Blazing Fast Hard Drives Developed

Category: Storage / Hard Drives, Science & Technology
Posted: February 7, 2012 05:22PM
Author: Guest_Jim_*

In physics the Curie Point is the temperature at which a magnet will lose its strength. Materials are magnetized when the atoms align themselves so their individual magnetic fields add together. As heat causes atoms and molecules to move around, it is not too surprising that a high temperature can destroy magnetic properties. Now researchers at the University of York have found heat can make a material a magnet, which has implications in magnetic storage.

All traditional hard drives use magnetic ‘hard disk’ platters to magnetic store information, an electromagnetic headers to flip the bits on the platters from 0 to 1, and vice versa. Magnetically flipping a bit is not easy though, so researchers have already tried heating the bit to enable faster flipping. Though the writing is easier, it still takes around 1 ns to happen, thereby limiting the maximum write speed of the drive. By just using heat though the researchers have found the process can be accelerated to just a couple thousands of a nanosecond; roughly 500 times faster. In terms of an actual transfer speed, we are talking about terabytes of data being written every second. All of this is also accomplished with much less energy than the electromagnets found in a modern HDD too.

This technology may not enter a consumer product anytime soon though, and maybe not ever. Other techniques of quickly and efficiently writing information to a hard disk have been in development for a while and will likely reach the market before this can catch on; especially as the lasers needed for this are about a meter long at the moment. However, in areas where speed is needed more than a compact size, or use optical signals already, this could still prove useful.

Hardware Roundup: Intel 520 Series SSD Edition

Category: Storage / Hard Drives
Posted: February 6, 2012 09:49AM
Author: Dale Shuck

Intel has released a new series of solid state drives which pairs the LSI SandForce 2281 NAND controller with 25nm NAND flash memory. The drives are slated to be released in capacities ranging from 60GB to 480GB. The drive is designed for reliability and performance with a MTBF of 1.2 million hours and 550 megabytes-per-second (MB/s) sequential reads and up to 520MB/s sequential writes. Prices start at $149 for the 60GB version with the 480GB coming in just below the $1,000 mark. The 240GB version reviewed here by OCC will set you back about $509.

Intel 520 Series 240GB @ OCC
Intel SSD 520 240GB @ Bjorn3D
Intel 520 Series SSD Full Review - SandForce on Steroids? @ PC Perspective
Intel's 520 Series solid-state drive @ Tech Report
Intel SSD 520 Series Solid State Drive @ Benchmark Reviews
Intel SSD 520 Series 240GB @ TechSpot

Kingston Announces New SSDNow Drive

Category: Storage / Hard Drives
Posted: January 19, 2012 04:09PM
Author: Nick Harezga

Kingston has announced an addition to its SSDNow line of solid state drives, the SSDNow V+200. The drive is controlled by the SandForce SF-2281 processor and runs on the SATA 3.0 standard. It is capable of read and write speeds up to 535MB/s and 480MB/s, respectively. The drive is available in capacities from 60GB to 480GB, at prices from $140 to $985. It will be available in both standalone and upgrade kits, with upgrade kits including cables, brackets, cloning software, and a HDD enclosure.

Mushkin's New Solid State Drives

Category: Storage / Hard Drives
Posted: January 15, 2012 09:18AM
Author: Dale Shuck

Mushkin has announced three new solid state drives that will expand its existing Callisto and Chronos lines along with the introduction of its first PCIe SSD. Mushkin is offering the Chronos GO as a 1.8" form factor drive that makes it ideal from mobile computing. The Chronos GO will come in a standard version using asynchronous NAND flash and a Deluxe line which uses synchronous NAND flash. The Chronos GO boasts read and write speeds of 560MB/s and 525MB/s with the Deluxe version offering faster throughput with multimedia data.

Mushkin also announced the Atlas mSATA solid state drive. Driven by a SandForce SF-2281 controller, the Atlas is a MO-300B form factor mini SSD being offered in capacities from 30- to 240GB. As with the Chronos GO, the Atlas is being planned in both value (built with asynchronous NAND flash) and high performance units (using synchronous mode flash) with maximum sequential read and write speeds of 560MB/s and 535MB/s, respectively.

The final addition is Mushkin's first PCIe SSD known as the Mushkin Scorpion. The Scorpion will be offered in capacities of 240-, 480- and 960 gigabytes. The Scorpion will offer workstation-class performance with maximum speeds of 1275MB/s sequential read, 1500MB/s sequential write and 120,000 4K random write IOPS.

