Toshiba Corporation's Semiconductor & Storage Products Company today announced the launch of the MD03ACA-V series, high-capacity hard disk drives (HDD) for surveillance applications. Toshiba's purpose-built line of 3.5-inch HDDs are available in capacities up to 4 TB. The 6 Gbit/s SATA drives spin at 7,200 rpm and support the industry-standard 512B sector lengths with rotational vibration (RV) compensation to keep performance under multiple HDD configuration, making the MD03ACA-V series suited for customers looking for 24/7 video surveillance storage. Mass production shipment in the Japanese market starts from this month.

The robust design of the MD03ACA-V series provides storage to various video recorders, including surveillance digital video recorders (SDVR), surveillance network video recorders (SNVR) and Hybrid SDVR, delivering 24/7 operation with a mean time to failure (MTTF) of 1 million hours. With up to 4TB of storage, Toshiba's MD03ACA-V enables support for higher resolution data streams, addresses the need for longer surveillance video retention periods, multi-streaming capabilities, wider temperature resistance and uninterrupted write applications.

Seagate Technology plc today announced that its Samsung HDD business unit is shipping its new Samsung Wireless media device for mobile users. Consumers can now carry up to 750 movies, and unprecedented libraries of music and photos everywhere they go. Samsung Wireless allows up to five users to connect making this the ultimate entertainment hotspot. The Samsung Wireless is available globally for MSRP of $179.00.

The Samsung Wireless media device is designed as a portable accessory to consumers' mobile devices (smart phones & tablets); its sleek design, small form-factor and light weight make it an ideal companion. The Samsung Wireless fulfills a variety of today's multimedia demands and is a perfect accessory for every generation of mobile lifestyle. No internet connection is needed with the Samsung Wireless; it streams content wirelessly (via WiFi) to up to five devices. The Samsung Wireless is a simple and easy to use device.

With their recent 5 TB breakthrough, Seagate Enterprise Capacity drives are among the highest-capacity drives available for enterprise-class purposes. This, along with offering impeccable reliability and power/performance standards, makes them ideal for business-critical, multi-drive server and storage environments - such as Thecus NAS systems. "Reaching the milestone of 5TB hard drive capacity is tremendous news for the storage industry. Seagate's reliability paired with Thecus's trusted technology is an undeniable edge for enterprises in need of large pools of data in energy efficient, high performance storage." - Florence Shih, Chairperson at Thecus Technology Corp.

Early, hands-on access to these high-capacity HDDs was made possible through Thecus's continued, close relationship with Seagate. After many hours of hard work with multiple devices in various environments, Thecus is happy to announce that the Seagate Enterprise Capacity 3.5" 5TB HDD is confirmed compatible with the entire Thecus NAS line. The new capacity limit is a game changer for enterprises which require a large pool of data. For example, if a 16-bay Thecus N16000PRO is fully loaded with 5TB disks, it can by itself store up to 80TB of data. Daisy Chaining technology furthermore allows you to connect an additional 4 Thecus D16000s (each with 16 bays) to a master N16000PRO. This results in a total of 400 TB worth of storage capacity.

G-Technology, a leader in delivering premium storage solutions for audio/video production, photography and the creative professional market, today announced the latest additions in its Evolution Series family - the G-DRIVE ev SSD and the 500 GB G-DRIVE ev external drive modules.

Inspired by creative pros, the Evolution Series is a flexible ecosystem of G-DOCK ev docking stations and interchangeable and expandable G-DRIVE ev external drive modules with USB 3.0 that makes transferring, editing and distributing content more efficient, scalable and reliable.

G-Technology, a leader in delivering premium storage solutions for audio/video production, photography and the creative professional market, today announced the first products in its new Studio line - the G-RAID Studio and G-SPEED Studio. Continuing G-Technology's popular design legacy, the Studio family comes in new high-quality, sleek black enclosure for today's high-performance computers and workstations.

The Studio line features multiple RAID options, removable enterprise-class 7,200 RPM drives, 20 gigabits per second (Gbps) Thunderbolt 2 interfaces, and the industry's highest capacity 6 TB hard disk drives (HDDs) for pre- and post-production workflows.

