OCZ Technology Group, Inc., a leading provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) for computing devices and systems, today announced the release of the Vertex 450 SATA III SSD Series featuring the company's proprietary Indilinx Barefoot 3 M10 Series controller. As part of the leading-edge Vertex series, Vertex 450 lives up to its name and bridges the gap between high performance and mainstream solid-state storage. With advanced storage performance, reliability, and quality, the Vertex 450 utilizes 20 nm process geometry NAND flash to meet the needs of today's high-end consumer and client applications.

"As one of the industry's most highly awarded SSD Series to date, the Vertex name has become synonymous with the latest and greatest in flash-based storage providing an exceptional balance of performance and cost efficiency," said Daryl Lang, Senior Vice President of Product Management for OCZ Technology. "The Vertex 450 marks the first time this popular OCZ series utilizes in-house ASIC technology delivering an even greater level of speed, reliability and value for our customers."

Innodisk, a designer and manufacturer of SSDs for commercial and industrial applications, announces a release of the industrial-embedded industry's first SATA device in accordance to SATA µSSD standards - nanoSSD.

Through the integration of a control chip, flash memory and peripheral power components into a single ball grid array (BGA) package, Innodisk has managed to reduce the size of the nanoSSD to approximately 1% the size of a 2.5" SSD. With dimensions of only 16 x 20 x 2 mm (WxLxH), a weight of only 1.5g, SATA III support, capacities ranging from 4 to 64 GB and both x86 and ARM compatibility, nanoSSD can be incorporated into a wide variety of applications where a small form-factor and high transfer rates are important, including industrial mobile devices, embedded systems, tablets, high-end smart phones and Ultrabooks.

Toshiba Corporation today announced that the company has developed second generation 19 nanometer process technology that it will apply to mass production of 2-bit-per-cell 64 gigabit NAND memory chips later this month.

Toshiba has used the new generation technology to develop the world's smallest 2-bit per-cell 64 gigabit NAND memory chips, with an area of only 94 square millimeters. Using a unique high speed writing method, the next generation chips can achieve a write speed of up to 25 megabytes a second - the world's fastest class* in 2-bit-per-cell chips.

SanDisk Corporation, a global leader in flash memory storage solutions, today announced it has begun customer sampling of flash memory products based on its industry-leading 1Ynm process technology, which represents its second generation 19 nanometer (nm) manufacturing technology. SanDisk's achievement of this breakthrough in semiconductor manufacturing takes its memory cell size from 19nm-by-26nm to 19nm-by-19.5nm, delivering a 25 percent reduction of the memory cell area and allowing SanDisk to continue leading the industry in building smaller, more powerful flash memory products.

SanDisk's second-generation 19nm memory die uses the most sophisticated flash memory technology node to-date, including advanced process innovations and cell-design solutions. SanDisk's All-Bit-Line (ABL) architecture with proprietary programming algorithms and multi-level data storage management schemes help yield multi-level cell (MLC) NAND flash memory chips that do not sacrifice performance or reliability. In addition, SanDisk's three bits per cell X3 technology, implemented in the second-generation 19nm node will deliver the lowest-cost flash solutions to address multiple growing end-markets for flash memory.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the world leader in advanced memory technology, today announced that it is now supplying its solid state drive (SSD), the SM843T, for use in high-performance servers and storage in next-generation data centers, including Big Data systems.

"Samsung Green SSD products are widely acknowledged for their superior performance and quality design having contributed to data center system improvements and operational cost savings," said Young-Hyun Jun, executive vice president, memory sales & marketing, Samsung Electronics. "In response to customer demand, we are accelerating the growth of the flash storage market with new SSD offerings this year like the SM843T, while reinforcing our competitive edge in next-generation SSD products and solutions."

Transcend Information, Inc. (Transcend), a leading manufacturer of industrial-grade products, today announced the release of its SATA II 3Gb/s MSM610 mSATA mini solid state drive (SSD). With its diminutive yet robust form factor, impressive sequential read/write transfer speeds, and a host of reliability features, the MSM610 mSATA mini SSD delivers solid state performance and durability to today's advanced mobile devices such as tablet PCs, Ultrabooks, and other embedded storage applications.

