As demand for higher capacity storage continues to increase due to large video applications, including HD video, Western Digital has expanded its WD AV-GP line of hard drives to include a 2 TB capacity, the industry’s largest available drive to-date. According to WD, the AV-GP hard drives with WD GreenPower Technology provide cooler and quieter operation and lower power consumption, as much as 40 percent over standard drives in their respective classes.
"Our consumer electronics customers require hard drives that consume less power, generate less heat and operate quietly," said Sharad Srivastava, Director-Sales (India & South Asia), Western Digital. "Audio and video recording applications, such as DVRs, media servers, media centers and mainstream surveillance systems, often demand 24x7 operations from hard drives. Our drives meet the demanding requirements of these markets including higher reliability, universal compatibility, low power consumption and theability to simultaneously record multiple audio and/or high-definition video streams."

Following are several features of the WD AV-GP line of hard drives:

* The drives have been designed to last in high-temperatures for when they are required to be con for long periods.
* Noise levels have been minimized to less than one sone - virtually below the threshold of human hearing.
* The IntelliPark feature is designed to deliver lower power consumption by automatically unloading the heads during idle to reduce aerodynamic drag. IntelliPark improves non-operating shock characteristics, providing enhanced robustness in environments where excessive transportation and handling occurs.
* They’ve been tested for compatibility with a broad range of AV products including set-top boxes, DVD recorders and mainstream surveillance systems.
* SilkStream is a feature designed to optimize smooth, continuous digital video playback of up to 12 simultaneous HD streams. It’s compatible with the ATA streaming command set so CE customers can use standard streaming management and error recovery options.
* The drive arm frequently sweeps across the disk to reduce uneven wear on the drive surface common to audio video streaming applications.

The WD AV-GP 2 TB hard drive (model WD20EVDS) is available with select distributors. Maximum suggested retail price (MSRP) is Rs. 15,500.

Storage and peripherals specialist Buffalo announced the HD-PEU2-RD external hard drive. It is designed to woo the fairer sex with its glossy coloured shells, available in red, white and black. The 81 (W) x 16 (H) x 130 (D) mm shell houses a 2.5 inch hard drive, which comes in capacitiesstarting from 250 GB to 500 GB. The unit tips scales at 190 g. The drive uses USB 2.0 to connect to any PC or Mac. Depending on the capacity of the hard drive, the HD-PEU2-RD is priced between $95 for the 250 GB model, and $171 for the 500 GB model.

Seagate and AMD will be demonstrating the world’s first SATA 6Gbps hard-drive today, theoretically offering twice the throughput of the existing SATA 3Gbps standard. The demo will compare an existing Barracuda 7200.12 HDD and a SATA 6Gbps HDD that uses a prototype AMD chipset to offer 5.5Gigabits per second performance.
The companies are hoping to provoke interest in the new SATA 6Gbps standard, which will begin showing up in hard-drives before the end of 2009. It uses the same cables and connectors as previous 3Gbps and 1.5Gbps SATA, but introduces new power-efficiency technology among other things.

New drives will be backward compatible with motherboards that only support the existing SATA speeds, so we’re hoping to see them hit themarket sooner rather than later. No word from Seagate as to when a commercial version of the current prototype will be launched.

Press Release:

Seagate and AMD Unveil World’s First Demonstration of Serial ATA 6Gigabit/Second Technology for High-Speed PC Applications

Seagate (Nasdaq: STX), teaming with microprocessor manufacturing leader Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) at the Everything Channel Xchange Conference in New Orleans this week, today unveiled the world’s first public demonstration of next-generation high-speed data transfer - Serial ATA 6Gigabit/second - for bandwidth-hungry desktop and laptop PC applications including gaming, streaming video and graphics multimedia.

The Serial ATA (SATA) 6Gb/second storage interface will deliver the highest performance - burst speeds of up to 6Gigabits per second - for all PC applications, maintain backward compatibility with the SATA 3Gb/second and SATA 1.5Gb/second interfaces, and use the same cables and connectors as previous SATA generations to ease integration. The third generation of the mainstream storage interface for desktop and notebook computers also enhances power efficiency and improves Native Command Queuing, a SATA feature, to increase overall system performance and data transfer speeds of mainstream PC applications but especially applications with heavily transactional workloads such as scientific modeling and forecasting, and engineering design and simulation.