Seagate Technology plc, a world leader in storage solutions, today announced it is now shipping the world's fastest 6 TB hard disk drive (HDD) - the Seagate Enterprise Capacity 3.5 HDD v4. Boasting industry-leading performance, the Enterprise Capacity 3.5 HDD v4 is an important step forward in scale-out data infrastructures delivering supersize storage and enterprise reliability to meet the explosive growth of corporate and cloud-based data centers.

"Unstructured data growth is doubling exponentially and will propel the digital universe to reach 16 Zettabytes of data by as early as 2017. This will cause cloud service providers to look for innovative ways to store more within an existing footprint while lowering operational costs," said Scott Horn, Seagate vice president of marketing. "Seagate is poised to address this challenge by offering the fastest 6 TB enterprise capacity HDD based on our proven, reliable platform meeting this never-ending demand in both private and public cloud data centers."

Sony's new 2 TB (terabyte) portable storage hard disk drive takes the worry out of back-up in the field, and gives professionals reliable, bus-powered high-speed storage.

The new 2 TB hard disk drive (PSZ-HA2T) expands Sony's line of portable storage drives, and joins three current models including a 500 GB and 1 TB (PSZ-HA50 and PSZ-HA1T) hard disk model and a 256 GB solid state drive (PSZ-SA25).

The Storage Products Business Unit of Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc., a committed technology leader, announces the MQ01ABUxxxBW series, a mobile-grade thin 7mm hard disk drive (HDD) with self-encrypting technology, including Toshiba's unique wipe technology, which automatically erases data when an HDD is accessed by an unregistered system, has achieved validation to U.S. Federal Information Processing Standard 140-2 (FIPS 140-2). The MQ01ABUxxxBW series is the first Toshiba self-encrypting drive (SED) validated to the FIPS 140-2 standard. Toshiba's SED models are designed to the Trusted Computing Group's (TCG) industry-standard "Opal" Security Sub-Classification. This globally accepted standard implements protocols created to help IT managers, security management application providers and client security professionals to better manage data security and to help prevent potentially damaging and costly breaches to sensitive information. The FIPS-validated model also provides tamper-evident labeling for additional security, with a resulting validation to Level Two of the FIPS 140-2 standard.

The 7mm mobile thin SED series underwent rigorous cryptographic module validation testing by a U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)-certified testing laboratory in order to be validated by the U.S. Federal Information Processing standard. As a result of this validation, this Toshiba HDD series is now available for use in highly regulated and security-sensitive storage applications, such as government systems. The combination of support for ATA (Advanced Technology Attachment) Enhanced Secure Cryptographic Erase function, the TCG-Opal SSC (Security Subsystem Class) protocols, the Toshiba wipe technology extensions of the Opal protocols, and the FIPS 140-2 module level validation makes the MQ01ABUxxxBW series suitable for encrypting confidential data stored on client-grade mobile and desktop computers protected by security management applications.

Buffalo today unveiled its newest external storage solution, the Mini Station HD-PLFU3 Series. Coming in black and white, these portable drives feature USB 3.0 connectivity, they measure 115 x 76 mm, and offer 500 GB (11.5 mm height), 1 TB (14 mm) and 2 TB (19.5 mm) worth of space.

The HD-PLFU3 Series HDDs are backed by a one-year warranty and will become available (in Japan at first) around late April priced at 9,870 yen (~ 96 USD), 13,965 yen (~ 136 USD) and 20,895 yen (~ 203 USD) for the 500 GB, 1 TB and 2 TB units, respectively.

Addonics Technologies today announced the 6G RAID Tower family of external storage solutions, which connect multiple drives to any system at 6Gbps speed. Prices start at $189. The new Addonics solutions are ideal for video storage or large data applications. They are a simple way to expand the storage capacity of servers or any computing equipment with terabytes of storage space without sacrificing the full speed capability of the high performance hard drive or SSD.

Depending on the model, as much as 60 terabytes can be installed into one 6G RAID Tower. With the exception of the RAID Tower Mini, which uses a simple screw mount, drives are added or removed like tape cartridges from each drive bay without any special tools.