Fully compliant with the SATA II 3Gb/s specification and built with industry-leading toggle-mode MLC NAND flash chips, the MSM610 mSATA mini SSD boasts blazing fast sequential read and write speeds up to 245 and 48 MB/s respectively. This outstanding performance translates into reduced boot up and data transfer times, superior application launch speed, and enhanced overall system responsiveness; especially useful for dual-drive notebooks and Ultrabooks taking advantage of both the high-speed MSM610 mSATA mini SSD and a high capacity hard disk drive.

I-O Data rolled out the SSDN-3V line of consumer SSDs. Built in the Ultrabook-friendly 7 mm-thick 2.5-inch form-factor, the drives just about take advantage of SATA 6 Gb/s interface, and include a USB adapter that lets you plug it externally, to clone your existing software installation, using the included Acronis True Image 2013 software license. Available in 60 GB (SSDN-3V60), 120 GB (SSDN-3V120), and 240 GB (SSDN-3V120) capacities, the drives appear to be based on a SandForce 2281 controller platform, offering transfer-rates of up to 308 MB/s reads, with up to 185 MB/s writes. A 7 to 9.5 mm adapter comes included. The three are slated for the end of May.Source: Hermitage Akihabara

Lian-Li Industrial Co. Ltd, today announces a new brushed aluminum Mini-ITX chassis ? PC-Q13. With its curve-shaped design and large acrylic front window the fully aluminum PC-Q13 allows users to show off their systems, and is sure to be the talking piece of any room. Whether in the living room, bedroom, or office, the PC-Q13 with its curve-shape and brushed aluminum finish takes visual command without being ostentatious. Additionally, DIY builders can put their stylized internal components and intricate builds on full display ? as they should not be hidden from sight.

Thanks to the two expansion slots on the top of the chassis, the PC-Q13 supports graphics cards up to 200mm (7.8"). For storage, up to four 2.5" hard drives or SSDs can be mounted in the removable hard drive cage at the bottom of the chassis. A 140mm fan in the rear of the chassis expels hot air, while ventilation on the top and side allows for cool air to enter. A small form factor power supply up to 125 mm (4.9") is placed on rubber pads in order to reduce vibrations.

Rain has released the new LiveBook V, a true high-performance laptop designed for 3D arts and video editing. Rain Computers, designer of bespoke audio and visual workstations for notables including Conan O'Brien, Public Enemy, Cirque du Soliel and the US Olympic Committee, prides itself on creating the most powerful and stable platform for mission critical content creation.

LiveBook V (the V is for visual) includes some of the most advanced technology available. With an eye toward professional visual production, the balanced component architecture includes the latest Intel Core i7 quad-core processors up to 3GHz (3.9GHz if you count Turbo Boost), room for an astounding 32 gigabytes of 1600 MHz dual-channel memory, and a choice of NVIDIA GeForce GTX or Quadro workstation-class graphics. And, since 3D and video projects are as hungry for storage space as they are for bandwidth, LiveBook V ships standard with both a solid state drive (SSD) and a high-speed mechanical hard drive. More storage space can be added via an mSATA SSD for a total of up to 1.5 terabytes.

Cooler Master, an industry leading PC component manufacturer today announces the N200, N400 and N600, a new line of cases with a modernistic design that has the capacity for an internal 240mm radiator even for the smallest of the three, N200 (a mini-ITX/micro-ATX case). XtraFlow airflow.

N200, is the first mini-ITX/micro-ATX case that has internal space for 120mm or 240mm radiators in the front of the case or a 120mm radiator at the back. Thanks to an all mesh front panel, 2 high-quality Cooler Master XtraFlo fans and large air vents, it boasts excellent cooling performance. Despite its extremely compact size, the N200 supports 160mm tall CPU tower coolers, long high end VGAs, including the upcoming HD7990, four 2.5" SSDs and three of 3.5" HDDs.

