OCZ Technology Group, Inc., a leading provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) for computing devices and systems, today announced the availability of its new SATA III-based Vector SSD Series featuring the company's next-generation Indilinx Barefoot 3 controller. OCZ's worldwide technology hardware and firmware teams developed the new controller silicon and firmware completely in-house to enable full design control over the Vector SSD Series roadmap, while delivering exceptional I/O performance, enhanced reliability and endurance, and a host of differentiated features to empower high performance laptops, desktops, and workstations with superior storage capabilities.

OCZ Vector SSDs provide exceptional input/output operations per second (IOPS) performance and the cutting-edge Barefoot 3 controller consistently delivers superior sustained performance over time regardless of whether the data streams are in compressed or uncompressed formats. As a result, this groundbreaking SSD series provides faster file transfers and boot-ups, and a quicker, more responsive storage experience.

Intel's SSD 525 line of performance mSATA SSDs may be slated for 2013, but made an early debut with the company's NUC (next unit of computing) desktop. A 180 GB variant of the drive was put to test by VR-Zone, which is driven by LSI-SandForce SF-2281 processor, and features three Intel-made 20 nm MLC NAND flash chips (6-channels). The drive cracked Anvil Storage Utilities benchmark with 504 MB/s (compressible) and 463 MB/s (incompressible) sequential read speeds, 468 MB/s (compressible) and 240 MB/s (incompressible) sequential writes, and about 55,841 IOPS 4K random write (QD16) performance. The performance numbers make the drive appear nearly as fast as larger 2.5-inch SATA SSDs, and could be a boon for Ultrabook makers.

Mushkin, Inc., an industry-leading designer and manufacturer of high-performance and mission-critical computer products, today announced the worldwide launch of its new 30 GB Atlas deluxe mSATA solid-state drive (SSD), scheduled to start shipping this month.

The new 30 GB Atlas deluxe, the latest from the award-winning mSATA SSD product line, is the fastest on the market, featuring read/write speeds up to 555/365 megabytes per second, and 4KB random read/write IOPS up to 92,000/70,000. Atlas deluxe delivers SSD reliability and performance, in a lower-powered, smaller mSATA SSD form factor that measures about an eighth of the size for easy installation on any device with an mSATA slot. Validated for NVELO Dataplex caching software and Intel Smart Response Technology, the Atlas deluxe mSATA is well-suited as a cache for existing hard drives or as a standalone SSD for thin and light laptops and Ultrabooks.

As big data, high-performance computing (HPC) and cloud-computing applications push the demand for real-time access of data into the zettabytes, Intel Corporation announced today its next-generation data center solid-state drive (SSD), the Intel Solid-State Drive DC S3700 Series, designed to remove storage bottlenecks and maximize multi-core CPU performance. The Intel SSD DC S3700 Series delivers fast, consistent performance and low latencies along with strong data protection and high endurance to help IT personnel support today's most demanding data center applications.

"Today's data explosion creates unique storage challenges for data center professionals," said Rob Crooke, Intel vice president and general manager for the Intel Non-Volatile Memory (NVM) Solutions Group. "High latencies and slow storage I/O can cripple data centers' ability to deliver exciting big data or cloud-computing applications with fast, low latency data access. Intel's next-generation Intel SSD DC S3700 Series breaks through SSD limitations for the data center on all fronts - fast, consistent performance, strong data protection and high endurance -- so IT professionals can deliver on their most demanding technology initiatives."

The 330 Series solid state drives are already old news for Intel as the Santa Clara-based company has already begun to roll out the 335 Series drives. The first 335 model, codenamed SSDSC2CT240A4K5, just went on sale in Japan and it features a 240 GB capacity, a 2.5-inch form factor (9.5 mm thickness), a SATA 6.0 Gbps interface, a SandForce SF-2281 controller, and 20 nm MLC (multi-level cell) NAND Flash memory.

Intel's 335 Series SSD delivers read/write speeds of up to 500/450 MB/s, is backed by a three-year warranty, and costs ¥16,980 (about $214). 80 GB and 180 GB models are expected to arrive in Q1 2013.