“The increasing reliance of consumers and businesses worldwide on digital information is giving rise to gaming, digital video and audio, streaming video, graphics and other applications that require even more bandwidth, driving demand for PC interfaces that can carry even more digital content,” said Joan Motsinger, Seagate vice president of Personal Systems Marketing and Strategy. “The SATA 6Gb/second storage interface will meet this demand for higher-bandwidth PCs. Seagate has a long history of being first to market with new technologies such as Serial ATA, perpendicular recording and self-encrypting drives, and is pleased to be teaming with AMD to stage the world’s first public demonstration of SATA 6Gb/second storage.”

“AMD strives to deliver platform technology that our technology partners can use to create high- performance desktop and laptop PCs,” said Leslie Sobon, vice president of Product Marketing, AMD. “The new SATA 6Gb/second technology not only incorporates the best features of previous SATA generations but also includes new enhancements. This innovation enables AMD to continue to evolve its technology platforms and to develop low-cost designs that our technology partners can use to improve their own PC and laptop products.”

The Seagate and AMD demonstration features two Seagate SATA disk drives - one a shipping Barracuda(R) 7200.12 3Gb/second hard drive and the other a prototype Barracuda 6Gb/second drive - in a desktop PC to show the performance difference between the two generations. The PC is powered by an AMD prototype SATA 6Gb/second chipset. The Seagate SATA 3Gb/second drive runs at more than 2.5Gigabits per second and the SATA 6Gb/second drive at 5.5Gigabits per second, with the performance of each storage interface displayed on the PC monitor.

Serial ATA 6Gb/second - Blazing speed for next-generation personal computing

Serial ATA (SATA), the mainstream storage interface for desktop and notebook disk drives, is currently available in two speeds - 3Gb/second and 1.5Gb/second. SATA 6Gb/second was developed by the Serial ATA International Organization (SATA-IO) under the Serial ATA Revision 3.0 specification.

In keeping with SATA-IO objectives for designing a low-cost interface for desktop and notebook PCs, SATA 6Gb/second maintains the low cost and low-power design requirements of previous SATA generations, and is designed to be backward compatible with SATA 3Gb/second connectors, cables and other hardware.

Solidata recently started offering new P2 2.5-inch solid-state drives that come with an IDE interface. These drives are perfect for owners of older machines that do not support SATA ports, or just people that prefer the old 80-pin IDE cables over the new SATA ones. The firm is currently offering 32 GB and 64 GB versions of the IDE SSDs. The P2 drives use MLC SSD witha maximum read speed of 90 MB/sec, and maximum write speed of 70 MB/sec. The power consumption of these drives is 0.24 W at standby while the peak consumption is 0.5 W. Dimensions are standard at 100 x 70 x 9.5 mm (width x depth x height) and the drives weight exactly 75 g.

Patriot Memory, a global provider of premium quality memory module and flash memory solutions, today announced their 256GB Warp SSD v3. Patriot's newest Warp will be showcased at CeBIT Germany.

"Our new 256GB Warp SSD v3 now gives the consumer the fastest data-transfer rates plus all the storage space large enough to quench their multimedia thirst," says Meng Jay, Flash Product Manager for Patriot Memory. "With games and applications becoming larger all the time, for the hardcore gamer, someof the smaller SSDs would make poor investments, as they would quickly run out of space." Warp's v3 continues to be in a 2.5 form factor with SATA I/II connections for fast, reliable data transfer rates. For more information about Patriot's 256GB Warp v3 SSD and other memory module and flash memory solutions, please contact your Patriot Sales Representative or visit Patriot Memory.

Late last week Western Digital briefed us on their forthcoming release of a new addition to their Caviar Green family of hard drives. No we're not talking some sort of exotic sushi or cracker-bound fish egg here either but rather a new, rather humongous and environmentally more friendly hard drive from WD, that can be considered an "industry first". Today marks the day that standard rotational media breaks the 2TB barrier. Let's spell that out a bit more clearly again here; T-W-O full Terabytes of SATA-based storage on a single, standard 3.5" hard drive. Those of you on the consumer side of the market, hording gigs of music, movies, pictures and other media just got a bunch more breathing room to play with. And those of you in the enterprise space now have a new option to consider with respect to bulk, low-cost, power-efficient storage. Perhaps that rack just got a little smaller or the need to cool it a little less?

Today Western Digital is announcing their WD20EADS drive, otherwise known as the WD Caviar Green 2.0TB. With 32MB ofonboard cache and special power management algorithms that balance spindle speed and transfer rates, the WD Caviar Green 2TB claims a top rung spot on the density-per-square-inch and power-efficiency ladders.

