Building on the momentum of its current line of solid state hybrid drives (SSHD), Seagate Technology plc today announced it will begin shipping its third-generation of SSHD products. Featuring the Seagate Laptop SSHD, 7 mm-high Seagate Laptop Thin SSHD designed for the thinnest and lightest laptops in the industry, and the all-new Seagate Desktop SSHD, the line of drives will deliver blazing-fast performance and high-capacity at an affordable price.

Boasting solid state drive (SSD) like speed and hard disk drive capacity, the new Seagate Laptop and Laptop Thin SSHDs are the most affordable way to increase your laptop performance. With storage performance up to 40 percent faster than previous generations, the Laptop and Laptop Thin SSHDs can add as much as 30 percent to total system performance - regardless of the processor inside the system. These products also enable system builders to build high-performance, high-capacity systems, including new thin and light laptops, at mass-market price points.

Patriot, a global pioneer in high-performance memory, NAND flash, storage, and mobile accessories today announces the next generation in its ecosystem of wireless storage solutions, the AERO wireless mobile hard drive.

Load up, go mobile, and share. With the ever expanding tablet and smartphone landscape, the AERO is the definitive mobile storage solution that allows you to take your full media collection on the go and stream to any tablet, smartphone, or laptop. The Patriot AERO truly lets you share content to your mobile devices like never before, even if you don't have access to the internet or cloud storage.

Micron Technology today announced another addition to its growing lineup of solid state drives (SSDs) targeted at data center appliances and enterprise storage platforms. The new Micron P410m SSD is a high-endurance, high reliability 6 Gb/s Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) drive built to provide the performance necessary for mission-critical tier 1 storage applications that require uninterrupted, 24/7 data access.

SAS is preferred in these applications due to its dual-port interface, which offers the high availability and accessibility customers have come to expect from a SAS drive. The new Micron P410m provides the consistent low latency and balanced read/write performance necessary for tackling the unique workloads of persistent data storage.

Greenliant Systems, a leader in energy-efficient, highly secure and reliable solid state storage products, has begun volume production of its industrial temperature SATA and PATA interface NANDrive embedded solid state drives (SSDs) using 2-bits-per-cell (MLC) NAND flash memory. Overcoming the temperature sensitivity risk of MLC NAND, industrial temperature (I-temp) SATA and PATA NANDrive operate between -40 and +85 degrees Celsius.

Compared to significantly more expensive 1-bit-per-cell (SLC) NAND-based SSDs, I-temp MLC NANDrive offers cost-effective, ball grid array (BGA) products that meet quality and reliability requirements-such as avoiding uncorrectable errors and data retention issues-when the MLC NAND is operating at extremely low and high temperatures. NANDrive combines Greenliant's internally developed NAND controller with NAND flash die for a fully integrated SSD in a multi-chip package.

SMART Storage Systems, an innovative enterprise solid-state drive (SSD) technology provider, today announced the industry's first 1.8" Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) SSD with an extension to its Optimus product line. The new Optimus 1.8" SAS SSD is designed for applications that need industry-leading performance, capacity, endurance, and reliability where space constraints are a concern.

Designed for blade servers, caching and other high-density computing environments which typically have physical space constraints, the Optimus 1.8" SAS SSD delivers random read/write performance of 100K/45K IOPS and sustained read/write speeds of 500/500MB/s using the test methodology defined by the Storage Networking Industry Alliance's (SNIA) Solid State Storage Enterprise Test Specification with consistent performance throughout the five year warranty.

Micron Technology, Inc. today introduced the industry's smallest 128-gigabit (Gb) NAND flash memory device utilizing its award-winning 20-nanometer (nm) process technology. The new 128Gb device stores three bits of information per cell, called triple-level-cell (TLC), creating a highly compact storage solution.

Measuring 146 mm², the new 128Gb TLC device is more than 25 percent smaller than the same capacity of Micron's 20 nm multi-level-cell (MLC) NAND device. The 128 Gb TLC device is targeted at the cost-competitive removable storage market (flash cards and USB drives), which is projected to consume 35 percent of total NAND gigabytes in calendar 2013.1 Micron is now sampling the 128Gb TLC NAND device with select customers; it will be in production in calendar Q2.

Japanese peripherals maker Green House rolled out the PicoDrive J3 line of USB 3.0 flash drives. Available in 8 GB (GH-UFD3-8GJ), 16 GB (GH-UFD3-16GJ), 32 GB (GH-UFD3-32GJ), 64 GB (GH-UFD3-64GJ), and 128 GB (GH-UFD3-128GJ) capacities, the drives are built in the slider form-factor, with a retractable USB connector. The drives are said to utilize a dual-channel MLC NAND architecture, which delivers read speeds of up to 150 MB/s, and write speeds of up to 36 MB/s (128 GB and 64 GB), or 22 MB/s (32 GB), or 11 MB/s (8 GB and 16 GB). Measuring 59.5 x 21.6 x 10.0 mm (WxDxH), the drives weigh about 15 g. They will be released to the markets in Q2-2013.