OCZ Technology Group, Inc., a leading provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) for computing devices and systems, will display its enterprise storage solutions at the Gartner Symposium/ITXpo, Booth #1044, Walt Disney World Dolphin Resort, Lake Buena Vista, Florida, from October 21st through October 25th. The Gartner Symposium/ITXpo is an annual gathering of CIOs and senior IT executives seeking the latest tools, technologies, and information to improve IT capabilities and data center effectiveness.

For SAN acceleration of I/O intensive workloads, OCZ will present its leading Z-Drive R4 PCIe SSDs supporting both full-height (FH) and half-height (HH) configurations, enabling the CPU with direct access (zero-latency storage) and instant boot capabilities. The FH (3/4 length) RM88 model enables an industry best 2.8GB/s of sequential throughput, 410K of random IOPS performance, and usable MLC NAND flash capacities from 800GB to 3.2TB. The HH (half-length) RM84 model is also a performance leader enabling 2GB/s of sequential throughput, 250K of random IOPS performance and usable capacities from 300GB to 1.2TB.

Micron Technology, Inc. today announced another new storage industry milestone-the integration of its 20nm NAND flash storage media into a high-endurance, high-capacity enterprise system. San Jose-based Skyera is using Micron's 20nm, 128 gigabit (Gb) multilevel cell (MLC) NAND flash storage media to pack an astounding 44 terabytes (TB) into a single, compact enterprise storage system for big data, cloud computing, and virtualization applications. Skyera's Skyhawk system uses more than 3,000 Micron flash storage components, creating a high-capacity, high-performance storage solution that fits into a 1U form factor-about the size of a pizza box.

Both the end system and the components have earned industry awards for innovation. The Skyhawk storage system's impressive capabilities earned it Best of Show at this year's Flash Memory Summit in August. In February, UBM TechInsights recognized Micron's groundbreaking 20nm MLC NAND (developed jointly with Intel); giving it their top honor-Semiconductor of the Year. This 20nm process technology is critical to creating storage media with the capacity, endurance, and cost-effectiveness required for enterprise storage on this scale-and Micron's device is the only MLC NAND available in a 128 Gb density.

ADATA announced a new line of affordable client SSDs, the Premier Pro SP600 series. Built in the 9.5 mm-thick 2.5-inch form-factor, the drives take advantage of SATA 6 Gb/s interface. Available in 32 GB, 64 GB, and 128 GB capacities, the Premier Pro SP600 series is driven by JMicron JMF661 processor, and features 20 nm-class MLC NAND flash memory. The drives offer sequential read speeds of up to 360 MB/s, and up to 130 MB/s writes. Random access performance numbers provided to us include 40,000 IOPS 4K random reads, and 30,000 IOPS 4K random writes. The drives pack most common client SSD features, including TRIM, NCQ, and 40 b/KB ECC. The 32 GB, 64 GB, and 128 GB variants are priced at US $49.99, $69.99, and $99.99, respectively.

Green House today announced a new family of MLC-based SD memory cards, the GH-SDI-WMA. Going from 2 GB to 32 GB in terms of capacity, the cards deliver read and write speeds of up to 20 MB/s and 16 MB/s, respectively, they can operate at -25 to +85 degrees Celsius, and include technologies that prevent data loss.

The GH-SDI-WMA cards are backed by a three-year warranty.

Mushkin, Inc., an industry-leading designer and manufacturer of high-performance and mission-critical computer products, today announced that its new line of slim 7 mm Mushkin Chronos Deluxe Solid-State Drives (SSDs) geared for the new generation of ultrabooks that has started shipping worldwide.

Continuing the tradition of Mushkin's award-winning Chronos Deluxe SSDs, the new drives unleash scorching-fast read and write speeds, cutting-edge SandForce technology, and unmatched performance for the dollar. Featuring high-speed synchronous MLC NAND, advanced controller technology, optimized NAND management and a SATA 6 Gb/s interface, Mushkin now offers enthusiasts the ability to upgrade their PC or notebook that pushes the limits of slim computing.