We've had an engineering sample here in house for a few days and have done some preliminary testing on it. We'll be offering a full performance evaluation with the final revision of this new drive in the coming weeks but we have a sneak peek for you here. Let's start with the specifications and then we'll take a closer look at the vital signs.
Specs:

* Capacity: 2TB (400Gb/sq.in. areal density)
* 32MB cache buffer
* Variable spindle speed
* 3.5-inch form-factor
* 500GB/platter, 4-platter design
* 3Gb/sec SATA with NCQ
* SATA power connector only
* PMR head technology
* RoHS compliant

Earlier this month, a Bloomber report claimed that the Santa Clara, California-based Intel was planning to release a new Solid State Drive product that would provide end users with as much as 320GB of storage capacity, double that of the company's current highest-capacity SSD offering. A recently leaked slide of the chip maker's SSD roadmap comes to confirm said SSD, which is now expected to debut sometime during the fourth quarter of this year.

As previously rumored, Intel will be manufacturing its new high-capacity SSDs using a next-generation 32nm process technology, moving from 50nm to the better-performance 32nm technology. This will enable the company to develop higher-capacity NAND-based SSDs, which will provide users with as much as 320GB of storage capacity. According to the roadmap madeavailable sometime during the first quarter of 2010 and will be designed for mainstream PCs, providing capacities of 4GB, 8GB and 16GB. The new product is expected to provide SSD-like performance for the company's second-generation Ibex Peak chipset, including Q57, P57 and H57. According to available specifications, Braidwood will require support for firmware, a Braidwood module and Intel's Rapid Storage technology.

In related news, Toshiba is also expected to drive the SSD storage technology by moving to its 43nm and 32nm lithography. This will further strengthen Toshiba's position in the market, taking advantage of the NAND Flash short supply issue, encountered by several manufacturers of NAND.

Kingston Digital, Inc., the Flash memory affiliate of Kingston Technology Company, Inc., announced today it is shipping the first two products in its SSDNow line of solid-state drives (SSD) with the SSDNow E Series and SSDNow M Series. Kingston is targeting its SSDs to Fortune 1000 companies and select vertical markets. The SSDNow E Series is specifically designed for the enterprise server environment while the SSDNow M Series is built for the road warrior who demands ultimate performance from a notebook PC. The Kingston SSDNow E and M Series use Intel's solid-state drives, which are the best-performing drives on the market.
"We are thrilled to enter the solid-state drive market with our SSDNow E and M Series SSDs. The combination of the fastest SSDs in the world along with Kingston's tremendous distribution capabilities and legendary customer service will position us to succeed in this arena," said Mark Leathem, director of Flash business development, Kingston Digital. "The performance capabilities of these first two offerings are off the charts andour enterprise customers will be very pleased to use them in servers and corporate laptop computers."

The SSDNow E and M series drives create greater return on investment through increased performance due to impressive input and output operations per second (IOPS). The SSDNow E Series' higher IOPS means enterprises need significantly fewer SSDs compared to standard hard disk drives (HDD), which also leads to energy savings in a server environment. The SSDNow M Series high IOPS allows for faster boot times and quicker application load times which help mobile power users become even more productive.

Kingston's SSDNow uses a standard SATA hard disk drive interface but unlike an HDD, they are very rugged and can withstand shock and extreme environments as there are no moving parts. Kingston's SSDNow E and M Series drives are equipped with S.M.A.R.T (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology) to monitor the integrity and reliability of the drives. The drives are backed by a three-year warranty, 24/7 tech support and KingstonCare*, a comprehensive suite of tools and services designed to reduce downtime. For more information visit www.kingston.com.

Kingston SSDNow M and E Series Features and Specifications:

-- Fast: SSDNow E Series: 250MB/sec. read, 170MB/sec. write
SSDNow M Series: 250MB/sec. read, 70MB/sec. write
-- Durable: no moving mechanical parts, enabling the SSD to handle
rougher conditions
-- Guaranteed: backed by a three-year Kingston warranty, 24/7 tech
support and KingstonCare* program
-- Form factor: 2.5"
-- Interface: SATA 1.5Gb/sec. and 3.0Gb/sec.
-- Capacity**: SSDNow E Series: 32GB
SSDNow M Series 80GB
-- Storage temperatures: -55° C to 95° C
-- Operating temperatures: 0° C to 70° C
-- Dimensions: SSDNow E Series: 69.85mm x 100mm x 7mm
SSDNow M Series: 69.85mm x 100mm x 9.5mm
-- Weight: SSDNow E Series: 80 grams (+/- 2 grams)
SSDNow M Series: 86 grams (+/- 2 grams)
-- IOPS (Input and Output Operations Per Second): SSDNow E Series:
Random 4K read: 35K;
Random 4K write: 3.3K
-- Vibration operating: 2.17 G (7-800Hz)
-- Vibration non-operating: 3.13 G (10-500Hz)
-- Power specs***: SSDNow E Series: Active: 2.4 W TYP; Sleep: 0.06 W
TYP
SSDNow M Series: Active: 0.15 W; Sleep 0.06 W TYP
-- Life expectancy: SSDNow E Series: 2 million hours mean time
before failure
SSDNow M Series: 1.2 million hours mean time before failure
-- Operating shock: 1,000 G/0.5 msec operating and non-operating

