Super Talent showed off a new, cost-effective PCI-Express SSD, the RAIDDrive upStream. The drive is essentially a complex-SSD of four SandForce-driven SSD sub-units, working in an abstract RAID configuration. The card features PCI-Express 1.1 x8 interface. Available in capacities of 220 GB, 460 GB, and 960 GB; the RAIDDrive upStream churns out sequential speeds as high as 1 GB/s (read), and 900 MB/s write. Aimed at the consumer rather than the enterprise, RAIDDrive upStream taps into the market products such as the RevoDrive X2 from OCZ, did. It will be cheaper than other PCI-Express SSDs from Super Talent. It should be available by the end of April.

PNY, a global storage, upgrade and graphics solution manufacturer for both consumers and professionals, today introduced its new Professional SSD (solid state drive) range. Built for enthusiasts, amateurs and professionals alike, the high-end drives are available in 120 GB, 240 GB and 480 GB capacities. Thanks to decades of experience manufacturing Flash memory and computer components, PNY has created its most advanced generation of SSDs yet.

Jonathan Filleau, Consumer Product Marketing Manager EMEA, said: "PNY today added its fourth generation of SSDs to an already comprehensive range of upgrade and storage solutions. Consumers will be well aware of the experience and expertise at PNY's disposal when dealing with both Flash memory products and components, and should trust that when partnered with SandForce, we have manufactured a robust and reliable product."

While Vertex 3 is OCZ's flagship SATA 6 Gb/s SSD based on the SandForce SF-2281 processor, Agility 3 is its performance-mainstream variant that uses the same SF-2281, but with async NAND flash memory. Reviews have found the drive to offer high price-performance. OCZ has traditionally kept Agility 3 reserved for lower capacities, reserving higher capacities for its other product families., however two new variants hit the radar in the Japanese markets today, the 180 GB (AGT3-25SAT3-180G), which is not even listed on OCZ's global site, and a 360 GB variant (AGT3-25SAT3-360G).

The 180 GB variant offers sequential speeds of up to 525 MB/s read, and 500 MB/s write, with 35,000 IOPS 4K random write performance; while the 360 GB variant offers sequential speeds of 525 MB/s read, 495 MB/s write, and 35,000 IOPS 4K random write performance. Like all other drives in the Agility 3 series, the two are built in the 2.5-inch form-factor, with SATA 6 Gb/s interface. The Agility 3 180 GB is priced at 19,000 JPY (US $256), and the 360 GB variant at 36,000 JPY (US $447).

German memory and storage supplier takeMS has this week revealed its own line of solid state drives based on SandForce's SF-2281 controller. Dubbed UTX-2200, takeMS' SSDs feature a 2.5-inch form factor, a SATA 6.0 Gbps interface, MLC (multi-level cell) NAND flash memory, TRIM and NCQ support, and a MTBF of 2 million hours.

The UTX-2200 drives are capable of read/write speeds of up to 550/500 MB/s (up to 70,000 IOPS) and will ship (soon) in 60 GB, 120 GB, 240 GB and 480 GB capacities. Each model will be backed by a two-year warranty and will be bundled with a 2.5-inch to 3.5-inch adapter.

To anyone who's familiar with SSDs, "SandForce" is equally familiar, as it makes the brains of some of the fastest client SSDs in the business. Buyers have also come to know of SandForce-driven SSDs as being characterized by unique capacity amounts caused by allocating a certain amount of the physical NAND flash capacity for some special low-level tasks by the controller, resulting in capacities such as 60 GB, 120 GB, 240 GB, for drives with physical NAND flash capacities of 64, 128, and 256 GB, respectively. This allocation is called "over-provisioning". An impression was built that this ~7% loss in capacity is some sort of a trade-off for higher performance. It appears like that's not quite the case.

ADATA Technology, a leading manufacturer of high-performance DRAM modules and NAND Flash storage application products, today announced the launch of a complete lineup of expanded capacity solid state drives. The new SSD range includes the XPG SX900, the Premier Pro SP900, and the Premier SP800, all of which use new optimized firmware to utilize greater storage capacity of the NAND Flash components. The XPG SX900 is a groundbreaking 512 GB capacity solid state drive utilizing the SandForce 2281 controller, making it a milestone in ADATA's history of NAND Flash based products. All of the drives being launched use superior NAND Flash for improved stability and performance.

OCZ Technology Group, Inc., a leading provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) for computing devices and systems, today announced the Z-Drive R4 CloudServ PCI Express (PCIe) flash storage solution, designed to dramatically accelerate cloud computing applications and significantly reduce operating expenses in the data center. The new Z-Drive R4 CloudServ features monumental data throughput, and raises the bar in performance and capacity.

