Sharkoon Silent Eagle Modular Fan: QuickConnect port with four cables for mainboards (PWM) and power supplies (7, 9 or 12V) / available in 80mm and 120mm / 60cm extended cable available separately / MSRP starting at 11 euros.

Flexible cable management is now available for fans. At CeBIT Sharkoon will be showcasing a new innovation in fan design: a case fan with modular cable system. The Sharkoon Silent Eagle SE features a 4 pin connector built into the fan's frame and comes with four different cables for connecting the fan to a mainboard, fan controller or power supply. The fan can be used with a CPU cooler or as a case or hard drive fan. The speed of the fan can be controlled via PWM signal or through three different cables directly connected to the power supply. Users can,according to need, choose the connection type, fan speed, and consequently the loudness and purpose for which the fan is used. Sharkoon offers the Silent Eagle SE in 80mm and 120mm.

Four cables are included with the fan, and include a 4-pin PWM cable that can be controlled by the mainboard and three cables with Molex connectors that limit the voltage to 12, 9 or 7 volts. The 30cm long cables are individually labelled and colour coded for easy reference as well as featuring a robust casing. Sharkoon also offers separately a 60cm cable for users with large cases. The Silent Eagle SE operates with an efficient, low-noise motor that provides silent operation under each connection. The 80mm fan has a maximum rotation of 2000 rpm and, depending on rotation, a noise level of between 6.5 and 22 dB(A). The 120mm fan has a maximum rotation of 1200 rpm and maximum loudness of 20.5 dB(A).

For Optimal airflow the fan features the typical Silent Eagle golf ball design. The surface of each blade has countless dimples, lowering resistance and limiting turbulence, in order to reduce noise at all speeds. In addition, the rounded frame helps to increase the flow of air. Included with the fan, in addition to the cables, are four screws to attach the fan or four rubber bolts that further dampen fan vibrations.

End customers will find the Sharkoon Silent Eagle Modular Fan available immediately from authorized retailers for the suggested retail price of 11 euros (80mm) and 13 euros (120mm). The optional 60cm extended cable is available separately for the suggested retail price of 2.49 euros.

Traditional hard disk drives face a fierce competition from solid state drives these days, and all seems to favor the SSD technology. The new storage solutions offer more reliability and robustness and are also able to provide more performance compared to the spinning platters. They operate in silence, output almost no heat and offer faster read/write rates. Yet, that's not all, since SSDs also have lower power requirements which make them a great option for mobile machines greatly dependent on battery life.

SSDs would come with the disadvantage of featuring high prices and offer a relatively small capacity. Fortunately, capacities greater than 128GB start showing on the market. Sharkoon is now offering an alternative solution meant to allow users to create their own notebook SSDs.

Basically, what the company offers is an SSD adaptor which features the size and connectivity capabilities of a 2.5 inch SATA. The Sharkoon Flexi-Drive S2S allows for up to six SDHC cards to be installed in the enclosure, providing this way with the necessary flash memory. The solution gives a great advantage by allowing users to choose the manufacturer, number, chip type (SLC or MLC) and capacity of the memory cards according to their preferences and needs.The memory cards are installed using Raid-0, which means that the performance of all cards is expected to be the same. Since the highest-capacity SDHC currently available features 32GB of storage space, a maximum of 192GB can be installed in the Flexi-Drive S2S. When running a test with HD-Tune on six 8GB SDHC memory cards with Class 6 speed ratings installed in the enclosure, they were able to provide 140 MB/s read speed and 115 MB/s write speed.

The Sharkoon Flexi-Drive S2S is available immediately at authorized retailers and features a suggested retail price of 9€ (99.5$). More information on the technology can be found on the manufacturer's site.