May 27 - 4:35pm EDT   The Serial ATA International Organization (SATA-IO) consortium on Tuesday released the Serial ATA Revision 3.0 specification, which doubles the transfer speeds of the current SATA II interface to 6Gbps and adds multimedia application support. The SATA 3 specification is backwards compatible with the earlier version and retains its low-power requirements. Other changes include a new Native Command Queuing (NCQ) streaming to better accommodate bandwidth-intensive audio and video applications. [full story]

December 16 - 8:55pm EST   Sonnet Technologies has unveiled the DX800RAID, an eight-bay SATA storage system with an integrated Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) expander that can be used to connect up to 16 individual eight-drive enclosures to a single RAID controller. The new system supports RAID 5 and RAID 6, protecting against data-loss if one or two drives fail. The company claims read speeds of up to 680MB per second and write speeds of up to 640MB per second. [full story]

November 18 - 10:45pm EST   Toshiba on Tuesday unveiled a new 500GB 2.5-inch SATA drive featuring whisper quiet operation. The flagship MK5055GSX offers an 8MB buffer, and a read/write power consumption of 1.4W. Toshiba claims that the improved servo mechanism not only decreases the operational noise, but also increases durability of the hardware. Pricing was not readily available, but Toshiba expects to ship the drive in January, and will exhibit the drive at CES 2009 in January. [full story]

October 22 - 10:05pm EDT   HighPoint Technologies has introduced the RocketRAID 2680 SAS host bus adapter (HBA). The company focused on making an adapter with a small form factor measuring only 3.3 inches long, terminating at the end of the PCIe x4 slot. The company claims RAID 5 performance of up to 561MB per second read and 654MB per second write. The device features 8 SAS/SATA ports and supports RAID levels 0, 1, 5, 10, and JBOD with scaling up to 128 devices if an expander is also used. [full story]

October 14 - 12:30am EDT   CalDigit has released the VR two drive RAID system and two new 12TB versions of its HDOne and HDPro lines of RAID storage devices. The VR is two drive RAID array that combines features of the FirewireVR and S2VR Duo, but in a new chassis. Connection options include Firewire 400/800, USB 2.0, and eSATA. RAID 0 and 1 modes are supported, with speeds claimed to reach 200MB per second. Software is provided that can be configured to send e-mail notification of drive problems or failures. [full story]

October 9 - 7:50pm EDT   HighPoint has released a series of SAS Connectivity Plus RAID 5 capable PCI-Express controllers. The three new models are the RocketRAID 2644x4, RocketRAID 2640x4 and RocketRAID 2640x1. The 2644x4 connects externally, while the 2640x4 (a four-lane PCI card) and 2640x1 (a one-lane card) offer internal connections and all three connect to both SAS and SATA hard disks. The controllers offer RAID levels 0, 1, 10, 5 and JBOD. [full story]

August 18 - 1:25pm EDT   Data on the next version of the SATA connection standard has been unveiled, according to its governing body. The SATA-IO group has announced early specifications for SATA Revision 3.0, which it expects to be finalized by the end of this year. The initial specs relate to the physical portion of the interface, which should double transfers speeds compared to current SATA II links, with a peak of 6Gbps. The format is also set to include "advances for data streaming," SATA-IO says, and "better power management." [full story]

August 15 - 12:25am EDT   Sunnyvale-based OCZ on Thursday unveiled new Core Series V2 SATA II 2.5-inch SSD drives, offering users speedy 170 megabyte-per-second read and 98 megabyte-per-second write times, with much larger sizes. The drives represent a continued effort for OCZ to push down the prices of SSDs for mainstream users. While OCZ declines to supply exact prices from its release, it says that the new Core Series V2 drives cost half of what comparable products do, while offering sizes of up to 250GB. [full story]

July 24 - 1:10am EDT   Western Digital on Thursday announced its enterprise-class 10,000RPM 2.5-inch drive designed for rack-mounted servers. The 10K VelociRaptor is designed for blade servers and 1U and 2U rack servers, and offers up to 300GB of capacity, while consuming 35 percent less power than the previous-generation WD Raptor drive, the company claims. WD said that the drive will be manufactured for high reliability in high duty cycle environments, resulting in the highest available reliability rating of any SATA drive at 1.4 million hours MTBF. It features a 3Gb/sec SATA interface and 16MB for maximum performance. [full story]

July 3 - 10:25pm EDT   Power Mac G5 and Mac Pro gamers have a new high-performance disk system available to them, through HighPoint Technologies' RocketRAID 2640x4, a 4x PCI-E SAS hard drive RAID system. The system offers users 56-percent increased performance over 10,000 RPM SATA drives, with 128MB per-second transfer speeds, offering users lower average latency and lower read/write seek times. The RocketRAID 2640x4 sells for $165 from HighPoint's website. [full story]

July 1 - 12:40pm EDT   Sonnet Technologies has announced a 1TB-version of its Fusion F2 portable SATA RAID system. The system contains two 2.5-inch drives mounted side-by-side in an aluminum enclosure. It features two eSATA data ports for maximum data throughput, and is geared for use with ExpressCard/34 controllers on MacBook Pros. The RAID delivers up to 134MB-per-second data-transfer rates. It costs $1000 and is listed as shipping soon on Sonnet's website and is compatible with any SATA-capable Mac. [full story]

May 30 - 8:55pm EDT   MaxUpgrades on Friday unveiled the MaxConnect SAS/SATA Link for Mac Pro, a new PCI Express-based RAID solution that uses the existing internal drives on quad- and eight-core Mac Pro systems. The card connects to the internal drives, allowing users to use several RAID configurations, including 0, 1, 5, and 6. In addition, the device offers full HBA and RAID Control support. MaxUpgrades is offering the device for $230 direct from its website. [full story]

May 15 - 6:55pm EDT   HighPoint Technologies recently announced a new firmware update to the RocketRAID 3522 SATA hardware RAID controller, which will support booting to Mac OS X on Apple Mac Pro and Xserve models released from (2006 through 2008). The RocketRAID 3522 is a PCI-Express x8 external hardware RAID controller with Intel IOP 341 (800MHz) RAID engine and will support up to 8 SATA hard drives. [full story]

April 9 - 7:00pm EDT   HighPoint Technologies has announced that the RocketRAID 3522 now supports booting Mac OS X on Apple Mac Pro (2006-2007) models. The RocketRAID 3522 has a dual mini-SAS interface that supports up to eight external direct connect SATA hard drives. Some of the new features available in the RocketRAID 3522 include selectable RAID block sizes for application tuning. Advance RAID level 0,1,5,6 and new RAID 3 support. Upgradable firmware support via the HighPoint web GUI and 32-bit EFI boot capability with Mac Pro 2006-2007 models. Booting support for Mac Pro 2008 models will be coming soon and requires an firmware upgrade through the HighPoint web management GUI. [full story]

April 1 - 12:00am EDT   Sans Digital today unveiled a new line of MobileSTOR Plus storage systems, including the MS2UT+ and MS2UTN+, offering users two 3.5-inch hard drive bays, connectable over USB 2.0 and eSATA. The line supports several different RAID levels, including JBOD, Spanning, 0, and 1, and makes use of the Silicon Image 5744 chipset, which supports both SAFE33 and SAFE55 transfer methods. Pricing for the two models was not readily available. [full story]