"The Z-Drive R4 CloudServ PCIe solid state drive delivers game-changing performance and enables clients to process massive data-sets with up to 16 TB of storage capacity on a single, easy-to-deploy card," said Ryan Petersen, CEO of OCZ Technology. "With this new solution, system architects are able to design more efficient and dynamic cloud computing infrastructures while simultaneously reducing system complexity and the high maintenance costs associated with traditional infrastructures."

Following many of its rivals, Taiwanese memory module maker Golden Emperor International Ltd. (aka GeIL) has decided to expand into the solid state drive market. The company is currently finishing up its very first (2.5-inch) SSDs which are known as Zenith S2 (SATA 3.0 Gbps) and Zenith S3 (SATA 6.0 Gbps) and are set to become available as soon as next month.

The Zenith S2 will deliver read/write speeds of up to 280/270 MB/s while the S3 models, which are powered by SandForce SF-2000 Series controllers, will be capable of 500+ MB/s transfer speeds.

The Zenith S2 family will include 60 GB and 120 GB models whereas the Zenith S3 line will feature 60 GB, 120 GB, 240 GB and 480 GB drives. More details about GeIL's SSDs are expected in the coming weeks.

In its CeBIT invitation circular, Patriot Memory unveiled names of three new client SSD product lines, which it will launch in Hanover. These include new high-performance client SSD lines, the Wildfire Pro, and Wildfire SE; and a new mainstream client SSD line called Magma. With no other details, we're left to only speculate. Patriot's flagship SandForce SF-2281 driven Wildfire series features among some of the highest performing SATA 6 Gb/s client SSDs. The Wildfire Pro and SE, in all probability, could be higher-performing parts, with higher sequential speeds, and random access performance. With Magma, Patriot could design a client SSD using a controller of another make than SandForce; probably Marvell, or even OCZ-Indilinx.

Verbatim Europe has now started delivering the SATA 6.0 Gbps solid state drives it announced last month. These SSDs have a 2.5-inch form factor, a SandForce SF-2281 controller, MLC (multi-level cell) NAND Flash memory chips, TRIM support, and deliver sequential read and write speeds of up to 550 MB/s and 510 MB/s, respectively.

Verbatim's 120 GB and 240 GB SATA 6.0 Gbps drives are backed by a two-year warranty and cost 199 Euro and 399 Euro, respectively.

Intel Corporation announced today its fastest, most robust client/consumer solid-state drive (SSD) to date, the Intel Solid-State Drive 520 Series (Intel SSD 520), a 6 gigabit-per-second (gbps) SATA III SSD produced using Intel compute-quality 25-nanometer (nm) NAND memory process technology. Aimed at delivering world-class performance for even the most demanding PC enthusiasts, gamers, professionals or small-medium businesses (SMBs), the Intel SSD 520 has fast throughput performance, new security features and unmatched reliability to meet even the most intensive user requirements.

Any consumer application requiring high throughput and bandwidth, low latencies and accelerated speed will benefit from the Intel SSD 520. Software developers, architects, accountants, engineers, musicians, media creators and artists are just some of the professionals that will find that the Intel SSD 520's full package of features can make a dramatic impact on their productivity. With faster performance for graphic renderings, compiling, data transfers and system boot-ups, users can speed through multi-tasking or once-cumbersome application wait times with an Intel SSD 520 Series.

Fresh news from the IT Partners event in France, PNY is preparing the release of a couple of new, speedy solid state drives, the enterprise-grade Optima Pro models which make use of SandForce's SF-2582 controller. These 2.5-inch drives also have a metal casing, MLC (multi-level cell) NAND Flash memory chips, and a SATA 6.0 Gbps interface.

The Optima Pro SSDs come in 120 GB and 240 GB capacities and should deliver sequential read/write speeds of over 500 MB/s. Unfortunately their prices are not yet known.

Former hard drive maker (it sold the HDD business to Toshiba in 2009) Fujitsu has finally decided to give SSDs (solid state drives) a try and so it developed and released such a storage solution. Codenamed HLACC2031A-G1, Fujitsu's SSD has a 2.5-inch form factor, a SATA 6.0 Gbps interface, a SandForce SF-2281 controller, MLC (multi-level cell) NAND Flash memory, and is capable of read/write speeds of up to 550/500 MB/s, and of a random read/write performance of 55,000/40,000 IOPS.

The HLACC2031A-G1 is first being shipped to APAC (Asia-Pacific) markets in two capacities - 120 GB (~ US$202) and 240 GB (~ US$427). Both models will come with a three-year warranty.

Transcend Information, Inc. (Transcend), a worldwide leader in storage and multimedia products, today announced the launch of its new next generation SSD720 SATA III 6Gb/s solid state drive (SSD) that delivers significantly improved computer performance over standard rotating hard drives. Designed with multitasking power users in mind, the productivity-enhancing SSD720 is the ideal solution for demanding system applications, such as specialized multimedia computing and advanced gaming.

