and 20% for the first fiscal quarter as revenue generated from our Enterprise solutions increased sequentially. The Company continued to reduce its operating expenses by further reducing non critical spending. The Company's break-even level continues to improve due to these actions. Operating expenses for the first quarter are estimated to be between $20 and $22 million, which include restatement related expenses of approximately $1.5 million and stock compensation charges of approximately $2 million. Cash flow improved as we reduced our quarterly cash usage to approximately $6 million in the quarter. Cash ended the quarter between $6 and $7 million with total debt outstanding of $10 million. The Company expects that it will require access to additional capital which it is currently in the process of securing.

HighPoint, an industry leading Storage HBA and solutions manufacturer, has launched the industry's fastest 4-Port USB 3.0 HBA - the RocketU 1144C. Powered by four dedicated 5 Gb/s USB 3.0 ports, a PCI-E 2.0 x4 host interface, plus UASP (USB-attached SCSI protocol) performance-enhancement boost, HighPoint's RocketU 1144C is the industry's fastest USB 3.0 storage controller. The RocketU 1144C is optimized for today's fastest USB 3.0 devices, and is well suited for a wide-range of applications including portable/removable storage, storage expansion, personal media libraries, and backup solutions.

RocketU HBA's can deliver even higher levels of performance when paired with UAS capable storage devices, such as RocketStor USB 3.0 Storage Docks. UASP (USB-attached SCSI protocol) enables USB 3.0 devices to store and process multiple commands in parallel; significantly reducing wait time and streamlining data transfers. The RocketU 1144C's UAS capabilities allow it to fully utilize the PCI-E 2.0 x4 host bus interface and deliver uncompromised transfer bandwidth for UAS capable devices such as USB 3.0 SSD's, hard drives, and enclosures. The speed and efficiency advantages provided by UAS capable devices are ideal for multi-tasking and performance-hungry applications.

Western Digital Corporation has acquired privately held VeloBit, a provider of high-performance storage I/O optimization software. VeloBit will be fully integrated into HGST, a wholly owned subsidiary of Western Digital. Headquartered in Lincoln, MA, VeloBit enhances storage system performance with its software technology by adding a transparent acceleration layer utilizing solid state drives (SSDs). Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
The acquisition builds on HGST's strategy to enhance the overall value of datacenter storage by integrating HGST SSDs with software. VeloBit's SSD caching software dramatically accelerates applications and increases server density by enabling higher I/O performance, lower latency, and more efficient usage of processor and storage resources.

Both the VeloBit acquisition and the proposed sTec acquisition by Western Digital reflect acceleration by its HGST subsidiary in the fast growing and strategic enterprise SSD space, augmenting its technology position and IP portfolio with additional engineering and design resources. "In VeloBit we saw a great team that has developed and commercialized breakthrough I/O optimization software," said Mike Cordano, president, HGST. "The acquisition of VeloBit is an important step in our strategy to develop robust software capabilities to augment our successful SSD product portfolio."

OCZ Technology Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: OCZ), a leading provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) and power management solutions for computing devices and systems, is updating investors on its restatement process.

"We know that our restatement efforts are top of mind for all investors. This process has taken longer than we expected due to a number of items. Complexity of the transactions, as well as resource issues, were the main drivers for the additional time needed. Rafael Torres, our new CFO, joined us in late March with significant restatement experience and has filled key financial leadership positions and improved the technical depth of the finance organization," stated Ralph Schmitt, CEO of OCZ Technology. "Through these improvements, we have implemented a more rigorous review process that has also resulted in the identification of additional restatement items that have taken some time to review, document and conclude on. Taking these items into account, we believe that we are on track to becoming current with our SEC filings before the end of August."

According to a leaked SSD product stack roadmap by Intel, scored by VR-Zone, the company is close to launching its next-generation performance-segment consumer SSDs, the SSD 530 series. The line succeeds Intel's SSD 520 and SSD 525 series, features the latest 20 nm MLC NAND flash, but the same LSI-SandForce SF-2281 controller (probably the latest revision, backed by a better firmware). According to the roadmap, the series should have debuted back in June, which never happened. Apparently, it's off by a month, and Intel moved its launch window to some time between the 8th and 12th of this month.

