Toshiba has expanded its line of small hard drives with several 1.8-inch offerings featuring capacities up to 320GB. The MKxx33GSG series is available in 160GB, 250GB, and 320GB sizes, each based on dual-platter configuration. The drives feature a 16MB cache buffer, 5,400RPM spindle speed and transfer rates of up to 830Mb/s.
Super Talent on Wednesday revealed its new SuperSpeed USB 3.0 RAIDDrive lineup, which is up to ten times faster than USB 2.0 drives when transferring data. A system with both USB 3.0 ports and a special USB Attached SCSI driver can transfer at up to 320MB per second, or faster than most solid-state drives; it can still run at up to 200MB per second without the optimization. Super Talent claims to be using a special technology that involves multiple RAID pairs of differential serial data lines.
Samsung tonight unveiled a breakthrough for its NAND flash memory that could lead to much more storage in handhelds. The new approach manages to fit 32 gigabytes of memory into a single chip that measures just 0.6mm (0.02in) thick through the use of extra-thin, "bare" packages that are half as thick as before but are just as sturdy. Combined with a 30 nanometer assembly process, the chips are both 40 percent thinner and lighter and should lead to thinner smartphones and media players.
Kingston and Paramount unveiled an unusual deal today that will see the latter's movies made available on SD cards and USB flash drives. The partners haven't detailed the formats involved but say the movies will be available both in bundles as well as individually. Neither company has committed to a release date.
HighPoint is launching a new series of SATA PCI-Express 2.0 cards, the Rocket 600 series. The new cards offer a SATA 6Gb/sec host adapter that will allow single or dual drives to reach 600MB/sec throughput, geared to reach maximum speeds using SSD drives. The cards are backward compatible with PCI-Express 1.0 technology and older SATA 3Gb/sec and 1.5Gb/sec drives. The new PCI cards use the same cables and connectors as previous generation SATA devices.
Intel today posted a crucial firmware update for its current-generation 34 nanometer solid-state drives that promises a major lift to their performance. The X25-M series now supports the Trim, or ATA Data Set Management Command, to more efficiently write to the drive. By better recognizing and shuffling which data blocks aren't used, Trim avoids unnecessarily rewriting to the disk and speeds up its overall transfer speed.
Kingston today catered to a specific segment of the storage crowd with the SSDNow V 40GB Boot Drive. The 2.5-inch SATA drive isn't intended as primary storage but rather as a system drive that speeds up the operating system as well as key apps. It's billed as inexpensive enough that it can be mated with a second, much larger rotating hard drive that would handle less critical apps and storage.
EZQuest has launched higher capacity versions of its Cinema Pro rack-mountable RAID and Thunder RAID products. Both storage devices are geared towards video professionals with flexible RAID settings for fast data-transfer rates or a balance between speed and redundancy.
Xbox Live Programming Director Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb tonight quickly denied Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's statements pointing to an Xbox 360 Blu-ray player. He now claims that Ballmer was referring to PC drives and repeats Microsoft's frequent public statements that it has "no plans" to add Blu-ray. He maintains instead that the Zune Video Marketplace will be the only HD video option in the near future.
Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer may have inadvertently tipped off his firm's plans for an external Blu-ray drive for the Xbox 360 in a talk in advance of today's Windows 7 launch. The executive is doubtful that it will ever be built-in but does tell Gizmodo that an external Blu-ray drive will be an option. He doesn't provide details but is unexpectedly confident that the hardware is enroute.
Engineers at the North Carolina State University claim to have developed a chip smaller than a human fingernail that can store 50 times more data than current DRAM memory chips of similar size, Wired reported on Tuesday. The prototype can theoretically hold 1TB, says Jagdish Narayan, a professor of materials science and engineering at the school. This was achieved by selectively doping the material, or adding impurities to change its data storage capacity. In this case, the researchers added nickel to magnesium oxide, mixing the metal and ceramic.
Active Media Products on Tuesday announced it has released a new 2.5-inch solid state drive series, the Predator-X7. All sport the Jmicron JM612 controller, which supports a USB 2.0 and therefore makes it easier to clone data from older drives and upgrade from a hard drive to the new Active Media SSD. The mini USB connection also makes installation and setup faster and easier.
Samsung today invested an unspecified amount of money into relatively young storage maker Fusion-io as part of a larger partnership. The deal gives Fusion-io a safer position to develop its lineup but will also see it and Samsung co-develop new solid-state drive technology. The smaller of the two will also get better access to Samsung's flash memory.