Japanese company Green House has today announced not one but three families of industrial-grade CFast memory cards, the SLC-based GH-CFS-NSA and GH-CFS-XSA, and the MLC-based GH-CFS-NMA. All three series make use of a JMicron controller and comply with the CFast Specification v1.0.

The models equipped with SLC NAND Flash have a MTBF of up to 4 million hours and deliver read/write speeds of up to 130/110 MB/s, while the MLC-powered cards have a 3 million-hour MTBF and top 130/120 MB/s when reading/writing (speeds vary with capacity).

All three CFast card lines are set to be released before the end of the month (so, this week). The GH-CFS-NSA and GH-CFS-XSA models come with a three-year warranty and go from 2 GB to 32 GB in terms of capacity, whereas the GH-CFS-NMA cards are backed by a one-year warranty and go from 8 GB to 64 GB.

Green House has today revealed to the world its newest solid state drive family, the GH-SSD32A Series which is made up of four models, all 2.5-inch in size and all equipped with MLC (multi-level cell) NAND Flash memory and a SandForce SF-2281VB1 controller.

Green House's SSDs also feature a SATA 6.0 Gbps interface, TRIM support, and a three-year warranty. The GH-SSD32A line includes 60 GB (550 MB/s read speed, 480 MB/s write speed), 120 GB (550/500 MB/s), 240 GB (550/500 MB/s) and 480 GB (540/420 MB/s) drives.

When it comes to the ever-evolving core technologies of embedded systems, data transmission efficiency and speed are the main targets for improvement. Apacer, one of the world's top ten PC SSD manufacturers, has introduced a new CFast memory card to support the SATA II 3 Gb/s high-speed transmission mode. After winning customers' favor, Apacer has now upgraded the capacity and speed of their industrial CFast memory cards. Additionally, these cards come in MLC solutions and support extended operating temperatures.

Apacer's latest industrial CFast card, features a peak reading speed of 160 MB/s, breaking the speed limits of the CF cards currently used by industrial enterprises. This speed is three times faster than typical industrial CF cards, dramatically promoting file transmission efficiency, making it one of the best storage solutions for high performance computing systems.

OCZ Technology Group, Inc., a leading provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) for computing devices and systems, today announced that its 2.5-inch SATA III Deneva 2 SSD series, supporting multi-level cell (MLC) synchronous and asynchronous NAND formats, are now compatible with QNAP Systems Inc.'s Turbo NAS products. The addition of Deneva 2 SSDs into QNAP's Turbo NAS peripherals compatibility list represents the first successful enterprise certification of OCZ SSDs into this platform and the third successful certification of OCZ SATA III SSDs, joining OCZ Vertex 3 and Agility 3 SSDs on the list.

With the industry's fastest transactional performance for SATA III-based drives, Deneva 2 SSDs deliver up to 80,000 input/output operations per second (IOPS) performance (random 4K writes) and a maximum bandwidth of 550 MB/s. They also support best-in-class enterprise endurance and reliability, featuring power loss data protection, minimal write amplification, intelligent block management and wear-leveling, security encryption, and advanced error correction.

Yesterday at the Intel Developer Forum 2012 in San Francisco the OCZ Technology Group (OCZ for short) provided a quick peek at its upcoming solid state drive named Vector. Coming in a 2.5-inch form factor, the Vector features a Barefoot 3 controller (designed by Indilinx from top to bottom, unlike the Barefoot 2 which has Marvell technology), 2x nm MLC NAND, and a SATA 6.0 Gbps interface. Unfortunately OCZ didn't say anything about the drive's performance.

The Vector is set to be released in Q4 in at least two capacities - 256 GB and 512 GB.

Strontium Technology has announced a new series of high-performance solid state drives (SSDs) named HAWK. These Hynix-built solid state drives with Strontium branding are based on SandForce's SF2281 controller and SK Hynix Flash. These drives are said to be a good upgrade option featuring 500MB/s of read and write performance and also claim to offer faster performance for PCs and Macs. Needless to say, SSDs feature enhanced durability, shock-proof, silent operation and are more reliable as compared to traditional hard drives.