Super Talent Technology, a leading manufacturer of NAND Flash storage solutions and DRAM memory modules, showcases its PCIe and mini PCIe Flash Disk Modules.

Bypassing the SATA speed bottleneck, Super Talent's PCIe and mini PCIe FDMs offer huge performance gains with the ability to deliver read speeds up to 350 MB/sec and write speeds up to 220 MB/sec. The ultra-compact form factor is just right for solutions where space is limited, such as embedded applications, industrial PCs, all-in-one PCs, notebooks and netbooks.

Toshiba Corporation today announced that it has developed NANO FLASH-100 much faster access for embedded microcontrollers, based on Toshiba's original NANO FLASH. The rich functionality and high speed capabilities of embedded microcontrollers require much flash memory with much faster access rates. Toshiba has recognized and responded to this by developing NANO FLASH which merges two features: high speed programming, based on NAND flash memory cell device technology; and NOR flash memory circuit technology.

Toshiba has subsequently brought this high level performance to its original microcontrollers and to ARM core-based microcontrollers. Now, as more users use ARM core-based microcontrollers, there is an emerging need for greater speed and large memory capacities. NANO FLASH-100 is highly suited to this market.

Intel made an addition to its SSD 335 line of performance-segment consumer SSDs, which is currently available in just one capacity, 240 GB. The new 180 GB variant (SKU: SSDSC2CT180A4K5) retains the feature-set and rated speeds of its older sibling, boasting of up to 500 MB/s reads, up to 450 MB/s writes, and up to 52,000 IOPS 4K random write throughput. Based on the LSI-SandForce SF-2281 processor, the drive features 20 nm MLC NAND flash chips by IMFlash Technologies (Intel, Micron JV).

In addition, Intel updated the drive body design, which will also apply to newer batches of the 240 GB variant. The new design consists of a brace running the perimeter of the drive (without affecting its 2.5-inch 9 mm-thick size compliance), and a "circuit board" print art. Backed by a 3-year warranty, the Intel SSD 335 180 GB is priced at US $179.99.

Super Talent Technology, a leader of NAND Flash storage solutions and DRAM memory modules, today highlights its extensive collection of Flash Disk Modules (FDMs). These FDMs are ideal for embedded computing applications with their ability to plug directly into motherboards and their compact size which allows them to fit into small spaces. These FDMs also provide lower power consumption and greater ability to withstand harsh environments than mechanical hard disks, making them a wise upgrade choice or an excellent initial choice.

With offerings of MLC or SLC 40-pin, 44-pin, 7-pin, horizontal, vertical, and USB flash disk modules this collection provides businesses with a plethora of options. Stay alert as STT could expand this line even more in 2013. For more information, visit the product page.

MyDigitalSSD proudly introduces the BP4, the 4th generation of their critically acclaimed and award-winning Bullet Proof line of solid state drives. BP4 SSDs feature SATA III 6Gb/s performance in 2.5" Slim 7mm and 50mm mSATA form factors to increase user productivity up to 70X. Backwards compatible with SATA II applications, the BP4 eliminates the bottle-neck found in stock hard drives; making them an ideal upgrade solution for many of today's Tablets, UltraBooks, Hybrids (HDD/mSATA Notebooks), and Desktop PCs.

Unlike their predecessors, BP4 drives have been over provisioned for improved Random Read/Write performance and IOPS, extended performance endurance to reduce sluggishness as the drive fills with data, prolonged drive life, reliability, and low power consumption - all at the unequaled price to performance ratio synonymous with MyDigitalSSD Bullet Proof SSDs.

Plextor implemented a design change in the NAND flash memory of its M5S and M5 Pro series consumer SSDs. The two see a transit from 20 nm-class NAND flash chips in the BGA package, to 19 nm chips in the TSOP (pins along the shorter edges) package. Both chips are Toshiba-made. The controller and latest firmware (FW 1.02) remain unchanged. The move to chips in the TSOP package doesn't impact on the specifications or price of the products, but gives the controller the ability to handle greater page-size on the chips.

The TSOP chips feature maximum page-size of 16 KB/page, while the BGA chips feature 8 KB/page. In theory, this should improve "buffer management," when the controller decides to use NAND flash as scratchpads, in spite of having a gigabyte of DRAM cache at its disposal. Further, the new TSOP package NAND flash chips have lighter thermal requirements, letting Plextor get rid of the conductive thermal pads over the chips, saving a Dollar or two. The company did not release any markers on how to identify the two variants of drives by looking at serial numbers.