Dane-Elec has announced a series of external hard drives, the So SuperSpeed HDDs and SSDs, that will support the upcoming USB 3.0 standard. The drives will provide data transfer speeds of up to 250MBps, which is roughly ten times the rate available in current USB 2.0 devices. The So SuperSpeed drives consist of USB 3.0 HDDs which range in capacity of 500GB to 2TB and come in 2.5-inch or 3.5-inch formats, along with 80GB and 160GB SSDs that have been re-branded as Intel M-25 drives.
MacNN has reviewed OWC's Mercury On-The-Go Pro SSD drive. The unit is now available in three sizes: 64GB (reviewed), 128GB and 256GB. The drive utilizes FireWire 800 and USB 2.0 connections, and comes with cables and a carrying case -- an optional AC adapter is available, though the drive generally runs on bus power. Models have no moving parts, storing data in flash memory.
Samsung has recently introduced its first self-branded memory cards with a release in Taiwan. The cards are meant for use in smartphones, digital cameras and other portable consumer electronics. Samsung claims it's entering the market as the market for mobile storage space is expected to grow exponentially in the near future, according to research.
Origin Storage has recently announced the addition of two new capacities to its Data Locker external hard drives, with reportedly industry first 1TB and 750GB versions. Like the existing 320GB and 500GB versions, the new drives feature AES hardware encryption and a six- to 18-digit PIN password. The drives have an LCD keypad for password input, and can dismount the drive, toggle keytones on or off or erase the drive.
Memory maker Corsair recently upgraded its lineup of Flash Voyager GT USB memory sticks. The rugged drives now come in capacities up to 128GB without increasing in size and also come in 16GB, 32GB and 64GB variants. They still center on a rubber housing that increases the resistance to shock damage and water.
Samsung late Wednesday announced that its 3.5-inch STORY Station external hard drives will be upgraded with a more energy efficient power source that will consume less than 1W in standby mode. This is the industry's lowest power consumption level and should lead to the drives drawing just 0.09W when parked compared to the usual 2.5W. The power reduction comes through a new circuit structure that renders the drive non-operational when when it is connected to a power plug but not the USB port.
Clickfree has introduced its latest flagship automatic backup portable hard drive, the C2, on Tuesday. It allows for the automatic importing of music from iPods and iPhones, burning backed up files to CDs and DVDs and extracting of e-mail attachments. All contained files are protected with 256-bit Hardware-Based Encryption.
Hitachi has released two new hard drives on Tuesday, both turning at the fastest-possible 15,000RPM design. Part of the Ultrastar series, this includes the company's first 2.5-inch drive with the extra speed, the C15K147, and the firm's fourth-generation 3.5-inch drive, the 600GB 15K600. Either has a 6Gbps SCSI (SAS) interface, though the latter can be had with a 4Gbps Fibre Channel Arbitrated Loop (FCAL) interface as well. The 15K600 also has one third more the capacity of its predecessor while claimed to be 23 percent faster.
SanDisk achieved a technical milestone today by shipping its first products based on four-bit-per-cell (4BPC) storage. Both standard SDHC and Memory Stick Pro Duo cards now use the much denser storage (versus existing 2BPC or 3BPC) to carry all their storage on 64-gigabit (8GB) chips; the move lets even a 16GB card use just two chips and should scale to allow for 64GB and larger-capacity cards in the future. It should also have implications for solid-state drives and others that depend on multi-level cell storage.
Trans International has introduced the DX4, a new drive mount for Mac Pros. The unit fits inside a Pro's case, and supports up to four 2.5-inch SSD or conventional hard drives. Using a third-party SAS/SATA RAID adapter, drives can be connected in RAID 0, 1, 5, 10 or JBOD configurations.
QNAP today upgraded one of its most mainstream network-attached storage servers by launching the two-bay TS-210. A major replacement for the TS-209, it has both a more home-friendly, sleeker look but also jumps from a 500MHz processor to 800MHz. The extra speed better handles intense network traffic, particularly RAID 1 mirroring, without bogging down.
Samsung late yesterday introduced the first internal combo Blu-ray player, the SH-B083 (not pictured). It can read Blu-ray discs at up to 8x speeds, both in single-layer 25GB capacities and dual-layer 50GB capacities. The combo drive can also read CDs at as fast as 40x and DVDs as fast as 16x. It can also record onto blank CD and DVD media thanks to a second lens.