Mushkin expects the new drives to be available in the first half of 2012, but did not release any images or pricing related to the units.

Seagate to Demo GoFlex Satellite 4G LTE Storage and GoFlex Thunderbolt Adapter at CES

Category: Storage / Hard Drives
Posted: January 10, 2012 09:21PM
Author: Dale Shuck

Seagate introduced its GoFlex Satellite wireless storage device back in May 2011 and is demonstrating new enhancements to the unit at CES this week. The GoFlex Satellite is a WiFi enabled storage appliance that can stream data to three different portable devices at the same time. Now Seagate, in conjunction with Verizon Wireless, will be demonstrating the world's first 4G LTE mobile wireless storage solution. With the new features, you will be able to connect an iPad or Android tablet via the Verizon 4G LTE network for access to information and entertainment titles via the Internet.

Seagate will also being using CES to debut the GoFlex Thunderbolt Adapter and the GoFlex Desk Thunderbolt Adapter. The devices were first seen as working prototypes at the November 2011 Intel Developers Forum and now the GoFlex Thunderbolt Adapter will be available sometime in the first quarter of this year for a suggested retail price of $99.

Patriot Memory Gauntlet WiFi Personal Cloud Storage

Category: Storage / Hard Drives
Posted: January 10, 2012 08:40PM
Author: Dale Shuck

Tablets, smart phones and personal media players are long on convenience and portability but can seriously cramp your style when it comes to storage, especially for large multimedia files. Patriot Memory is offering a new portable storage device called the Gauntlet WiFi as your own personal cloud storage solution that allows you to connect wirelessly to offer the utmost in portability. The Gauntlet supports 2.5" form factor hard drives and solid state drives and comes with 64MB RAM. The unit supports wireless connections over 802.11 a/b/g/n for up to five devices simultaneously at up to 150Mbit/sec. It also has a USB 3.0/2.0 port and offers up to five hours continuous streaming from its built in lithium-ion polymer battery. Patriot has also developed apps for IOS and Android operating systems and supports plug and play compatibility with Windows. Pricing and availability were not disclosed.

Corsair Announces a Bevy of New Products at CES 2012

Category: Cases, Storage / Hard Drives
Posted: January 10, 2012 02:34PM
Author: bp9801

Corsair is no stranger to trade shows, and with CES 2012 getting under way, you bet Corsair has some new products in store. Corsair has announced a couple of new cases, a solid-state cache drive, and the Corsair Link kits are now available. First up we come to the cases, which see a new entry in the Obsidian and Carbide series. The Obsidian 550D is designed to keep your system running cool and quiet, thanks to its use of noise-dampening material on the front and side panels. The covers for the top and side fan mounts also have noise-dampening material to keep your system from being too noisy, plus the fans and drive bays make use of silicone mounts to further cut down on noise. Inside the 550D, you will find eight expansion slots, support for GPUs up to 450mm in length, six tool-free hard drive bays with integrated 2.5" support, four tool-free optical bays, a CPU backplane cutout, and an all-black interior with grommets on the cable routing holes. The hard drive cages can be removed to improve airflow, while there are ten total mounts for fans (two 120mm on the front and one 120mm on the rear are standard). The side panel can have two fans attached to it to better cool your GPU(s), while on the front panel you can find two USB 3.0 ports and audio in/out.

The Carbide 300R case is designed for gamers on a budget who still want big features. The 300R has three tool-free optical bays, four tool-free hard drive bays with integrated 2.5" support, room for GPUs up to 450mm in length, and an all-black interior with cable routing holes. The 300R has intake and exhaust fans included, but five more can be installed, including two on the side panel. The Carbide 300R seeks to give gamers an inexpensive case that does not skimp on the features, and it looks like Corsair will deliver.

Next we come to the solid-state cache drives, with Corsair announcing the Accelerator Series. The Accelerator Series is designed for Windows users wanting to give their PC a boost without a high cost, thanks to the premium caching software from NVELO. Users simply need to install the Accelerator SSD cache drive to their system, install the software, and then reap the benefits provided by the extra speed. There is no need to reinstall Windows with the Accelerator Series or set up a file management system as the Accelerator works with your existing hard drive to give you up to a 5x boost in read/write transfers. The Accelerator SSD cache drives will work with Windows 7 and Windows 8, run on SATA 2 or SATA 3 ports, and come in 30, 45, and 60GB capacities.