A PCI-Express variant of OCZ's Vector SSD is exhibited at CES. Pictures reveal it to be a compound SSD, that uses two subunits of the Vector 256 GB, striped into RAID 0, and connected to a SATA 6 Gb/s RAID controller that talks to the rest of the system over PCI-Express 2.0 x4. Each of the two Vector SSD subunits on Vector PCIe features an OCZ-Indilinx Barefoot 3 controller, sixteen 25 nm Intel-made MLC NAND flash chips, and 512 MB of DDR3 DRAM cache.

OCZ ran benchmarks of the drive, which reveal performance upscaling over the 2.5-inch SATA Vector SSD that's expected of a RAID 0 setup. Sequential speeds were as high as 926.2 MB/s reads, with 881 MB/s writes, a respectable 563 MB/s 4K-QD64 reads, with 501 MB/s 4K-QD64 writes. Overall, the Vector PCIe is a suitable successor to the company's 2-subunit RevoDrive, and is aimed more at consumers, but could help businesses just as well, thanks to the good multi-threaded performance of the Barefoot 3 platform.

Etron Technology, Inc. (Taiwan GTSM: 5351) introduces a new flash drive controller, EV2669, of Etron's USB3.0 Flash Drive Accelerator (FDA) series, in addition to its EV1669 product recently announced at the 2013 Consumer Electronics Show (CES). EV2669 enables Etron's USB3.0 flash drive customers to deliver unprecedented read and write speeds of 260 and 235 megabytes per second with MLC (Multiple Level Cell) flash memories without additional host drivers or software required. Moreover, EV2669 meets customer demands for large data storage by supporting flash memory capacities up to 128GB.

EV2669 utilizes Etron's proprietary Flash Driver Accelerator technology to improve the overall performance of NAND flash memory access by leveraging advanced firmware algorithms and high-performance flash interface engines. It has been adopted in the products of top-tier USB3.0 flash drive makers, many of which are exhibited at the 2013 CES.

Etron Technology, Inc. (Taiwan GTSM: 5351) announces a new USB3.0 single-channel Flash disk Accelerator (FDA) IC, EV1669, as the first product of the FDA family. EV1669 is capable of achieving read and write speeds of 100 and 80 megabytes per second, respectively, with a TLC (Triple-Level-Cell) flash memory with no additional host driver or software required.

Etron's USB3.0 FDA series, including EV1669, utilizes proprietary flash disk accelerating technology. This breakthrough technology increases the overall performance of accessing any NAND flash memory by using a new architecture that includes advanced firmware algorithms and high-speed flash interface engines and also significantly enhances the reliability and stability of various NAND flash memories.

Super Talent Technology, a leading manufacturer of NAND Flash storage solutions and DRAM memory modules, announces its UltraDrive MX2 for those that crave the need for speed in a computing environment.

With sequential read and write speeds up to 240 MB/sec, UltraDrive MX2 allows firms to cover bases from lightning fast transaction speeds for database servers to faster load times in high end gaming rigs. The UltraDrive MX2 also supports the latest garbage collection and TRIM features which are designed to keep this SSD running at peak performance.

Toshiba Corporation will showcase a reference display of an SDHC memory card with TransferJet close proximity wireless transfer technology at the 2013 International CES, to be held from January 8 to 11, 2013, in Las Vegas, U.S.A.

The SDHC memory card on reference display will be a product under development, integrating a TransferJet transceiver IC, a coupler, an RF filter, peripheral passive parts, an SD bridge connection circuit, and Toshiba's NAND flash memory.

Micron Technology, Inc., (NASDAQ: MU) today announced results of operations for its first quarter of fiscal 2013, which ended November 29, 2012. For the first quarter, the company had a net loss attributable to Micron shareholders of $275 million, or $0.27 per diluted share, on net sales of $1.8 billion. The results for the first quarter of fiscal 2013 compare to a net loss of $243 million, or $0.24 per diluted share, on net sales of $2.0 billion for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2012, and a net loss of $187 million, or $0.19 per diluted share, on net sales of $2.1 billion for the first quarter of fiscal 2012.

Revenues from sales of NAND Flash products were 4 percent lower in the first quarter of fiscal 2013 compared to the fourth quarter of fiscal 2012, due to a 9 percent decrease in sales volume, partially offset by a 5 percent increase in average selling prices. Trade NAND Flash sales volume in the first quarter of fiscal 2013 decreased compared to the fourth quarter of fiscal 2012 primarily as a result of lower production of NAND Flash products. Revenues from sales of DRAM products in the first quarter of fiscal 2013 were 9 percent lower compared to the fourth quarter of fiscal 2012 primarily due to an 11 percent decrease in average selling prices. Sales of NOR Flash products were relatively unchanged for the first quarter of fiscal 2013 compared to the fourth quarter of fiscal 2012.