* SSDNow E Series only. See your sales representative to determine your eligibility for KingstonCare.

** Some of the listed capacity is used for formatting and other functions and thus is not available for data storage. For more information, please consult Kingston's Flash Memory Guide at Kingston.com/Flash_Memory_Guide.

*** Measurement based on IO meter

Kingston SSDNow E and M Series Solid-State
Drives
Part Number Capacity and Features
SNE125-S2/32GB 32GB 2.5¿ SATA SSD
SNM125-S2/80GB 80GB 2.5¿ SATA SSD

OCZ Technology Group, Inc., a worldwide leader in innovative, ultra-high performance and high reliability memory and computer components, today unveiled the OCZ Apex SATA II 2.5” Solid State Drive (SSD) Series, the affordable midrange offering for enthusiasts, system builders, and mainstream computer users demanding the latest technology in this fast-developing sector of the storage market. This cost-efficient SSD offers a reliable upgrade from traditional hard disc storage while maintaining a price point that is truly within the reach of a wide range of consumers.

“As the adoption of SSD drives continues to ramp, it is our goal to enable everyday consumers to take advantage of the benefits of solid state drives,” said Eugene Chang, Director of Product Management at OCZ Technology Group. “The new Apex Series is positioned at the center of our lineup and features an updated controller and internal RAID design to deliver superior performance to mainstream consumers at a very aggressive price.”

Offering your notebook or desktop system the incredible benefitsof flash-based technology, The OCZ Apex Series delivers the performance and reliability of SSDs at less price per gigabyte than other high speed offerings currently on the market. The OCZ Apex Series is the result of all the latest breakthroughs in SSD technology, including new internal RAID 0 architecture, updated controller design, and speedy 230MB/sec read and 160MB/sec write speeds. With its three levels of solid state offerings, the Apex will be positioned between the premium Vertex Series and the value oriented Solid Series. OCZ continues to place flash mass storage technology within reach of the average consumer with the Apex Series and delivers on the promise of SSDs as an alternative to traditional hard drives in consumer targeted mobile applications.

The Apex Series is ideal for energy-efficient mobile computing to extend battery life for notebooks with low power consumption, increase access time, and provide a durable alternative to conventional hard disc drives with superior shock resistance. With fast access and seek times combined with excellent reliability, the OCZ Apex Series SSDs are the answer for consumers demanding this latest storage technology.

The OCZ Apex Series drives feature a durable yet lightweight alloy housing, and because OCZ SSDs have no moving parts, the drives are more rugged than traditional hard drives. Designed for ultimate reliability, Apex Series SSDs have an excellent 1.5 million hour mean time before failure (MTBF) ensuring peace of mind over the long term. All Apex Series drives come backed a two year warranty and OCZ’s legendary service and support. Apex series SSD drives are available in ample storage capacities of 60GB, 120GB, and 250GB.

Seagate today announced two new members of its award-winning Cheetah enterprise-class hard drive family: the Cheetah 15K.7 hard drive and the Cheetah NS.2 hard drive. Current economic challenges have put even more focus on reducing spending to ensure long-term business sustainability. For businesses that have an existing investment based on a standard 3.5-inch enterprise infrastructure, the new Cheetah drives bolster sustainability through easy drive/system integration, and provide improved levels of system performance, capacity, reliability, and lower power consumption.
In support of sustaining the environment, where reduce, reuse and recycle are keys to this best practice, Cheetah drives reduce power consumption, drive replacement costs, and costs per GB. Built for 3.5-inch Tier 1 storage applications, the Cheetah 15K.7 drive and the Cheetah NS.2 drive are the largest capacity mission-critical drives offered at 600GB, and have the highest reliability in the industry. The Cheetah 15K.7 drive delivers the highest performance of any 3.5-inch drive, while the Cheetah NS.2 drive takes power-savings to the furthest extreme by featuring the lowest power requirement of any 3.5-inch Tier 1 drive.