Lastly, Corsair has announced the availability of its Corsair Link Cooling Kit and Corsair Link Cooling and Lighting Kit. These two kits combine everything you need to get started with the Corsair Link system, but in a handy starter package. The Corsair Link Cooling Kit contains a Corsair Link Commander, Cooling Node, and Dashboard application, while the Cooling and Lighting Kit adds a Corsair Link Lighting Node and three LED Light Strips. These products are designed to give you better control over your system's cooling and lighting by use of software controls rather than manual controls.

The Corsair Obsidian 550D and Carbide 300R cases come with two year warranties. Both will be available in February, with the Obsidian 550D costing $159 and the Carbide 300R at $89. The Corsair Accelerator Series solid-state cache drives come with a three year warranty and will be available in February. The 30GB model will cost $69, the 45GB at $84, and the 60GB at $99. The Corsair Link Cooling Kit and Corsair Link Cooling and Lighting Kit are available now, with the Cooling Kit at $99 and the Cooling and Lighting Kit at $139.

OCZ Pushes Envelope of SSDs Even Further

Category: Storage / Hard Drives
Posted: January 9, 2012 07:21PM
Author: bp9801

OCZ has dedicated itself firmly to the world of sold state drives, and is showing off a ton of new products at CES 2012. OCZ will show off its latest advancements in SSD technology, plus cloud-optimized SSD solutions designed for enterprises. If impressive performance is what you crave from SSDs, not to mention increased storage, then OCZ definitely has you covered. First up is the Z-Drive R5, which uses the OCZ and Marvell co-developed Kilimanjaro platform to deliver huge performance. It is the world's first PCIe x16 Gen 3 SSD, which can support up to 16GB/s of bandwidth, and can reach up to 2.52 million IOPS and 7.2GB/s sequential transfers per card. The Z-Drive R5 features unlimited scalability and performance aggregation capability, and will be available in full height, half height, and 2.5" PCIe form factors.

Next up is the Indilinx Everest 2 controller that supports up to 550MB/s sequential speeds, and up to 105,000 random read and 90,000 random write IOPS using the newest 2Xnm Flash technology. The Everest 2 is a SATA III controller, and can support capacities up to 2TB  in the 2.5" size. The Z-Drive R4 CloudServ RM1616 is another PCIe SSD solution, but this one makes a capacity of 16TB a reality. Capable of 6.5GB/s transfers and 1.4 million IOPS, the Z-Drive R4 CloudServ will help enterprises achieve more productive while keeping operating costs low. Lastly, there is the Chiron 4TB SSD to provide enterprises with 4TB of space in a 3.5" form factor on the SATA interface. The Chiron SSDs have speeds over 560MB/s for transfers and 100,000 IOPS, which will surely help enterprises with any storage concerns.

All of these drives and more will be shown off during CES at OCZ's booth. Some drives will showcase the Everest 2 controller as well, so keep it tuned to OCC for more in-depth coverage from the team at CES.

DEONET Unveils 'Smallest USB Stick in the World'

Category: Storage / Hard Drives, Small Form Factor
Posted: December 23, 2011 03:24AM
Author: Daryn Govender

Dutch firm DEONET has unveiled what it calls the 'smallest USB stick in the world.' The new memory stick features the Micro UDP-chip, a memory chip which DEONET claims is half the size of a 'classic' memory chip. This Micro UDP-chip has dimensions of 18.5x14.5x2.9mm, giving DEONET the ability to produce ultra-compact USB sticks.

Rob van Berkom, CEO of DEONET said "For years, DEONET noticed a high demand for user friendly and compact USB sticks. With the development of the Micro UDP-chip, we continue being innovative in the USB market. This new technique enables us to introduce very small USB solutions. The main advantage is that the USB stick is small enough to keep it in a wallet or hang it on a bunch of keys. In addition, the smallest USB-stick from DEONET is so small it barely protrudes of the USB port of the PC and laptop. This makes it possible to leave the USB-stick in the laptop, even if it's stored in a bag."

The new USB stick will be available in 4GB, 8GB and 16GB capacities, and will be released at the PSI Düsseldorf business fair next month.