Iomega tonight launched a sweeping update to its StorCenter network-attached storage (NAS) hub. The company has added a host of new features both in hardware and software, including support for Bluetooth, Windows' Active Directory, improved energy savings, user replaceable drives, remote access and a one-button backup.
Group Logic has announced a partnership with Symantec in developing a file system archival (FSA) scheme for Mac-based organizations. The arrangement combines Symantec's Enterprise Vault with Group Logic's ArchiveConnect, and promises to reduce storage costs as much as 60 percent.
Buffalo hhas launched its first USB 3.0 hard drive in the DriveStation HD-HXU3. The 3.5-inch external disk uses the much larger bandwidth to attain transfer speeds of up to 125MBps, or between 3 and 4 times faster than the company's currently available USB 2.0 drive. In order to take advantage of the new standard's speeds, a card will be sold alongside the drive to install into host computers.
Apple's Time Capsule network drives are still suffering from power failures, complaints on official support forums indicate. The failures are allegedly occurring without warning, and are thought to be attributable to faulty power supplies, though some owners have suggested problems with chips or connectors. Most at risk are older drives, as a number of the dead units are said to have been bought in early 2008. Apple last refreshed its Time Capsule line in July.
Clickfree has released the Transformer SE (Special Edition), a device for turning any iPod, iPhone or USB hard drive into an automatic storage device. After plugging the Transformer into a computer and connecting any storage via USB, it will automatically backup and organize files into free space. The device is capable of working with multiple computers or storage systems, and can be used to transfer data from one computer to another.
Hard drive maker LaCie on Tuesday introduced two new external hard drives that were designed by Phillippe Starck. Both sport a sculptured magma motif from the world-famous designer, which is touch-sensitive in the Starck Desktop. This drive is covered by a 3mm aluminum shell, and has Starck's signature orange LED that indicates the drive's status. The touch interface is customizable, allowing users to open certain applications depending on how long they stay in contact with the touch surface.
Western Digital this morning started up a new grade of external hard drive for both its desktop and portable lines. The My Book Elite, My Book Studio and My Passport Elite both now have added visual details as to their in-use storage; while the My Passport's basic gauge is new in the first place, the new My Books get an e-paper display that shows the exact space free and the drive name even when the disk isn't plugged in. Every model comes with Time Machine-like continuous backup software as well as the option of 256-bit hardware encryption.
QNAP furthered its push into mainstream network-attached storage on Monday with the TS-410. While resembling its work-oriented drives, the NAS is meant for the home and has built-in DLNA and UPnP servers to share media over a local network, including to the PS3, Xbox 360 or to iPhones and iPod touch devices through an iPhone app. It also brings BitTorrent, FTP and HTTP downloaders to grab files no matter which computers are online.
Solid state and USB storage drive maker Active Media Products recently introduced its Aviator 312 line of USB 3.0 external solid state SSDs. The drives are available in 16GB, 32GB and 64GB capacities and support read speeds of as much as 240MBps and write speeds of 160MBps. The drive is one of the first USB devices to reach its peak speeds through the USB 3.0 interface, which allows transfer speeds of up to about 5Gbps, or about ten times faster than USB 2.0.
A-DATA recently showed the first waterproof and shock resistant portable hard drive, its SH93. It can withstand being submerged in up to 3.3 feet of water for 30 minutes and carries the US military's MIL-810F standards for drop resistance and resistance. The 2.5-inch drive comes in yellow or red and in 250GB, 320GB, 500GB and 640GB capacities.
Other World Computing has announced a new 1TB capacity for its Mercury On-the-Go Pro external hard drives. All of the 1TB models rely on 2.5-inch storage, and use 8MB caches. Speed options are limited to 5200rpm, as compared to some other Pros, which can reach 7200rpm or SSD levels.
Pioneer on Wednesday announced the release of the industry's first 12x Blu-ray disc recorder, the BDR-205. The internal optical drive is capable of recording to blank single- and dual-layer Blu-ray media at the top speed, eclipsing the 8X ceiling of previous drives. The BDR-205 also has the ability to record data onto blank DVDs and CDs, at up to 16x and 40x speeds, respectively.
PowerbookMedic has launched a new line of DualDrive options, said to double the internal storage capacities of Mac notebooks. A DualDrive is user-installed in place of a Mac's optical drive, allowing a second hard drive to be connected. As a tradeoff, owners lose internal CD/DVD functions.