Both drives feature 2 nd-generation PowerTrim technology, which dynamically optimizes drive power consumption at all levels of activity. Using PowerTrim technology, the Cheetah NS.2 drive provides power savings of over 20% when compared to its prior generation design.

"Seagate recognizes IT budgets are constrained, and these new 3.5-inch Cheetah drives are aimed directly at helping enable many businesses sensibly grow and scale as their information needs continue, whileat the same time providing the reliability required to avoid costly interruption or downtime," said Sherman Black, senior vice president, Seagate Core HDD Marketing and Strategy. "While many organizations are making the transition to 2.5-inch enterprise-class drives which include the Seagate Savvio ® drive family, 3.5-inch Cheetah drives are the leading standard for existing enterprise systems. Seagate remains committed to serving the market with a full lineup of storage solutions for a broad range of needs and budgets."

"External storage system OEMs continue to consume the majority of 3.5-inch performance-optimized HDDs shipped each quarter, whereas server manufacturers consumed nearly all of the 2.5-inch SFF performance-optimized HDDs that shipped in 2008," according to John Rydning, IDC's research director for hard disk drives. "Seagate's new 3.5-inch Cheetah disk drives with up to 600GBs of capacity will fill a critical need for both its customers and end users looking to extend the life of existing external storage system platforms."

"It's a core tenet of Dell's philosophy to offer our customers the best technology and services solutions to meet their needs," said Praveen Asthana, director of Dell Storage. "By offering a selection of these new drives from Seagate, we are able to provide our customers Tier 1 reliability at 600GB while empowering them to place their own priority on performance and power consumption."

The Cheetah 15K.7 and the Cheetah NS.2 drives are the second generation of Cheetah drives available as Self-Encrypting Drives for designated OEMs, providing government-grade data security, and instant secure erase for drives repurposed, reused, recycled, or returned for expired lease, repair or warranty.

"Many organizations are considering drive-level security for its simplicity in helping secure sensitive data through the hardware lifecycle from initial setup, to upgrade transitions and disposal," said Eric Ouellet, Gartner research vice president.

Cheetah 15K.7 Drive Specifications
Capacity 600, 450, 300GB
Interface 6Gb/s SAS-2.0, 4Gb/s FC
Spindle Speed 15,000 RPM
Seek Time 3.4 ms
Reliability 0.55% AFR / 1.6M hours MTBF
Cache 16MB
Form factor 3.5-inch

Cheetah NS.2 Drive Specifications
Capacity 600, 450, 300GB
Interface 6Gb/s SAS-2.0 (600 and 450 GB drives), 4Gb/s FC
Spindle Speed 10,000 RPM
Seek Time 3.8 ms
Reliability 0.55% AFR / 1.6M hours MTBF
Cache 16MB
Form factor 3.5-inch

The Cheetah NS.2 drive is available and shipping today.

The Cheetah 15K.7 drive is currently available for OEM qualifications and will start shipping next quarter to the channel.

Good heavens, it's been years since we've seen anything noteworthy leave the labs of Power Quotient International. Thankfully, the outfit will be relevant once more when CES rolls around, as its forthcoming SSD line has quite a few big hitters. First up is the 1.8-inch microSATA SSD S518, which is destined to squeeze into tight spaces in capacities of up to 125GB, while the 32GB ExpressCard SSD S520 finally gives you a reason to utilize that funky slot over there that's gone untouched for months. There will also be a 2.5-inch SATA SSD S525 (available in sizes up to 125GB) and anelusive e-SATA Combo Card S530. As for details on pricing and availability? You'll have to wait till the show gets rolling for that, but the full release is waiting just past the break to tide you over.
PQI Shows Off Their Latest SSD Products at the 2009 CES

Taipei, Taiwan ~ 2008.12.31 ~ Visitors attending the 2009 CES at Las Vegas during Jan. 8 ~ 11, 2009 can locate Power Quotient International Co., Ltd. (PQI) at the Venetian Tower 233, 234. At the exhibit, PQI will have on display their full range of Solid State Drive (SSD), USB Flash Drive (UFD), Memory Module and Flash Memory Card. Four new SSD products makes their debut ~ 1.8" microSATA SSD S518, Express Card SSD S520, 2.5" SATAⅡ SSD S525 and e-SATA Combo Card S530. Of which, the 32GB Express Card SSD S520 utilizes PCI/E slot and PQI's patented Intelligent Stick Interface. Users have the option of using it as a USB flash drive or to extend its PC / laptop storage capacity through PCI/E slot. The 64GB e-SATA Combo Card S530 has an e-SATA connection interface and it reaches a maximum read speed of 90MB/Sec.