Intel's SSD 530 series will be available in three form-factors, including the familiar 2.5-inch SATA (7 mm-thick), NGFF M2, and mSATA. The drives will be available in 80 GB, 180 GB, 240 GB, and 360 GB for the M2 and mSATA form-factors; and 180 GB, 240 GB, 360 GB, and 480 GB for the 2.5-inch form-factor. At this point, nothing is known about their rated performance or pricing. Elsewhere in the lineup, SSD 335 series will continue throughout the year, going into Q1 2014, as Intel's mid-range SSD offering.

WD, a Western Digital company and world leader in digital storage solutions, today unveiled the fourth generation of WD Arkeia network backup appliances, delivering an all-in-one backup and disaster recovery solution for small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). The new line up consists of four rack-mount appliance models with larger internal disk capacities, faster processors, increased memory, and integrated solid state drives (SSDs) to shorten backup time and accelerate data recovery. The bundled WD Arkeia v10.1 software delivers new support for "seed and feed" technology to support hybrid cloud backups. This allows companies to move backups offsite via network replication rather than shipment of tapes.

"In announcing their fourth generation of purpose-built network backup appliances, WD Arkeia is delivering comprehensive SMB backup solutions that go beyond simple raw capacity increases," said Liz Conner, senior research analyst, IDC. "WD Arkeia offers easy-to-use data protection that takes the guess work out of purchasing, configuring and managing data backup & recovery, while also embedding features such as deduplication and hybrid cloud backup for small- and medium-sized businesses or remote offices."

BIWIN, a world-leading expert in the development and manufacture of flash and advanced NAND flash memory, has launched a new business-grade SSD that is perfect for the digital signage market, the half slim H6201. There are many different industrial applications for digital signage and the field is growing. To operate in public and outdoor environments, it is critical that the components are reliable, scalable, efficient and of low maintenance cost.

Flash memory is suitable for industrial grade products for a variety of reasons. By comparing with traditional HDD, SSDs are far more reliable because they have no moving parts. This makes them an ideal solution for deployments where heat, cold, dust, humidity and even shock and vibration are common. BIWIN SATA II Half-slim SSD H6201's MTBF of 2,000,000 hours is more than doubled comparing with mechanical hard drives, leading to lower maintenance costs. H6201 is extremely fast with the ability to handle high IO data throughput such as multiple data streams suitable for graphics and video in a very small package. SSDs are much more energy efficient. For example, H6201's maximum power consumption is 0.97W, which eliminates the dependency on system fans for cooling. The result is a quieter design with lower annual energy costs.

LSI Corporation today announced it has expanded the LSI Nytro product portfolio of PCIe flash adapters with a new, high-capacity 3.2TB Nytro WarpDrive accelerator card, and expanded capacity, connectivity and software capabilities across the Nytro MegaRAID product family. The new offerings extend the industry's broadest portfolio of PCIe flash adapter products, allowing customers to choose the optimal solution to uniquely address their challenges across a wide range of enterprise applications and datacenter workloads.

LSI Nytro products are being deployed to deliver the ultra-low latency and high-bandwidth performance required for Big Data applications, hyperscale web and cloud datacenters, financial services, and virtual desktop and server workloads. The products also help customers shrink their overall storage footprint and power requirements, leading to increased datacenter efficiency and lower IT costs.

Eurocom is currently shipping the fastest Haswell based 4th gen Intel Core i7 powered notebook with dual NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M graphics. The EUROCOM Scorpius 2.0 is a ultra high performance, VGA upgradeable laptop computer designed to offer the utmost in performance and capability. The Scorpius 2.0 is a fully customizable and upgradeable 17.3" Laptop with the newest and best available components to offer our customers the absolute best in no compromise performance.

Featuring dual graphics technology including dual NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M graphics cards offer EUROCOM Scorpius 2.0 users up to 8 GB DDR5 video memory, 3072 CUDA cores, 256 TMUs and 64 ROPs. The addition of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M, the highest performance mobile solution from NVIDIA, gives Eurocom customers a superior choice of graphics processor to configure into their new Scorpius, which already consists of AMD Radeon, NVIDIA GeForce and NVIDIA Quadro graphics to give Eurocom customers the exact graphics configuration to fit their specific application.