Storage legend TDK launched the SDG4A line of entry-level consumer SSDs in the 2.5-inch SATA form-factor. Available in 64 GB, 128 GB, and 256 GB capacities, the drives use TDK's in-house GBDriver RS4 processor, and MLC NAND flash. Featuring SATA 3 Gb/s interface, the drives offer transfer speeds as high as 180 MB/s reads, with 130 MB/s writes. Common SSD features such as TRIM, ECC, and read-retry. Production of the drives will begin later this month.Source: Hermitage Akihabara

Corsair, a worldwide designer and supplier of high-performance components, today announced two new solid-state drive (SSD) related products. The first, the SSD & Hard Disk Drive Cloning Kit, enables users to easily duplicate and transfer data between drives. The kit, which includes a cable and software, is ideal for users upgrading from traditional hard disk drives (HDD) to faster, more rugged Corsair SSDs. In addition, the company announced the Corsair SSD Toolbox, a free software utility which enables users to configure, optimize and monitor their Corsair SSDs.

The SSD & Hard Disk Drive Cloning Kit enables users to move data between a hard drive and SSD by simply selecting the source drive and destination drives and then clicking a button. Designed for users migrating their data to newly installed SSDs, the kit includes data migration software, a USB-to-SATA cable, and Quick Start Guide. The cable supports USB 3.0 and 2.0 delivering transfer rates up to 180 MB/s with USB 3.0 ports, 4 times faster than USB 2.0.

At a press event held today in New York, Acer unveiled the Aspire R7, a revolutionary 15.6-inch notebook that will redefine the touch and type computing experience. Featuring a Full HD 1920 x 1080 touch screen, the Acer R7 was made for the new computing lifestyle, which increasingly combines touching and typing. With a repositioned keyboard and a revolutionary "Ezel Hinge" that moves the display forward and into different positions, the R7 makes the combination of touching the screen and using the keyboard more intuitive and natural. Its ergonomic design allows users to explore and determine their own preferred way to interact with technology.

"With the Aspire R7, Acer has redesigned the laptop with an approach that's based on how people interact with their notebooks and other devices," said Sumit Agnihotry, vice president, product marketing, Acer America. "Its progressive design redefines the computing experience, so whether consumers are touching or typing, the R7 adapts to allow consumers to create, browse and share content in ways they never have before."

Acer today debuts the Acer Aspire P3 Ultrabook, which delivers all the benefits of an Ultrabook in a unique design that easily transforms into tablet-mode. Today, many users are faced with choosing between notebook, hybrid, convertible or tablet designs when selecting a mobile computing device. The Aspire P3 takes care of that, with no compromises required. The Aspire P3 is the ideal mobile computing device for users who create and consume content.

Weighing only 3.06 pounds and measuring 0.77-inches thin, the newly defined mobile PC delivers on the promise of Ultrabooks with excellent performance and long battery life in a highly portable form factor. It adds the many benefits of tablet with a design that allows the touch-screen display to be used freely or in the keyboard-case. This gives Acer customers enhanced mobility as well as more ways to enjoy their device using touch for the latest apps, viewing photos, keeping in touch and having fun.

Micron Technology, Inc. today announced a new PCIe all-flash I/O accelerator to improve overall performance in enterprise servers, appliances and storage platforms. The new Micron P420m combines consistent performance with the inherent power efficiency of an all-flash system to deliver improved economics for enterprise data centers. The P420m accelerates performance of today's demanding data center applications, including online transaction processing (OLTP), data warehousing and virtualization.

Ultimately, Micron's P420m ends the wait game for digital data. It features ultra-low latency performance that enables fast and predictable response times to information frequently used in data center environments. When tested against competing PCIe solutions in a MySQL server running an OLTP benchmark, the P420m is the fastest and most consistent performer, delivering more than 3,200 web server requests per second. It handily manages online requests during peak traffic times, improving the overall end-user experience.