Both PQI's 1.8" microSATA SSD S518 and 2.5" SATA SSD S525 are available with a maximum capacity of 128GB. The 1.8" microSATA SSD S518 can be installed into PCs or laptops and the 2.5" SATA SSD S525 comes with two interfaces for storage expansion.

SSDs are advantaged over traditional hard drives in read/ write speeds, shock proof, low power consumption, lighter body weight and quiet operation. In addition to industrial, embedded, server and medical industries, PC applications are beginning to see the implementation of SSDs in high end performance systems. Having more than 10 years of experience in solid state storage technology, PQI's SSD and DOM products are ahead of the pack providing customers with a diverse and complete solution!

Other innovative PQI products at CES including a series of waterproof USB flash drives and Intelligent Drive i828, winner of Product Design Award ~ 2009 German iF Award. The Intelligent Drive i828 utilizes a clip-on design that allows for users to make use of existing i828(s) to increase their storage capacity, indefinitely.

For more PQI news or the latest PQI product information, please visit PQI at www.pqigroup.com.

Buffalo Technology, a global leader in the design, development and manufacturing of wired and wireless networking, storage and memory solutions today unveiled a chic new design for the MiniStation Cobalt. Offering a feature-rich storage solution in a stylish, lightweight package, the MiniStation Cobalt is designed for mobility. With a simple, easy-to-use user interface, storing, protecting and transporting digital images, music and other files becomes a snap! Offered in three distinct colors, Blue Onyx, Pearl White and Ruby Red, the MiniStation Cobalt safeguards your digital assets and provides the peace of mind that only Buffalo's years of engineering excellence can provide.

Designed for the active professional, Buffalo's new portable storage solutions for PC and Macs includes easy-to-use backup and sync software, a robust shock resistant design as well as Buffalo's SecureLockMobile software to prevent unauthorized access in the event the drive is lost or stolen.

"Buffalo continues to offer robust yet design-conscious products that give you the freedom to take your digital life to wherever you live," said Ken Higgins, vice president of sales at Buffalo Technology. "With the new MiniStation Cobalt, we are continuing a tradition of innovative, easy-to-use storage solutions that are engineered to meet the needs of our customers."

The MiniStation Cobalt is Mac and PC compatible and is the perfect grab-and-go storage solution, whether it's for doing a presentationoverseas or a casual lunch meeting down the street. Buffalo's unique TurboUSB technology enhances data transfer rates of up to 20% faster than other standard drives and ships with Memeo's AutoBackup and Auto Sync software allowing consumers to securely and automatically manage and backup their digital assets in real-time.

Pricing and Availability

The MiniStation Cobalt is backed by a limited one-year warranty that includes toll-free 24/7 technical support and will be available late January at estimated street prices of $169.99 for the 500GB (HD-PE500U2), $119.99 for the 320GB (HD-PE320U2), $89.99 for the 250GB (HD-PE250U2) and $79.99 for the 160GB (HD-PE160U2).

About Buffalo Technology

Buffalo Technology (USA), Inc., based in Austin, Texas, is a leading global provider of award-winning networking, storage, multimedia and memory solutions for the home and small business environments as well as for system builders and integrators. With almost three decades of networking and computer peripheral experience, Buffalo has proven its commitment to delivering innovative, best-of-breed solutions that have put the company at the forefront of infrastructure technology. For more information about Buffalo Technology and its products, please visit www.buffalotech.com.

Buffalo, Inc. trademark statements. Buffalo is a trademark of Buffalo, Inc. All other trademarks mentioned herein are the property of their respective owners.

Can you really ever have enough hard disk storage? We don’t think so. All too many times we’ve gone and bought a monster hard drive and uttered those immortal words “I’ll never fill this!” only to find six months down the line that ripping our whole CD and DVD collection has made that once mighty drive seem woefully insufficient.

Of course hard disk manufacturers are always striving to release ever larger drives to slake our continued storage lust and 1TB hard drives are now increasingly commonplace in enthusiast systems thanks to continually tumbling prices that have made even a high performance 1TB drive well within everyone’s reach.