Warranty Periods Cut by Hard Drive Manufacturers

Category: Storage / Hard Drives
Posted: December 19, 2011 05:54PM
Author: Nick Harezga

Seagate and Western Digital have announced plans to reduce the warranties on hard drives starting next year. The warranty change will only be applied to drives shipping after the change is made, so all drives you currently own will keep the warranty they were shipped with. According to Seagate, "By aligning to current industry standards, Seagate can continue to focus its investments on technology innovation and unique product features that drive value for our customers." Seagate will be reducing warranties to one year to divert money to product development and other research. Western Digital said that the change had nothing to do with the flooding in Thailand, and that "Standard PC warranties are one year. Even so, WD will continue to maintain five-year warranties on its premium desktop/notebook products, including the WD Caviar Black, WD Scorpio Black and WD VelociRaptor products." Other products are expected to see a drop to two years for warranty.

OCZ Releases Petrol Series SSD

Category: Storage / Hard Drives
Posted: December 15, 2011 04:28PM
Author: Nick Harezga

OCZ has announced that it is releasing a new line of solid state drives, the Petrol SSD Series. These drives are based on the Indilinx Everest controller, allowing for a 6Gbps SATA connection, while also claiming to reduce deployment costs by up to 30%. No price was given, so it can't be confirmed that these drives have a 30% lower cost than similar SSDs. The drives are capable of bandwidth up to 400MB/s, as well as 35,000 input/output operations per second. The Petrol series will be available in capacities ranging from 64GB to 512GB, and will be available in the coming weeks.

Hitachi Begins Selling 4TB Hard Drive

Category: Storage / Hard Drives
Posted: December 12, 2011 04:40PM
Author: Nick Harezga

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies has begun shipments of a 3.5" 4TB hard drive today.The drive will only be available in a retail kit at a suggested price of $400 for now, but bare drives should be available in the first quarter of next year. The drive includes a 32MB cache buffer, Hitachi's power management features, and 3GB of online storage. Windows and Mac OS X users will require special software to be able to treat the drives as a single drive. No mention of Linux was made, but newer versions with access to the ext4 file system should be fine.

Thecus Unveils N4100EVO NAS Powered by Dual-core Cavium Processor

Category: Storage / Hard Drives
Posted: December 12, 2011 11:32AM
Author: Dale Shuck

Thecus is well-known for its lineup of network attacked storage appliances such as the Thecus N3200XXX, Thecus N4100PRO and Thecus N3200PRO. One of the things we've noticed in looking at the offerings from Thecus is the company continually offers improved versions of its products and supports its existing product line by continually upgrading the management software and add-on modules available across the product spectrum. Now, Thecus has just announced the new Thecus N4100EVO four-bay NAS server powered by a dual-core Cavium ECONA ARM processor. Designed to decrease the electricity costs and carbon footprint associated with storage appliances, the N4100EVO's low-energy hardware is designed for quick transfer speeds necessary for large backups and heavy use without blowing your budget. Unique to the N4100EVO and the SOHO/SMB market is the incorporation of a dedicated hardware XOR engine to speed up RAID 5 operations and significantly reduce rebuild time. As we saw in the OCC review of the N3200XXX, the N4100PRO's firmware supports XFS, 3TB HDD, SATA III HDD, iSCSI and more than a dozen free modules such as the Piczza! photo server, a download manager for BitTorrent, eMule and HTTP and a Web Disk module for file management. Thecus did not disclose pricing or availability.

Impact of Thailand Flooding to Affect HDD Supply Into 2013

Category: Storage / Hard Drives
Posted: December 9, 2011 12:20PM
Author: Dale Shuck

Recent severe flooding in Thailand has raised havoc with the hard disk drive supply chain with manufacturer Western Digital being the hardest hit. The situation was so dire that last month analysts were predicting the situation would last well into 2012. Now, analysts at research firm IDC are pushing that out into 2013. While the worst of the situation is expected to ease up after February 2012, things are now predicted to return to normal sometime in 2013.

Lenovo is now informing its corporate customers it is out of 7,200-rpm drives and will be forced to begin substituting alternative models such as 5,400-rpm drives. It is estimated that Western Digital lost an estimated 75% of its production capacity due to the flooding. Some of the flooded production facilities have been drained and are starting to come back online with others, mostly in the south of Thailand, are still underwater.