The Storage Products Business Unit of Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc., a committed technology leader, announces new additions to the enterprise capacity hard disk drives (HDD) - the AL13SXB and the self-encrypting AL13SXQ. With a 2.5-inch form factor, the AL13SXB and AL13SXQ have 15mm z-height and spin at speeds up to 15,000 rotations per minute (RPM), making the AL13SX series suitable for mission critical enterprise storage applications.

The AL13SX series comes in 300GB, 450GB and 600GB capacities, and delivers high performance in 600GB capacity while supporting industry standard 512n sector lengths in a space efficient 2.5-inch form factor. The 4K native sector and 512e emulation models of the drives include Toshiba's persistent write cache technology for improved data integrity and performance. Overall, the AL13SX series supports high storage density, saving rack space and reducing mission critical storage footprint and operational burden for enterprise customers.

HGST, a Western Digital company, today announced that it is shipping a new family of high-performance, high-capacity, 2.5-inch small form factor (SFF), 15K RPM enterprise-class hard disk drives (HDD) - the Ultrastar C15K600 family. Delivering best-in-class performance and capacity in one streamlined solution, the new Ultrastar C15K600 family enables higher density and higher performing servers, blades and network storage arrays all while reducing space requirements, lowering cooling costs and improving total cost of ownership (TCO).

Enterprise Demands Necessitate Fast, Efficient Storage
The demand for more efficient storage continues to grow as IT and facilities collide, creating the need for a better balance between capacity, performance, physical space and energy usage. To bridge this gap, customizing and tiering infrastructure workloads and tuning HDDs and SSDs by application and function will help data center managers more efficiently handle ever-increasing amounts of data.

Delivering solutions designed for an increasingly mobile and connected lifestyle, HGST, a Western Digital company, today announced that it is expanding its family of external storage and backup solutions with its new line of Touro S mobile external hard drives.

Available in colorful metallic finishes such as gold, silver, ruby and platinum, the Touro S drive family delivers two levels of data protection - local backup and cloud storage - to help protect, transport, store and access photos, music, videos and documents from anywhere. With its thin, stylish design and an aluminum enclosure, the 7,200 RPM hard drive-based external drives moves files up to 23 percent faster than standard 5,400 RPM-based drives.

WD, a Western Digital company and storage industry leader, today announced the availability of WD Purple, a purpose-built line of 3.5-inch, high-capacity hard drives for surveillance applications. Designed specifically for video surveillance units, WD Purple hard drives excel in new and existing home and small business security environments with up to eight hard drives and up to 32 high-definition (HD) video cameras. Shipping today, WD Purple hard drives are available in capacities from 1 TB up to 4 TB.

"By expanding our 'Power of Choice' product portfolio with WD Purple, we make it simple for our VARs, integrators and consumers to select the right drive engineered for their application and validated with our industry leading surveillance partners," said Matt Rutledge, senior vice president and general manager of WD's Storage Technology group. "WD optimized the WD Purple line of hard drives for surveillance applications to improve high-definition video playback, and operate in 24x7 workloads of surveillance environments."

The Storage Products Business Unit of Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc., a committed technology leader, announces the next generation of high-capacity 3.5-inch form factor enterprise hard disk drive (HDD) - the MG04 series. Engineered for midline and nearline business critical workloads, the MG04 series is the industry's first enterprise capacity category models supporting industry standard 4K Advanced Format sector technologies as well as persistent write cache technology, which improves both performance and reliability. The series is engineered for the high-capacity demands of mid-tier servers and cloud application workloads and for capacity-optimized data center storage systems that benefit from high capacity per spindle.

With a 6 Gb/s interface model, the SAS MG04SCA and SATA MG04ACA series are available in the industry standard 3.5-inch form factor and are available in capacities of up to 5 TB. Spinning at 7,200 rotations per minute (RPM), the MG04 series delivers high application performance, while the high capacity per spindle saves rack space and reduces the footprint and operational burden of business critical servers and storage systems. The series also provides, as an option, persistent write cache technologies that help protect against data-loss in the event of sudden power loss, while also helping to improve performance and data reliability. Models supporting sanitize instant erase (SIE) option are available.