The 2.5-inch HAWK drive is available in 120GB and 240GB storage capacities. The sequential (256KB, MAX) read speed is 510 MB/s and write speed is 470 MB/s. The random (4KB, MAX) performance is 50,000 IOPS read and 38,000 IOPS write. It comes with support for SATA I/ II/ III interface, TRIM Support (O/S support required) and has a Mean Time between Failures (MBTF) of 1.2M. Strontium HAWK SSD has been designed to offer quicker boot up and shorter lead time in the loading of applications to enhance productivity.

Greenliant Systems, a leader in energy-efficient, highly secure and reliable solid state storage products, is now sampling its industrial temperature SATA and PATA interface NANDrive embedded solid state drives (SSDs) using 2-bits-per-cell (MLC) NAND flash memory. The new NANDrive devices are the first ball grid array (BGA) package SATA / PATA SSDs based on MLC NAND that are capable of operating at temperatures between -40 to +85 degrees Celsius.

NANDrive combines Greenliant's internally developed NAND controller with NAND flash die for a fully integrated SSD in a multi-chip package. SATA and PATA NANDrive products have the same pin-out across all capacities in each family to ensure backward compatibility and simplify board design. The BGA package allows for easy and firm mounting to a system motherboard, and the 1mm ball pitch increases long-term reliability for applications enduring mechanical shock, vibration and temperature cycling.

Toshiba's Storage Products Business Unit of Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc., a committed technology leader, today announced it is expanding its enterprise Solid State Drives (eSSD) family with the PX-Series, featuring three models targeted for various enterprise applications: boot, read-intensive, entry level servers; entry-to-mid-range application servers; and high-performance enterprise application servers. The PX-Series reflects Toshiba's continued storage innovation and coincides with the company's celebration of its 25th anniversary as the inventor of NAND flash technology. Each model is optimized for its target segment with NAND flash processes, capacity, interface support, and capabilities.

As cloud computing becomes a mainstream, it is essential for enterprise servers to improve capacities and data transmission speeds. Apacer is taking cloud computing as one of its core areas of development, and has created the Apacer SAFD 25A - a SATA 3.0 SSD that boasts both capacity and performance gains to address the needs of this industry. This is a high-end SSD targeted for cloud-based computing, featuring outstanding efficiency, based on high IOPs, and a large storage capacity of 512GB. It aims to optimize data storage variables in cloud computing centers by providing speed within a stable and power-saving operating environment.

By using the exceptional features of SSDs such as anti-shock, anti-vibration, low-power consumption, and high-speed data transmission, Apacer expects to help enterprise servers to improve their data access constraints and, in doing so, take the place of traditional hard drives. This can all be accomplished in tandem with cutting a large amount of the cooling cost, providing ground-breaking efficiency to create an increasingly reliable operating environment.

Despite the increase in adoption of SSDs in the industrial computer sector, price remains a major concern. Apacer seeks to address this issue with a quality SSD product. Apacer, one of the world's top ten PC SSD suppliers, has introduced a large-capacity MLC wide-temp SSD with CF and SD interfaces designed for industrial computer systems and automatic applications. Favorably priced, the product employs the vendor guaranteed flash chip, which means it can run stably under industry-level extended-temperature (-40°C ~ 85°C) environments. It stays reliable even at very high or very low temperatures, which makes the SSD a great storage solution suitable for the military, aviation, automobile, oil-well drilling and other industries.

Apacer's next-gen MLC wide-temp SSD includes an CF card compliant form-factor with CFA 4.1 specifications and an SD card supporting the SDHC Class 10 standard. The CF card adopts the standard 50-pin connector; the data transfer mode is up to PIO-6, Multi-Word DMA-4 and Ultra DMA-5, available in capacities from 8GB to 32GB. It features sequential read/write speed of up to 55/20 MB/Sec, which is about 3 times faster than that of its predecessor. The industrial SD card version supports the ver. 2.0 standard as defined by the SD Association, available in capacities from 4GB to 32GB. It also effectively enhances file transmission speeds thanks to sequential read/write speeds of up to 19/14 MB/sec.