IDC goes on to say that they expect a shortage of 55 million units this quarter with shipments of around 120 million. This shortage is also affecting PC manufacturers with forecasted shipments expected to be 3.8 million units lower than earlier expected. Prices are beginning to stabilize, and come down a bit, although they are up over 100% on some models.

Thecus Unveils Value Line of NAS

Category: Storage / Hard Drives
Posted: December 7, 2011 05:35PM
Author: Nick Harezga

Thecus has announced that it will be releasing the V line, short for value, of Network Attached Storage (NAS) systems. This new line aims to give users a choice between power and value, allowing for different systems for different situations. The V line will continue to feature Intel processors and the NAS software developed by Thecus for its other products. The N8900V provides an eight port NAS with an Intel G620 processor. The N12000V and N16000V feature quite a bit more power in the form of an Intel Xeon E3-1225 Quad Core processor. These systems will also feature a SAS controller, USB 3.0, 10Gb Ethernet, and even HDMI support. An impressive array of software will provide even more utility, especially for the enterprise user.

OCZ Announces Talos 2 Enterprise SAS SSD Series

Category: Storage / Hard Drives
Posted: November 29, 2011 04:44PM
Author: bp9801

OCZ is one of the names you look toward when you are ready to purchase a new solid state drive, and today the company has a new SSD aimed at enterprises. OCZ has announced the Talos 2 Enterprise SAS SSD series, which is the follow-up to the Talos Series. The original Talos was only available in a 3.5" form factor, but the Talos 2 is a 2.5" drive. It is an Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) SSD, meaning it is ideal for businesses needing a faster, more reliable drive. The Talos 2 offer improved capacity over the original Talos, along with increased I/O performance and scalability in "enterprise storage environments." The Talos 2 SAS SSDs are available in capacities between 100GB and 1TB, and in MLC, eMLC, and SLC NAND configurations. The drives will be made available to businesses and enterprises through OCZ's global business-to-business channel.

Kingston Announces New SSDNow Drives

Category: Storage / Hard Drives
Posted: November 11, 2011 08:32AM
Author: Nick Harezga

Kingston has announced that it is updating its SSDNow series of solid state drives. The SSDNow series is an entry level series of SSD, targeted at users that don't need the best of the best and are budget conscious. I have an SSDNow drive, and I think it works great. The SSDNow V200 takes advantage of the SATA 3 6Gb/s standard, offering up to twice the performance of the current generation V100 drives. Accompanying the increase in speed is a decrease in price, with the new drives costing up to 20% less than their predecessors. The drives are available with capacities of 64GB, 128GB, and 256GB. Desktop and notebook bundles are available with everything you will need to get the drives installed and running.

Corsair Launches New Line of SATA 3 SSDs

Category: Storage / Hard Drives
Posted: November 10, 2011 08:23PM
Author: bp9801

Corsair is probably one of the first names you consider when you need any new component for your computer. The company that just started out with memory has grown to have a product for virtually every need, from a case to headphones to storage and even power supplies. Today, Corsair has a new addition to its line of solid state drives, specifically the ones using the SATA 3 interface. The Performance Pro Series SSDs connect via the SATA 3 (6Gbps) interface by way of a Marvell SATA 6Gbps controller. The maximum read speed is 515MB/s and the maximum write speed is 440MB/s, both of which should be more than fast enough for your computer. Corsair has included a built-in advanced garbage collection to give you strong performance for the life of the Performance Pro SSDs, even on systems that cannot utilize the TRIM command. The Performance Pro SSDs will be available in either a 128 or 256GB model.

The Corsair Performance Pro Series SSDs are available now. The 128GB model will set you back $280 while the 256GB is at $530.

Analyst: 'We Could Run Out of Hard Drives Soon'

Category: Storage / Hard Drives
Posted: November 10, 2011 06:20AM
Author: edwardquilo

The current short supply of hard drives is expected to continue until 2012, says analyst Gus Richard over a CNET interview. Sparked by the unfortunate Thailand flooding, hard drive prices have since skyrocketed from 10 to 60 percent, and this trend  may continue on to the next year. However, Richard also notes that PC makers apparently aren't taking the necessary precautions to combat the hard disk crisis. "Nobody seems to be really paying attention. Everyone overreacted to the disaster in Japan. And now I think they're under-reacting," he said. A likely shortage of 60 million drives will arise from a 180 million demand, as PC manufacturers will struggle to keep up with upward spike in demand. Manufacturer Seagate also offered a bleak outlook for next year: "Given the supply disruption demand will significantly outstrip supply at least for the December 2011 quarter, and will likely continue for multiple quarters."