The FLEX-FIT Trio MB343SP is a very unique 3.5" to 5.25" front bay adapter. At first glance is of what looks like a simple 3.5" to 5.25 device bay adapter, but there is more than meets the eye. We've created a device that utilizes a single 5.25" bay and converts it into 2 x 2.5" HDD/SSD slots and a 3.5" device or hard drive bay designed for tool-less drive installation. The FLEX-FIT Trio MB343SP pushes the envelope with its unique features and brilliant engineering. As a result, you get a beautifully crafted adapter that is sturdy, flexible and multifunctional.

One of the most unique features of the FLEX-FIT Trio MB343SP is the FLEX-FIT system, which provides users a higher level of flexibility for a 5.25" adapter that only an Icy Dock product can deliver. The FLEX-FIT Trio can store a 3.5" device or hard drive and an additional 2 x 2.5" HDD/SSD, IDE or SATA hard drives from 7mm - 9.5mm height. It's both space efficient and cost effective since you won't be required to buy multiple brackets.

In addition to rolling out the LCD-MF235XDBR monitor, in January I-O Data is set to introduce a super-slim portable hard drive, a 500 GB model that's only 7 mm thick. Known as the HDPU-UT Series, the upcoming drive weighs 130 grams, has an aluminum body, USB 3.0 connectivity, and is set to sip in two color versions, Silver and Prussian Blue.

The 500 GB HDPU-UT Series HDD is backed by a one-year warranty and is priced at 11,980 yen (116 USD).

TDK Corporation has announced that its Thailand-based HDD suspension assemblies subsidiary Magnecomp Precision Technology Public Company Limited ("MPT") concluded an agreement in October to acquire two HDD-related companies (EntroComponent Solutions, LLC and EntroComponent Solutions Singapore Pte Ltd) from U.S.-based specialty polymer and resin manufacturer entrotech Inc. MPT also inked a business alliance agreement with entrotech.

entrotech mainly manufactures and sells specialty polymers and resins. Products employing these materials span a wide range of fields, including automotive films, HDD-related components, aircraft paint, and medical products. The HDD-related product manufacturing and sales companies subject to this acquisition handle vibration dampening materials attached to HDD head suspensions, as well as filters, sealants and other products for HDDs. MPT specializes in the manufacture and sales of suspension assemblies for HDD heads, supplying products globally from its base in Thailand.

WD, a Western Digital company and storage industry leader, today announced the release of the WD Black2 dual drive, a unique storage innovation that fuses a 2.5-inch 120 GB solid state drive (SSD) with a 1 TB hard disk drive (HDD) to offer a powerful dual drive solution. Perfect for consumers and service providers looking to upgrade notebooks, small form factor desktops, and single-slot and all-in-one (AIO) systems with both SSD level performance and HDD capacity, the WD Black2 dual drive connects through a single cable and fits into a conventional 9.5 mm slot.

"Our customers told us they like our Solid State Hybrid Drive technology, but our tech savvy users asked for more control of where they store their data," said Matt Rutledge, senior vice president of WD's Storage Technology business unit. "The WD Black2 dual drives empower our customers to enjoy SSD performance and access high capacity storage in a no-compromise package. The WD Black2 dual drive is a direct result of our interaction with our customer base through WD Labs initiatives. WD devised its beta labs program to provide an exclusive testing arena for key customers and technology influencers of existing and emerging WD storage products."

Today, LaCie announced that its award-winning Rugged USB 3.0 Thunderbolt Series hard drive is now available in a 2 TB version. With double the storage of its predecessor, the new LaCie Rugged is the highest capacity bus-powered storage solution with Thunderbolt technology on the market. Plus, the 2 TB model achieves speeds up to 127 MB/s, a 15 percent increase from the previous version. With these speeds users can transfer 750 RAW photos or one HD movie in less than one minute. Built for heavy data users who require complete mobility, the LaCie Rugged is the ideal sidekick to a new Mac or Ultrabook.

"With video and photo file sizes increasing exponentially, creative pros are generating more digital content than ever before," said Erwan Girard, Professional Business Manager, LaCie. "Today, we've addressed their number one demand by doubling the LaCie Rugged's capacity. This allows on-the-go pros to store more data on fewer drives and lets them stay in the field longer."