Going beyond 1TB of capacity is still rare though, and as of yetonly Seagate has released such a drive with its 1.5TB Barracuda 7200.11. With an NTFS formatted capacity of 1397.26GB, it manages to pack more storage space into a shiny 3.5” wide box than any other hard disk drive (that is unless you count continued rumours of a 2TB Western Digital drive).
Seagate’s massive drive is able cram in all this storage thanks to the use of four massive 375GB drive platters, a shift from the quad 250GB drives used in Seagate’s smaller 1TB drive. This increase in platter density should certainly help to improve drive performance, especially when you consider the next highest densities per platter are the 334GB platters found in Samsung's Spinpoint F1 1TB.

With a higher density, the drive’s read/write heads have a shorter distance to travel between data on the platter, improving performance, so we’re hopeful for a noticeable step up in performance from Seagate’s 1TB.However, the use of four newer, larger platters, and their accompanying read/write heads means the price is going to be a fair bit higher than competing 1TB drives - over £35 in fact. Bizarrely though this doesn’t seem to be so much the case in the USA right now, with Seagate’s 1.5TB much more appealing to the wallet at just $30 more than Samsung’s 1TB champion.

A-DATA Technology Co., Ltd., a worldwide leader in high performance memory products, announced today that it is launching XPG Dual SSD 3.5" RAID Enclosure to expand its portfolio of SSD solutions.

The A-DATA XPG Dual SSD 3.5" RAID Enclosure is a complete RAID solution through the use of two 2.5" SATA SSDs and/or HDDs mounted on one standard 3.5" form factor drive cage. This multifunctional RAID enclosure can be used as two separate drives, as a redundant drive to protect against drive failure, combined to becomeone high-performance drive or combined to become one large drive. By utilizing the hardware DIP switch on the back of the unit or included software utility, all these different RAID configurations and more can be set in an instant. Connection via SATA or USB enables easy direct access.
Designed for both internal & external purposes, A-DATA XPG Dual SSD 3.5" RAID Enclosure is the best choice for storage expansion and backup solution.

Furthermore, A-DATA also offers a 2.5" to 3.5" hard drive enclosure (Dual SSD 3.5" Enclosure - without built-in RAID function) converting simultaneously two 2.5" SATAI/II SSD and/or HDD into a 3.5" one. Both products will be available by end of Q1 2009.

RunCore, a producer of Flash-based sorage solutions, recently announced the expansion of the company's consumer-oriented solid state drive products, with the addition of new 1.8-inch low-cost Zif/PATA and 2.5-inch 256GB SATA SSDs. The company also announced that its 1.8-inch Zif/PATA solutions, with capacities ranging from 16GB to 128GB, were immediately available for purchase.

The new Solid State Drives provided by RunCore have been designed as a low-cost storage upgrade alternative to current SSDs on the market. Coming in a small and lightweight 1.8-inch form factor, the company's SSDs are available with capacities of 16GB, 32GB, 64GB and 128GB. Depending on the amount of storage provided, prices are expected to be of $69.99, $119.99, $199.99 and $389.99, respectively. Performance wise, the new 1.8-inch SSDs can provide read and write speeds of up to 75/40MB/sec, designed to boost the performance of computer systems that have been featured with a 1.8-inch HDD.

In addition to the 1.8-inch low-cost SSDs, RunCore alsoannounced the new 2.5-inch 256GB Pro II Hyper Speed SATA SSDs, provided to support the storage requirements of both notebook and desktop computer users. The new drives can provide an increased storage space, while also delivering a boost in the performance level. The 256GB SATA SSD from RunCore is said to reach read speeds of 230MB/s, while write speeds are expected to go as high as 150MB/s. Unfortunately, the new 2.5-inch, 256GB SATA SSD is expected to become available in February 2009, with an estimated price point of $699.99.

In addition, according to the company, all of its Prosumer SSD products, with the exception of the 2.5-inch SSD, are available with an integrated USB slave port and USB cable, enabling users to easily clone the data on the SSD, using any cloning software.

Advanced Media, Inc., manufacturer and marketer of the popular Ridata brand of recordable DVD, flash media, electronic storage products, and digital accessories, has introduced its eSATA external flash drive. The product, one of the first of its kind to hit the market, will be on display at the upcoming 2009 International Consumer Electronics Show at the Las Vegas Convention Center in South Hall 3, booth #31761.