One terabyte hard disks now cost at least $120, whereas a few months ago these would've only been priced at around $60 to $80. 

OCZ Introduces New RevoDrive

Category: Storage / Hard Drives
Posted: November 7, 2011 06:03PM
Author: Nick Harezga

OCZ has introduced the newest editions of its popular RevoDrive series of high performance storage options, the RevoDrive 3 Max IOPS and RevoDrive 3 X2 Max IOPS. This series of drive is capable of up to 245,000 IOPS, with read and write speeds of 1900MB/s and 1725MB/s, respectively. Built on the PCI Express architecture and the OCZ proprietary Virtualized Controller Architecture™ 2.0 flash virtualization layer, these drives are sure to be able to handle anything you can throw at them. The standard edition will be available with capacities ranging from 120GB to 480GB, while the X2 will be available in sizes of 240GB to 960GB. No price was mentioned, but they are sure to cost a pretty penny.

Enermax Launches Brick Aluminum HDD Enclosures

Category: Storage / Hard Drives
Posted: October 26, 2011 02:27AM
Author: Daryn Govender

Enermax has launched its latest line of hard drive enclosures dubbed the Brick. The 3.5" Brick hard drive enclosure supports one 3.5" SATA hard drive, hybrid drive or solid state drive. The Brick is crafted out of aluminum and will be available in USB 3.0 or USB 2.0 versions, although the enclosure will still require an external power source. The Brick hard drive enclosure measures in at 200x109x31mm and will retail at around US$28 (USB 2.0 version) and US$42 (USB 3.0 version).

Thecus N8900 Unboxing

Category: Storage / Hard Drives
Posted: October 24, 2011 04:31AM
Author: Dale Shuck

Thecus is known of its storage devices, like the N3200XXX NAS Server recently reviewed here at OCC which is intended for small office and home use. Thecus also offers other units that range all the way up to enterprise-grade servers like the N8900, an eight-bay rackmount unit that comes equipped with a second-generation Intel Core i3 processor, 8GB DDR3 SDRAM and up to 24TB of storage. Thecus TV has posted up an unboxing video that shows what's in the box and takes you on a tour of the features of the N8900.

 

OCZ Introduces Octane and Octane-S2 SSDs

Category: Storage / Hard Drives
Posted: October 20, 2011 12:13PM
Author: bp9801

OCZ today has announced two new solid state drives based on the Indilinx Everest controller. The Octane uses the SATA 6Gbps interface while the Octane-S2 uses the SATA 3Gbps interface, offering an ideal blend of capacity and performance no matter what system you have. The Octane is capable of read speeds of 560MB/s and write speeds of 400MB/s, while the Octane-S2 has 275MB/s read speeds and 265MB/s write speeds. The Octane series provides for maximum performance across any file size and compressible or uncompressible data. The included Indilinx NDurance technology means the NAND flash memory has twice the life expectancy of other models, meaning the Octane SSDs should last even longer.

The Octane SSDs have capacities of 128, 256, 512GB, and 1TB. The drives will be available on November 1st, though no prices were mentioned.

Patriot Memory Launching Second Generation Pyro SE SSD

Category: Storage / Hard Drives
Posted: October 13, 2011 09:21AM
Author: Guest_Jim_*

Patriot Memory is launching its second generation Pyro SE solid state drives. Available capacities are 60 GB, 120 GB, and 240 GB, with the SandForce SF-2281 SSD processor allowing the 120 GB and 240 GB models to reach as high as 550 MB/s and 520 MB/s for sequential read and write speeds, respectively. Obviously these drives use the SATA 6.0 Gbps interface as well as having TRIM support, and DuraClass technology. Pricing information does not appear to be out yet, but we should be able to expect a very good price-to-performance ratio.

OCZ Acquires UK SSD Design Team

Category: Storage / Hard Drives
Posted: October 6, 2011 02:19PM
Author: Nick Harezga

OCZ Technology has announced its acquisition of the UK design team of PLX Technology, a move aimed at strengthening its position in the SSD market. Also included in the deal is some unspecified intellectual property. The design team has extensive experience with System on Chip, or SoC, design and should allow OCZ to "accelerate solid state drive development, reducing its time to market for next generation SSD products, while also reducing development costs." Hopefully cost savings will enable prices in the SSD market to come down, and therefore benefit the consumer and allow more people to jump into SSD technology.