Mac-loving company Other World Computing (OWC) has recently revealed a new line of high-grade solid state drives, the Mercury Enterprise Pro 6G. Designed for 'mission-critical deployments', these 2.5-inch SSDs feature a SandForce 2582 controller, Toshiba-made Enterprise Toggle Synchronous (eMLC) NAND memory chips, a SATA 6.0 Gbps interface, and OWC's Paratus Power Technology which prevents data loss in the case of power interruptions.

OWC's drives also have chip-based 256-bit AES encryption, they deliver sustained read/write speeds of up to 550/525 MB/s, and are capable of a random 4K read/write performance of up to 60,000 IOPS. The Mercury Enterprise Pro 6G drives are backed by a seven-year warranty and will ship by the end of this quarter in 50 GB ($629), 100 GB ($799), 200 GB ($1,349) and 400 GB ($2,199) capacities.

Kingston Digital, Inc., the Flash memory affiliate of Kingston Technology Company Inc., the independent world leader in memory products, today announced the latest addition to its SSDNow family, the SSDNow V+200. The new Kingston SSDNow V+200 solid-state drives are the ideal high-performance upgrade solution for the performance minded yet cost-conscious business or home user.

The SSDNow V+200 features the second-generation high-speed SATA 3.0 (6 Gb/s) SandForce SF-2281 Processor and outstanding sequential read and write speeds of up to 535 MB/s and 480 MB/s. The SSDNow V+200 enables fast system start-up, rapid data access and speedy copying of large files such as videos, presentations and graphics illustrations.

KINGMAX, a world renowned leading brand of DRAM and flash memory, has launched the latest 2.5" SATA III 6Gb/s based SSD series targeting high performance users. The KINGMAX SMP32 Client and SMU32 Client Pro SSD feature the new generation SandForce controller that support SATA 6GB/s for the best performances and deliver read speed up to 550 MB/sec and write speed at 520MB/sec, thus it only takes a few seconds to boot in your operation system.

KINGMAX SSD SATA III Client series equipped with highly reliable SandForce controller supporting SATA III 6Gb/s interface to extend the lifetime of NAND Flash chips and the durability of SSD. Supporting RAISE fault-tolerant technology and ECC error correction technology to prevent errors caused by the volume of data loss, strengthen the data security inside it, and upgrade the computing performance. Moreover the data read and write times will be significantly reduced to extend the durability and lifetime of SSD.

Japanese company Orange Systems announced a new modular PCI Express SSD, the "Wings" series, which is a collection of products: the PCIe SSD card, its SSD subunits that have to be purchased separately, and those subunits in hard cases that turn them into 2.5-inch simple SSDs. To begin with, Angelbird has three PCIe SSD main card variants: "Lite", 16 GB, and 32 GB. These cards are basically PCI Express x4 SATA 3 Gb/s RAID cards that have SATA power+data interfaces on the card. The 16 GB and 32 GB cards have a localized SSD subunit on the board, while the "lite" variant has no localized subunit, and relies entirely on attached subunits.

These subunits are basically 2.5-inch SSD PCBs stripped of their cases, which Orange Systems refers to as Wings Expansion Cartridges, which are basically SandForce SF-1220 driven SSDs with MLC NAND flash, available in capacities of 60 GB, 115 GB, and 240 GB. When attached in pairs to the Wings PCIe SSD card, the card's main controller runs them in a RAID 0 configuration that is abstract to the host, delivering increased performance. Lastly, these "Expansion Cartridges" are available with their outer shells, branded as "Crest SSDs".

Patriot Memory displayed its four main client bare-PCB SSD lines, the Industrial Series mSATA, Industrial Series half-height-mSATA, 1.8-inch half-height Industrial Series, and Mac Series SSD-stick. All three Industrial Series products are driven by PHISON controllers, and are available in MLC NAND flash and SLC NAND flash variants, each with its own capacity options. The mSATA MLC is available in capacities ranging from 16 GB to 128 GB, mSATA SLC from 4 GB to 32 GB; mSATA half-height MLC from 4 GB to 32 GB, mSATA half-height SLC from 1 GB to 8 GB.

The "Slim SATA" (half-height 1.8-inch) MLC is available in capacities ranging from 16 GB to 128 GB, and its SLC variant is available in capacities ranging from 4 GB to 32 GB. Moving on, Patriot has SSD sticks for Macbook Air, and other Apple devices that support this form-factor, these sticks are driven by SandForce SF-228x controllers, feature MLC NAND flash memory, and are available in capacities of 120 GB, 240 GB, and 480 GB.