Seagate Technology plc the worldwide leader in hard disk drives and storage solutions, and DensBits Technologies Ltd ("DensBits") the inventor of the world's first Memory ModemTM have announced today a strategic agreement for the development of low-cost, high-performance Solid State Drives ("SSD") for the consumer and enterprise markets. In conjunction with the agreement, Seagate has made an undisclosed equity investment in DensBits.

Seagate and DensBits are joining forces, to develop future products that are intended to provide customers with significant cost savings, extremely high reliability, and unparalleled performance. Under the agreement, DensBits' Memory ModemTM controller technology will be integrated with Seagate's various storage technologies to power a wide range of consumer and enterprise applications including 3 bits/cell ("TLC") 1Xnm Flash-based consumer-grade SSD, and 2 bits/cell ("MLC") 1x nm Flash-based enterprise-grade SSD.

Greenliant Systems, a leader in energy-efficient, highly secure and reliable solid state storage products, is now sampling its e.MMC NANDrive GLS85VM embedded solid state drive (SSD) product family to select customers. The new NANDrive devices support the JEDEC e.MMC 4.4 standard and are backward compatible with 4.3. While the JEDEC operating temperature range specification is -25 to +85 degrees Celsius, e.MMC NANDrive operates at full industrial temperatures between -40 and +85 degrees Celsius, giving customers data storage that can withstand the most severe conditions.

e.MMC NANDrive combines Greenliant's internally developed NAND controller with NAND flash die for a fully integrated SSD in a multi-chip package. It is available with 2-bits-per-cell (MLC) or 1-bit-per-cell (SLC) NAND to meet varying customer requirements for lifespan, endurance and performance. Measuring 14mm x 18mm, e.MMC NANDrive is offered in a 100 ball grid array (BGA) package, with 1mm ball pitch for increased long-term reliability.

Korean memory giant SK Hynix is launching its own branded consumer and enterprise SSD lines, à la Samsung (the other Korean memory giant). It is starting off with high-performance consumer SSDs targeting Ultrabooks, built in the 2.5-inch 7 mm-thick SATA form-factor. The SH910 series SSDs combine Hynix' homegrown H27QDG8VEBIR-BCB MLC NAND flash chips built in the 25 nm fab process, with LSI-SandForce SF-2281 processor.

The drive will be initially available in two capacities, 128 GB and 256 GB (higher than usual capacities thanks to adjusted overprovisioning). Both drives offer sequential transfer speeds of up to 520 MB/s reads with 500 MB/s writes; up to 60,000 IOPS 4K random seek, 35,000 IOPS random write; and feature-set that includes 128-bit AES encryption, TRIM, NCQ, and SMART. A performance review can be found at the source.

SSDs, with their advantages of high performance, compactness and low power consumption, are the perfect adaptation of storage products to the emergence of tablet PCs and Ultrabooks. Indeed, SSDs have become the defacto storage solution for ultra-thin notebooks. Apacer, a leading manufacturer of industrial SSDs, understands the demands for even more compactness and has produced a new mSATA A1 modular SSD that features a SATA 3.0 high-speed transmission interface and complies with JEDEC MO-300 standard codes. Currently, this model supports Intel Rapid Start and Intel Smart Response technologies, enabling users to enjoy an almost immediate start-up within seconds and enjoy a continuous high performance of the computer.

Strontium expanded its Python performance SATA 6 Gb/s SSD series with a new high-capacity 480 GB variant, which was displayed at Computex. Built in the 2.5-inch 7 mm-thick form-factor, the Python 480 GB is driven by SandForce SF-2281 processor, and uses MLC NAND flash. It offers sequential speeds as high as 550 MB/s reads, with 520 MB/s writes; and 4K random access performance of 60,000 IOPS. The company assures 1.5 million hours MTBF, and backed the product with 3 years warranty. The new 480 GB variant will reach stores soon, priced around US $450-500.