Cooler Master, an industry leading PC component manufacturer today announces the N series, a brand new series of compact mainstream cases. The N series brings liquid cooling support up to 240mm radiators and improved air cooling performance wrapped in subtle and simplistic designs.

N series cases were designed with cooling performance in mind, especially liquid cooling. The full mesh front panels and a large amount of vents all over let air stream through the case with ease. The N300 supports up to 8 fans, including a 120mm vent on the all important side panel to keep high-end VGAs fed with fresh air, and support for two 120mm fans or one 240mm radiator on top of the case. The N500 supports up to 9 fans, adding a second 120mm slot to the side panel, and extends to top mounted vents to dual 140mm vents, including support for 240mm radiators.

SMART Storage Systems, an innovative enterprise solid-state drive (SSD) technology provider, today announced the new Optimus Eco, the first Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) 6Gb/s SSD on the market to leverage 19 nm multi-level cell (MLC) Flash. Continuing the company's effort to usher in a new era of Flash storage, and anticipating the changing needs of enterprise data centers, SMART Storage Systems' new Optimus Eco SSD represents the industry's best combination of performance, capacity, endurance and cost in an enterprise-class 2.5-inch drive.

Forced to do more with less, many organizations are choosing to build their own hyperscale architectures by combining best-in-class hardware and software to lower costs and meet growing data center demands. In addition, looking to control maintenance costs, data center managers are seeking the highest-capacity drives to pack more capacity into a rack, resulting in the ability to reduce their storage footprint. In fact, Gartner estimates that in 2016 the average capacity of an SSD deployed in enterprise storage and server environments will be more than 1.1 TB. When combined with SSDs that can provide the endurance necessary to support write-intensive applications with cost-effective 19 nm MLC Flash, the result is a dramatic reduction in storage total cost of ownership (TCO).

Other World Computing (OWC) www.macsales.com, a leading zero emissions Mac and PC technology company, announced today the OWC Envoy Pro EX ultra-portable Solid State Drive solution. Elegantly designed in anodized aluminum to match modern Macs and PCs, the Envoy Pro EX fits easily into a coat pocket, backpack, or briefcase for rugged mobile high performance storage and/or backup capacity.

SuperSpeed USB 3.0 Bus-Powered SSD
Inside the Envoy Pro EX resides a SandForce Driven OWC Aura Pro 6G SSD which offers real world sustained reads up to 436 MB/s and writes up to 429 MB/s. Besides offering blistering fast performance, the USB 3.0 interface can bus-power the Envoy Pro EX so an AC power adapter isn't required.

QNAP Systems, Inc. today announced the release of the Turbo NAS TS-x21 and TS-x20 series for home users and home offices. The new models in the TS-x21 series are equipped with 2.0 GHz CPU, 1GB DDR3 RAM, and the TS-x20 series with 1.6 GHz CPU, 512MB DDR3 RAM. Both series deliver superior performance for daily routines in file storage, sharing, and data backup, and serve as ideal media centers for storing and sharing huge multimedia files.

The TS-x21 and TS-x20 series feature the brand-new Turbo NAS operating system QTS 4.0. The new QTS 4.0 integrates multi-window operations into the web-based user interface, adds cross-device file synchronization, several smart mobile apps, and more. In an era where almost everyone has at lease one mobile phone or tablet device, the QTS 4.0 fulfills people's needs of mobile data access and synchronization, and storage for huge quantities of data. What's more, the QTS 4.0's multi-window user interface introduces users to an unprecedented NAS management experience. In addition, the multimedia applications and multi-tasking designs not only increase management efficiency but also transform home entertainment.

Monster Digital, a leading innovator and developer of advanced memory and storage solutions, is introducing its first line of external Solid State Drives (SSD), which make the jump to SSD technology even easier for professionals and consumers to adopt for additional computer storage needs.