Mushkin unveiled three new lines of consumer solid state drives (SSDs) at CES, the Chronos GO, Atlas, and Scorpion. Chronos Go is a series of simple SSDs in the 1.8-inch SATA 6 Gb/s form-factor, Atlas is a series of mSATA SSDs based on a fast controller that takes advantage of SATA 6 Gb/s interface, while Scorpion is a line of ultra-high performance PCI-Express SSDs. At the heart of all three is SandForce SF-2281 SSD controller. Chronos GO is available in Standard and Deluxe variants, both offering sequential read speeds up to 565 MB/s, and write speeds up to 525 MB/s, with 4K random write performance of 90,000 IOPS. These drives are available in capacities of up to 480 GB.

Next up are the Atlas mSATA drives. These include standard and deluxe variants, too, with the same sequential read speeds of up to 565 MB/s. It's just that the deluxe variant offers slightly higher write speeds of up to 535 MB/s, while the standard one stays at up to 525 MB/s. These drives will be available in capacities up to 240 GB. Both Chronos GO and Atlas lines will be available sometime in Q1, 2012.

With the Ultrabook form-factor gaining prominence, there's an urgent need for notebook components to shape up, so is the case with storage devices. A little earlier this month, Crucial announced its latest M4 series SSD in the 2.5" SATA form-factor, which is just 7 mm-slim, as opposed to the ~9.3 mm thickness that's standard. It looks like more SSD makers are hopping into this trend, including Memoright, which launched its FTM Plus Slim series. For SSDs, slimmer 7 mm enclosures don't affect components inside, as SSDs are essentially a printed-circuit board with controllers, DRAM and NAND flash chips.

The FTM Plus Slim series have otherwise the same specifications as the regular (9.3 mm-thick) FTM Plus series. These drives are driven by SandForce SF-2281 controllers, with sequential transfer rates of up to 550 MB/s reads, 500 MB/s writes, and 55,000/50,000 read/write 4K IOPS. They take advantage of SATA 6 Gb/s interface to achieve those speeds. Like its thicker siblings, the FTM Plus Slim will be available in 60 GB, 120 GB, 240 GB, and 480 GB capacities.

Verbatim, the global leader in data storage technology including USB flash drives, portable hard drives, solid state drives, CDs, Blu-ray disks and memory cards, announces the availability of its 2.5" SATA Solid State Drives (SSD) and upgrade kits.

Available in both SATA II and SATA III interfaces, Verbatim SSDs featuring ultra-fast data transfer rates, faster system boot-up, shut down, and increased system responsiveness. Verbatim's new SSDs are the ideal hard drive replacements for users seeking a performance and reliability upgrade. Verbatim SSDs contain no moving parts, resulting in greater mechanical stability and reliability, increased shock resistance, silent operation, and reduced power consumption for increased battery life.

No, it's not a fancy graphics card by OCZ that's pictured below, don't let the PCI-Express x16 interface and cooling assembly with vents and heat pipes sticking out fool you. This monstrosity is OCZ's R4, a complex PCI-Express solid-state drive (SSD) which packs 16 (!) SSD subunits, each driven by a SandForce SF-2200 controller. Each of the subunits is part of a very large RAID array, which is abstract to the host machine. The host only sees the cumulative capacity into a single volume.

At the heart of the beast is a spanking new VCA 2.0 processor, which provides each of those subunits a SATA 6 Gb/s link, and connects to the host over PCI-Express 2.0 x16. The sequential transfer speed of the R4 is up to 6,656 MB/s (megabytes per second). It will be offered in various capacities, 3.2 TB looks like a possible capacity option.

LSI Corporation announced that it has completed the purchase of SandForce, Inc., the leading provider of flash storage processors for enterprise and client flash solutions and solid state drives (SSDs). With the addition of innovative flash-based storage solutions that accelerate application performance, LSI assumes a leadership position in the rapidly growing market for flash storage processors for ultrabook, notebook and enterprise SSD and flash solutions.

"Customer response to the announcement has been very positive and we are pleased to now be able to fully demonstrate the benefits of the combined technology capabilities of LSI and SandForce," said Jeff Richardson, executive vice president and chief operating officer. "Together, we offer the broadest storage technology portfolio in the industry, and are well positioned to help customers manage their growth and the explosive growth in data across enterprises and the cloud."

Galaxy, better known for its NVIDIA GeForce graphics cards in the western world, sells more than that in its home country China, where it unveiled its Laser GT series consumer SSDs. Built in the common 2.5-inch SATA form-factor these drives use the SATA 6 Gb/s interface, and are driven by SandForce SF-2281 SSD controllers. Pictured below is its 120 GB model. The drive offers maximum sequential transfer speeds of 550 MB/s (read), and 500 MB/s (write), with 4K random performance of 30,000 IOPS reads, and 41,000 IOPS writes. It makes use of MLC NAND flash with 5,000 rewrite cycle life. The 120 GB Laser GT variant is priced at 1,399 RMB, that's about US $221.