Seagate Technology plc (NASDAQ: STX) today announced that its Samsung HDD division is shipping the new 2.5-inch Spinpoint M9T, which at 9.5 mm thin is the world's thinnest 2TB hard drive. Offered in capacities of 1.5TB and 2TB, the Spinpoint M9T mobile drive gives OEMs, channel system integrators and consumers a thin, high-capacity storage solution ideal for external storage, notebook integration and upgrades, desktop, and gaming system applications.

"The M9T combines the highest areal density shipping in a single storage device with an innovative design that fits into mainstream notebook applications. While other 2TB are solutions on the market are 15 mm thick, the vast majority of mobile devices are designed to use a 9.5 mm drive; with the M9T, those devices can now have 2TB of storage, enabling a richer computing experience," said Dave Frankovich, senior product line manager, Samsung HDD.

G-Technology, a leader in delivering premium storage solutions for consumers and content creators, today announced two new high-performance portable external storage solutions. The sleek and portable G-DRIVE slim and G-DRIVE mobile, already favorites among design-conscious users who need fast, reliable storage on the go, are now available with 7,200 RPM hard disk drives (HDDs). When compared to 5,400 RPM-based HDD models, these external drives deliver up to 20-40 percent faster data transfer rates for quicker access to photos, videos, music and documents.

"In this digital world, we all need reliable, fast storage to protect the photos, videos and music that mean the most to us," said Mike Williams, vice president and general manager, G-Technology. "Whether you're a professional photographer needing to store and protect content in the field, or a consumer needing a simple storage and backup solution, our new portable external drives are the solution. Each external drive delivers performance, reliability and style in a sleek, portable design."

HGST, a Western Digital company, today announced that it is shipping the 6 TB Ultrastar He6 hard disk drive (HDD). Key OEM, cloud and research leaders working closely with HGST to qualify the drive include HP, Netflix, Huawei Unified Storage, CERN, Green Revolution Cooling and Code42, as well as some of the world's largest social media and search companies.

Revealed in September 2012, HGST's cutting-edge HelioSeal platform provides a path for higher capacity storage for decades to come while significantly lowering customer total cost of ownership (TCO). Leveraging the inherent benefits of helium, which is one-seventh the density of air, the new Ultrastar He6 drive features HGST's innovative 7Stac disk design with 6 TB, making it the world's highest capacity HDD with the best TCO for cloud storage, massive scale-out environments, disk-to-disk backup, and replicated or RAID environments.

Buffalo Inc. today unveiled a new family of portable hard drives which are known as the HD-PNFU3 Series and come in a variety of colors including black, white, red, pink, blue and yellow. Seen below, the HDDs measure 115 x 79.5 mm (thickness varies by capacity - 13.5 mm for 500 GB, 16 mm for 1 TB and 21.5 mm for 2 TB), and have USB 3.0 connectivity, a shock-absorbing internal frame, plus support for the TurboPC EX2 software and its save mode which allows data stored on the drives to be automatically compressed.

The HD-PNFU3 Series drives are backed by a one-year warranty and are set to arrive around the end of November priced at 11,130 yen (~113 USD), 15,015 yen (~ 153 USD) and 28,770 yen (~293 USD) for the 500 GB, 1 TB and 2 TB units, respectively.

I-O Data announced the HDPF-UT line of portable hard drives. The drives are build with metal main frame and plastic panels, with reinforced edges, and cushioning for the internal drive. Available in matte black and matte white color options, the drives are available in 500 GB (HDPF-UT500) and 1 TB (HDPF-UT1.0) variants. The drives take advantage of USB 3.0 interface, and rely on a single cable for both power and host connectivity. Installers for I-O APP, a data-migration tool, comes pre-loaded. Measuring 76 mm x 113 mm x 14 mm (WxDxH), the drives weigh about 160 g. Slated for market availability in mid-November, starting with the Japanese market, the 500 GB variant is expected to be priced at 9,450 JPY (US $97), and the 1 TB variant at 13,335 JPY (US $137).