Lenovo today announced several new touch-enabled Windows laptops, along with Lenovo Miix, a platform-bending multi-mode device that adapts to a user's every need. As a 10.1-inch tablet that converts instantly into a fully-functioning, Windows 8 laptop, the Lenovo Miix combines versatility and power in one touch-enabled device. The IdeaPad S400 Touch, S500 Touch, S210 Touch, U330 Touch and U430 Touch all hail from the company's S Series and U Series, which are notable for their thin and lightweight designs.

The new Lenovo Miix, S Series and U Series devices demonstrate Lenovo's commitment to "touch" as a defining trend in consumer computing. Research analyst firm IDC expects the penetration rate of touch laptops, which now sits at close to 15 percent, to double next year. Leading that trend, Lenovo is innovating across traditional technology segments - such as desktop and laptop PCs - with its new multi-mode, touch-enabled devices.

Toshiba's Storage Products Business Unit of Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc., a committed technology leader, announces the slim, 7 mm MQ01ABFH solid state hybrid drive (SSHD) series. Equipped with Toshiba's NAND flash and available in 500GB1 and 320GB capacities, the MQ01ABFH series is the first Toshiba SSHD drive family in 7 mm. The series continues Toshiba's legacy of providing world-class storage products, and offers customers a complete lineup of 2.5-inch solid state hybrid drives with the previously announced 1 TB and 750 GB MQ01ABDH series 9.5 mm SSHDs for ultrathin and thin and light notebook PCs, multimedia and gaming applications, and traditional laptop PCs.

Drawing upon its knowledge and experience in NAND flash, Toshiba optimized the NAND flash performance into a tiered-storage approach that uses the speed of the DRAM and NAND components with the high-capacity of rotating media. The SSHD delivers SSD-like performance without dependence on external drivers or assistance from the host system. The PCMark Vantage Average HDD Score, the established industry method for measuring SSHD read/write performance and responsiveness, for the MQ01ABF500H is approximately 20,000, surpassing the 16,000 industry standard result.

SanDisk Corporation, a global leader in flash memory storage solutions, today announced a significant upgrade to its enterprise software portfolio with a new version of its FlashSoft software for Windows Server and Linux operating systems. FlashSoft 3.2 server-side solid state caching software complements and enhances the performance of existing applications, and server and storage systems.

"Solid state storage strategies are changing the economics of data management. The challenge, however, is adding enterprise flash technology without major disruptions to ongoing IT operations," said Jeff Boles, senior analyst and director of Lab Validation Services, The Taneja Group. "SanDisk's FlashSoft software efficiently integrates solid state cache into servers without changing where data is stored or the features and capabilities of a consolidated storage approach. This 'disruptionless' approach dramatically simplifies the introduction of solid state, and allows SanDisk customers to immediately address performance challenges without changing existing storage strategies."

Acer America today announced that a new model in its Acer C7 Chromebook line, the Acer C710-2856, is now available at 2,800 Walmart stores for the low price of only $199. The new Acer C710-2856 Chromebook has a 16GB Solid State Drive (SSD) that provides fast boot times and quick access to apps and media for speedier all-around performance.

The affordable price and wide range of capabilities make the new Acer C7 Chromebook the ideal additional laptop for families, students and professionals who need a fast, easy and secure way to get online to do their computing in the cloud, such as using Gmail, keeping up on social networks, shopping and paying bills. The new model is available at an ideal time, since many consumers are looking for a portable computer for summer travel, or are already planning ahead for back-to-college.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the world leader in advanced memory technology, announced today that it has begun mass producing the industry's first PCI-Express (PCIe) solid state drive (SSD) for next-generation ultra-slim notebook PCs.

"With the Samsung XP941, we have become the first to provide the highest performance PCIe SSD to global PC makers so that they can launch leading-edge ultra-slim notebook PCs this year," said Young-Hyun Jun, executive vice president, memory sales & marketing, Samsung Electronics. "Samsung plans to continue timely delivery of the most advanced PCIe SSD solutions with higher density and performance, and support global IT companies providing an extremely robust computing environment to consumers." Samsung started providing the new SSD to major notebook PC makers earlier this quarter. The XP941 lineup consists of 512, 256 and 128GB SSDs.