A-DATA Unveils S510 SATA 6Gb/s SSD

Category: Storage / Hard Drives
Posted: September 26, 2011 08:27PM
Author: Daryn Govender

A-DATA today unveiled its latest SSD, dubbed the S510. The S510 is aimed at value-conscious consumers who demand solid performance at a reasonable price. The new SSD features a SandForce SF-2200 series controller, offering speeds of up to 550MB/s (read) and 510MB/s (write) along with up to 85,000 IOPS (4K random write). The SandForce controller is coupled with the SATA 6Gb/s interface, allowing data transfer speeds up to double that of older SATA 3Gb/s SSDs. Other features include Native Command Queuing (NCQ) and TRIM support. As with all SSDs, the S510 is shock resistant and enables much faster PC boot times than a conventional hard drive. The A-DATA S510 will have a capacity of 120GB although A-DATA did not disclose details regarding pricing or availability of the SSD.

OCZ Introduces Synapse Cache SATA III 2.5

Category: Storage / Hard Drives
Posted: September 21, 2011 02:32AM
Author: Dale Shuck

OCZ Technology has announced the release of its Synapse Cache Series 2.5” solid state drives. Designed for caching operations, the new Synapse SSDs make use of Dataplex cache software to manage the Synapse drives in conjunction with standard hard drives. The combination promises to provide users with solid state drive-level performance across the entire capacity of the hard drive. This means you can have the best of both worlds with the performance advantage of solid state drives with the higher capacity of a standard hard drive. The Synapse Cache SSD works with the Dataplex software to place the most recently/frequently used data on the SSD with less-frequently used data residing on the hard drive. OCZ Synapse Cache SSDs are available now in 2.5” SATA III 64GB and 128GB capacities but no pricing information was announced.

Angelbird Releases PCIe SSD

Category: Storage / Hard Drives
Posted: September 12, 2011 03:17PM
Author: Nick Harezga

Angelbird, a European company focused on high speed storage devices, has unveiled its new PCIe based SSD. The Wing PCIe card is based on the PCIe x4 standard, and works with all of the popular operating systems. Each model of the Wing card can hold up to four SSDs, with higher end models also featuring up to 32GB of onboard storage. The company recommends the use of its Crest SSD cartridges, based on the SF-1222 SandForce controller, but any standard SSD will also work. The Crest SSDs come in capacities of 60GB, 115GB, and 240GB. With four 240GB cartridges installed, the Wing card was able to achieve read and write speeds of 800MB/s and 750MB/s, respectively.

Corsair Announces USB 3.0 Flash Drives

Category: Storage / Hard Drives
Posted: September 10, 2011 11:47AM
Author: Nick Harezga

Corsair has announced that it is bringing the speedy USB 3.0 standard to several lines of its flash drives. The Flash Voyager, Flash Voyager GT, and Flash Survivor are all getting the USB 3.0 treatment. The Flash Voyager line will also be receiving a decrease in size, while still keeping the same rubber housing as current drives. The Flash Voyager GT will boast speeds up to four times higher than USB 2.0 versions of the drive. With read and write speeds up to 135MB/s and 83MB/s, respectively, these drives should provide plenty of speedy storage on the go. The Flash Survivor line features an anodized aircraft-grade aluminum housing that is waterproof up to 200 meters, for anyone that keeps their computers underwater. The Survivor line also features shock and vibration resistant technology in the event of drops.

Thecus Adds Support for Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Backups

Category: Storage / Hard Drives
Posted: September 8, 2011 03:15AM
Author: Dale Shuck

We've reviewed NAS units from Thecus here at OCC in the past including the N4100PRO and the N3200PRO. While these units are now a year or two old, Thecus has ensured their relevancy by updating the firmware so that even older units continually receive new features. Thecus has just demonstrated this again with the release of its latest firmware version, v5.01.05, that adds support for Mac OS X 10.7. Beyond  the more visible changes Apple made in Mac OS X Lion, it also upgraded its file transfer protocol with the release of Apple Filing Protocol (AFP) 3.3. Now, Thecus has upgraded its software across its NAS line so the servers can connect over AFP 3.3 and backup with Time Machine. You can download the latest firmware from the Thecus web site here.