Patriot Memory, a global pioneer in high-performance memory, NAND flash storage and enthusiast computer products today announces the availability of the new ultraportable Autobahn USB 2.0 drive. Designed for those looking for excellent USB 2.0 performance and high capacity in a micro sized form factor, the Patriot Autobahn is less than 18mm in length and becomes barely noticeable when plugged in.

Car audio enthusiasts can now rock their tunes with ease. The Autobahn is plug-and-play compatible with stereos that support USB connections for hours of music playback, without the hassle of plugging in an external player. The Patriot Autobahn is available in 8GB, 16GB and 32GB capacities to take all your data with you in and ever increasing mobile world.

Kingfast rolled out the K25 Ultra cache-SSD. Featuring 32 GB of MLC NAND flash, the drive comes bundled with a license to use NVELO DataPlex SSD caching software, with which you can accelerate your existing HDD-based machine, without re-installing anything. The K25 Ultra is built into the 2.5-inch 7 mm-thick SATA 3 Gb/s form-factor, which makes it ultra-thin friendly. While an accelerated HDD's performance will depend on various other factors, the drive itself can dole out 270 MB/s sequential reads, and 190 MB/s sequential writes. It is priced at $58.

Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., a world leader in advanced semiconductor solutions, announced today that it acquired privately held NVELO, Inc., a Santa Clara, Calif.-based pioneer of storage software. By intelligently managing and optimizing the use of SSDs in the storage subsystem, SSD caching has become an attractive solution for both consumer and enterprise computing platforms. The timely integration of NVELO's flagship storage technology into Samsung's best-in-class SSD technologies will give Samsung customers access to an ever-evolving and more diversified portfolio of NAND storage solutions suitable for a broad range of computing platforms.

"The acquisition of NVELO will enable us to extend our ability to provide SSD related storage solutions to customers. We are pleased with this transaction as the employees of NVELO share our vision to take SSD storage into the next-generation of performance and reliability," said Young-Hyun Jun, executive vice president of Flash product & technology, Device Solutions, Samsung Electronics.

Micron Technology, Inc., one of the world's leading providers of advanced semiconductor solutions, today announced the addition of a new product to its Phase Change Memory (PCM) portfolio. With high-volume shipments of its 45-nanometer (nm), 1-gigabit (Gb) PCM-based multichip package (MCP) solution for mobile devices well underway, the company is now sampling a 512-megabit (Mb) PCM plus 512Mb LPDDR2 MCP that offers greater flexibility in terms of application requirements. The company also announced that it has been shipping 1Gb PCM to one of the world's leading mobile device manufacturers, Nokia, for use in their recently announced phones.

As the first company in the world to ship PCM solutions in volume, Micron is building on its close cooperation with chipset vendors, enablers and handset manufacturers to meet growing market demand for PCM. Nokia is using Micron's PCM solution to enrich the functionality of select devices in its portfolio.

SMART Storage Systems, an innovative enterprise solid-state drive (SSD) technology provider, today announced the results of an international industry survey revealing that 77 percent of respondents believe NAND Flash endurance is the key to widespread SSD adoption in the enterprise. Further underscoring the need for improved endurance of more cost-effective multi-level cell (MLC) NAND Flash, 55 percent of respondents identified cost as the primary barrier to transitioning to an all-Flash enterprise storage environment.

The SMART Storage Systems survey was conducted at the company's exposition booth during the 2012 Flash Memory Summit, VMworld 2012, SNW Fall (U.S.) 2012, and SNW Europe 2012 conferences, collecting 722 responses. Survey participants included IT management and infrastructure professionals, storage architects, and engineering and product managers from the United States and Europe.

VIA Labs, Inc., a leading supplier of USB 3.0 integrated chip controllers, today announced its two latest USB 3.0 device controllers, the VIA VL752 and VIA VL753 SuperSpeed USB 3.0 to NAND flash controllers. The VIA VL752 and VIA VL753 deliver enhanced performance using the latest NAND flash technologies including 19nm, 20nm and 21nm geometries and have been certified by the USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF) for SuperSpeed operation, ensuring high quality, seamless interoperability, and effortless backwards compatibility.

The two-channel the VIA VL752 and single-channel VIA VL753 offer data transfer speeds up to 280MB/s, flexible bad block management, support for the latest 200MHz DDR NAND Flash, and a robust ECC engine for greater data integrity. The package sizes from the previous generation of VIA Superspeed USB to NAND flash controllers have been reduced to a QFN68 8 x 8mm package for the VIA VL752 and a QFN48 6 x 6mm package for the VIA VL753 to enable the smallest form-factor designs.