SanDisk on Wednesday announced it has released memory cards meant specifically for portable gaming systems such as Sony's PSP Go and PSP as well as the Nintendo DSi. All significantly boost the storage capacity of said systems, with the PSP Go's capacity doubled by the new 16GB Memory Stick Micro M2 card. There is a 32GB Memory Stick PRO Duo and a Memory Stick PRO-HG Duo of the same capacity for the PSP from Sony, while the DSi gets an 8GB SDHC card.
Sony today added a designer USB-based DVD rewriter tailored for notebooks. The DRX-S70U-W is only just larger than the drive itself and records single-layerDVDs at 8X; it can also burn rewritable discs at the same speed and dual-layer 8.5GB discs at 6X. The drive is powered by the USB bus and is intended first for netbooks and ultraportables where optical storage isn't built-in.
Apple is currently probing recent problems with Mac SuperDrives, according to a developer in contact with the company's support and developer staff. Several drive models have been experiencing trouble mounting discs, in some cases blocking people from upgrading to the newly-launched Mac OS X Snow Leopard. The word of Apple investigating drive failures comes by way of a representative in the company's Developer Relations team.
Intel's recently unveiled 10-gigabit Light Peak connection standard was actually created at Apple's specific request, according to a major leak. While pitched at IDF as an Intel-made design, the fiber optic connection is now said to have been the direct result of talks between Apple founder Steve Jobs and Intel chief Paul Otellini. Engadget claims that Apple wants a single, high-speed connection standard that would not only take the place of FireWire or USB but also the video and Ethernet signals.
FirmTek has introduced Snow Leopard-compatible versions of its SeriTek/2SE2-E and the SeriTek/2SM2-E storage adapters; the adapters are used to add external eSATA ports to any Mac, offering speeds twice as fast as FireWire 800 connections. The SeriTek/2SE2-E ExpressCard, a two-port SATA II controller, supports hot-swap FirmTek enclosures. Using the new FirmTek 5.4.x driver makes both adapters compatible with Apple's new Snow Leopard operating system.
ATTO and LaCie have announced a new partnership to deliver enterprise-level storage systems. The collaboration pairs ATTO's ExpressSAS R380 SAS/SATA host adapter with LaCie's 12big Rack Serial, along with the Celerity FC-42ES Fibre Channel host adapter and the 12big Rack Fibre storage system. The combination of products is designed for environments requiring RAID protection or fast transfer speeds, such as editing multiple streams of uncompressed HD video.
Intel used a presentation at IDF to unveil Light Peak, a new interconnect standard for PCs. As implied by the name, the technology uses fiber optics instead of wires to transfer data and consequently has much more bandwidth. Even in its first generation, it's expected to transfer at about 10 gigabits per second, or over 20 times faster than USB 2.0; it could transfer the entire contents of a typical Blu-ray disc in about 30 seconds if working at top speed, Intel claims.
Taiwan's MSI has uncovered the Big Bang, an upcoming PC motherboard. The hardware is based on Intel's P55 platform for Core i5 and i7 processors, but is most notable for integrating the Lucid HYDRA 200 chipset. The technology copes with a recurring problem in video cards, which prevents ones from different manufacturers from being used simultaneously.
Kingston on Tuesday announced it will increase the read and write speeds of its DataTraveler 410 USB flash drive range to 20MBps in both read and write speeds. The DataTraveler 410 can be had in up to 32GB capacities, and password-protects data thanks to the included SecureTraveler software.
Seagate this morning promised a new level of security for work-oriented hard drives by shipping its first Self-Encrypted Drives (SED). The Cheetah 15K.7, Constellation, Savvio 10K.3 and Savvio 15K.2 all automatically protect data that isn't immediately being used. They all have an encryption engine that processes information on the fly but without slowing down the drives' actual speed.
Toshiba and SanDisk will produce 20nm-class NAND flash memory at their joint-venture facility in Yokkaichi, Japan in the second half of 2010, DigiTimes reported on Monday, citing industry sources. The facility will scale up production to about 200,000 wafers per month as a result. Toshiba used the factory to build 3-bit per cell (3bpc) 32nm memory, which were expected to account for 50 percent of capacity by the end of 2009, but the schedule was delayed.
Amazon on Sunday announced the launch of its own brand of products, called AmazonBasics, which thus far includes AV cables and blank DVD media, but will expand soon with more basic consumer electronics with budget pricing. There is no word on what upcoming accessories AmazonBasics will offer, but the company is listening to customer feedback to help it make its decisions.