Super Talent Technology, a leading manufacturer of NAND flash storage solutions, today announces the introduction of the Ram Disk USB. With sequential read scores of up to 4041 MB/s and sequential write scores of up to 5388 MB/s, the Ram Disk is a speed demon of a drive housed in a sleek aluminum casing. The Ram Disk uses your computer's free RAM to transfer files at an amazingly quick rate. This USB also transfers the files while you are using the program, cutting down on wait time later.

"We are excited to release the RamDisk USB. This product can improve the productivity of those who work with large files and programs by harnessing the power of their system's RAM to deliver transfer speeds of over 4,000 MB/s." -Abraham Ma, CEO Super Talent Technology. The Ram Disk is as portable as a regular USB, giving the user the freedom to take their work anywhere. The Ram Disk provides the power of increased productivity through its incredible speed abilities, which can be many times faster than a SSD. This drive is especially suited for creative professionals. The Ram Disk is an ideal drive for anyone seeking a speedy drive with great performance.

Axtremex Technology is pleased to announce a MicroSSD, the new portable high performance external solid state drive with USB 3.0 interface. The MicroSSD is designed in a small form factor that is lightweight, durable and convenient to carry and use. It offers blazing fast data transfer rates and achieves a read speed of up to 420 MB/s and Write speed of up to 400 MB/s.

The device draws power directly from the USB port and requires no external power cord. It is also backward compatible with USB 2.0 ports. The MicroSSD will be available in 32 GB, 64 GB, 128 GB and 256 GB capacities. 512 GB and 1 TB capacities are being planned.

BIWIN, a world-leading expert in the development and manufacture of flash and advanced NAND flash memory, has introduced two Industrial Grade Disk-On-Modules (DOMs) with SATA interface, D5211 and D5212. They are well suited for installation needing long endurance parts with high reliability under rugged conditions.

D5211 and D5212, available in capacities of up to 16GB, are SLC NAND based modules with a PE Cycle as high as 100,000 times. The products complies with strict, industrial grade controllers to ensure a stable operating performance under extended temperature ranges between -40°C to 85°C.

Super Talent Technology, a leading manufacturer of NAND Flash storage solutions and DRAM memory modules, announces its Super Hybrid drives for enterprise and desktop consumers.
The Super Hybrid is a group of SSDs and an HDD combined together that is connected to a system through a PCIe slot. This new product supports sequential read and write speeds of up to 800 MB/s with a cache of 192 GB.

Chinese flash memory specialist KingFast announced its take on high-capacity compound SSDs with the C-Drive 1 TB. The drive looks like any other 2.5-inch, 9.5 mm-thick SSD, but encloses two subunits striped in an internal RAID 0 configuration, that's abstract to the host, to which it connects over SATA 6 Gb/s. Each of the two 512 GB subunits is driven by an LSI-SandForce SF-2281 controller. KingFast didn't mention if the RAID controller lets the contraption retain support for the TRIM command, but unless they have something substantial like OCZ VCA, we suspect it doesn't. The SATA 6 Gb/s interface clearly bottlenecks the C-Drive, which offers sequential speeds of 559 MB/s reads with 532 MB/s writes, with 5~10% of the interface bandwidth being consumed by the various overheads.It's still the fastest sequential speeds advertised for a SATA 6 Gb/s drive.

Intel Corporation today announced the Intel Solid-State Drive DC S3500 Series, its latest solid-state drive (SSD) for data centers and cloud computing. Designed for read-intensive applications such as Web hosting, cloud computing and data center virtualization, the Intel DC S3500 Series is an ideal replacement for traditional hard disk drives (HDD), allowing data centers to save significant costs by moving toward an all-SSD storage model.

Intel SSDs, including the Intel SSD DC S3500 Series, enable transformational improvements in cloud infrastructure, fostering new and enriching Web experiences. End customers experience quicker Web page loads and improved response times as a result of dramatically improved data access times and reduced latency. IT managers and cloud developers are rewarded with improved total cost of ownership as a result of reduced power consumption, more consistent performance and smaller space requirements. More than half of U.S. businesses now employ cloud computing applications, and IDC predicts that worldwide spending on cloud services will reach $44.2 billion this year. Data centers powering these cloud applications need to quickly, efficiently and reliably scale to handle the tremendous growth of connected users and data traffic.