Simply put, Overdrive 3.0 is the fastest and easiest way to add storage to your computer. Inside the laser etched stainless steel enclosure is an advanced, high-speed, solid state drive that is available in four storage capacities of 128 GB, 256 GB, 512 GB and 1 TB for the suggested retail prices of $179.99, $299.99, $599.99, $1399.99 respectively.

Other World Computing (OWC), a leading zero emissions Mac and PC technology company, today introduced the OWC Mercury Helios+E2 Thunderbolt SSD Solution. The bootable 'all-in-one' storage performance and expansion solution offers owners of Thunderbolt technology enabled Macs and PCs sustained read/write data throughput up to 617MB/s from up to 960GB of OWC Mercury SSD capacity; two Thunderbolt interfaces for connecting multiple Thunderbolt devices; and two eSATA 6Gb/s expansion ports for connecting up to an additional 32TB or more of external storage/backup capacity.

Intel expanded its performance-segment SSD 335 series with a new entry-level 80 GB variant (model: SSDSC2CT080AK5). It joins the 180 GB and 240 GB variants, and occupies a price-point around the 110€ mark (excl VAT), which makes it particularly pricey in comparison to 120 GB drives. SSD 335 combines an LSI-SandForce SF-2281 series controller with Intel-made 20 nm MLC NAND flash.

Intel didn't update the product sheet with details of the new 80 GB model, but its bigger siblings offer sequential speeds as high as 500 MB/s reads, with up to 450 MB/s writes. Built in the 9.5 mm-thick 2.5-inch form-factor, SSD 335 features SATA 6 Gb/s interface, and supports most standard consumer SSD features, including TRIM and NCQ. The drive should begin showing up on online stores worldwide, in both OEM (drive-only) and retail (includes bay-adapters and data migration software) trims.

First shown to crowds at this year's International CES event in January, ASUS' first enthusiast SSD, the ROG RAIDR, is heading toward a mid-May launch. A few more of its pictures and specs sheets were posted by SweClockers. As detailed earlier, the RAIDR is a compound SSD in the PCI-Express add-on card form-factor, with PCI-Express 2.0 x2 interface (supports x4, x8, and x16 slots). It uses two SandForce SF2281-driven SSD subunits striped in a hardware-abstract RAID 0 configuration. The subunits use Toshiba-made 19 nm MLC NAND flash chips, with 16 KB page size.

The ROG RAIDR supports TRIM command, NCQ and SMART, despite being a RAID 0-based SSD. It is bootable, and supports Windows 8 Secure Boot. Installing an operating system on the drive doesn't require any F6 drivers, as the controller masquerades as a standard AHCI controller and a single disk, with the subunits and their RAID 0 stripe completely abstract. This way, the drive can accept TRIM commands from the OS.

OCZ Technology Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: OCZ), a leading provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) for computing devices and systems, provides business update for the fourth quarter of 2013.

The Company is disclosing certain preliminary information about its fourth quarter of fiscal 2013 that ended on February 28, 2013, subject to certain closing procedures and further review by the Company and its auditors. As previously reported the Company estimated that revenue in each of the unreported quarters ending August 31, 2012 and November 30, 2012 is in the range of $65 million to $85 million. This range takes into effect the impact of the reclassification of certain customer costs from operating expenses to revenue, the significant reduction in channel inventory, the timing of revenue recognition and reserves for product returns. The preliminary revenue range for the unreported fourth quarter of fiscal 2013 is estimated to be between $65 million and $70 million.

Dell today launched the Latitude 3330, designed to help schools and educators teach tomorrow's leaders while providing excellent value school districts. The new laptop offers the robust computing features required to maximize learning productivity, compatibility with Dell's existing solutions and services for education and support for personalized learning opportunities in the classroom.

A snap to deploy, the Latitude 3330 easily integrates into a school's existing IT infrastructure, speeding up time to classroom and saving time and money. It's sleek, lightweight, and sturdy design stands up to the demands of even the youngest of students, fits easily on classroom desks and in backpacks and moves easily from classroom to classroom or home and back. The new laptop offers no compromise performance with full laptop productivity and all day battery life with a 6-cell battery.