“Our new dual-end eSATA or USB flash drive is at home in either business or general-use applications,” stated Harvey Liu, president of Advanced Media, Inc. “It is the perfect answer for anywhere a large capacity, ultra-fast portable storage device is desired. Offering true plug-and-play connectivity and fast boot up, it provides the best of both of these popular storage technologies.”The new Ridata storage device will be especially popular with users of the latest generation of notebooks that feature an eSATA and USB combination port. No external power or battery is needed, as it is powered by either the eSATA or USB bus. As a result, there is very low power consumption.

Data transfer rates while using the eSATA connector of up to 79MB/s reading and up to 45MB/s writing are assured. When using the USB connector, a read data transfer rate of up to 24MB/s and write speed up to 12MB/s can be achieved. The unit is in full compliancewith USB spec. 2.0.

The Ridata eSATA SSD flash drive supports multiple operating systems. No driver is needed in Windows ME, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows VISTA, Mac 9.x or later, Linux Kernel 2.4 or later. It also supports 1-port 1.5/3.0Gbps SATA I/II interface. It is shock resistant and noise-free, and offers long-time data retention. It may also be used as a bootable device while in Fix mode.

Cost and Availability
The portable Ridata eSATA + USB flash drive will be available in 16GB and 32GB capacities in mid-January 2009. It measures 3.5”x1”x0.3” (lwd) and weighs 0.6 ounces. As with all Ridata products it is competitively street priced.

The unit is available through selected retailers, Ridata distributors, and at various online outlets. A complete listing of locations may be found on the Advanced Media/Ridata website. It carries a two-year warranty.

Hard drive storage has been a bottleneck point in computers for as long as most of us can remember. Solid State Drives have hit the market, but currently are so expensive for the amount of storage that you get that they just aren't feasible. When you're looking at $200 for 128 GB of storage (for a generic SSD) you're likely to keep your old slow hard drive and just drool over the SSD line of products, wishing they offered a better price performance ratio.

We feel your storage needs pain and went in search of higher speed, better price performance products that still offer good speeds, but a better price performance ratio than SSD's. The Western Digital VelociRaptor 300 GB hard drive offers faster transfer rates than traditional platter drives, larger storage capacities than their more expensive cousins, the SSD, and speeds that rival SSD's when used in RAID 0.

To show how the different drives perform we went to the ends of theEarth and collected seven hard drives and ran them in nine different configurations, but none will ever have the coolness factor of the Western Digital VelociRaptor. With one exception, the Western Digital VelociRaptor in RAID 0!

Despite the grim market outlook of NAND Flash-based storage solutions, memory makers continue develop the technology, and to release better and higher-capacity Solid State Drives. On that note, one of the most recent announcements of this kind comes from Patriot Memory, a global provider of premium quality memory module and flash memory solutions.
The company has recently introduced its new 256GB Warp SSD v3, which has been designed to boast read and write speeds of up to 240MB/s and 160MB/s, respectively. Basically, the just introduced SSDs will come to boost the storage capacity and the performance capability of today's high-performance computer systems.
“Our new 256GB Warp SSD v3 now gives the consumer the fastest data-transfer rates plus all the storage space largeenough to quench their multimedia thirst,” says Flash Product Manager for Patriot Memory, Meng Jay. “It wasn't long ago that SSDs maxed out at 64GB with read speeds of 130MB/s, now with the Warp v3 we literally 'Warp' into capacities that most consumers demand and speeds far faster than current conventional hard drives.”
The 256GB Warp SSD v3 comes to expand the company's lineup of Flash-based storage products, while also providing users with a high-capacity and high-performance storage solution. The drive boasts a 2.5-inch form factor, and is featured with a SATA connectivity interface. It can easily be considered an alternative storage solution for portable or desktop computer systems, providing fast performance, as compared to that of traditional hard drives. Unfortunately, the company hasn't revealed any details regarding pricing for the newly announced SSD.
Until recently, Patriot's new Warp SSDs would have been considered among the highest capacity Flash-based storage solutions on the market. However, due to Toshiba's 512GB announced earlier today, the SSD market has now been taken to the next level in terms of storage. Still, the adoption rate of SSDs is largely influenced by their price tag, which continues to be considerably higher than that of traditional drives.

It seems DVD writers are still putting up a fight with the Blu-ray revolution closing in, and ironically, it's the Blu-ray consortium's strongest member Sony, that is still releasing high end DVD products. Sony Electronics has introduced a powerful DVD writer - the Sony AD-7220S/A - with 22x speed.Touted as being one of the fastest DVD writers available today with stable recording quality, the Sony AD-7220S/A series delivers a recording speed of 22x when writing to a single layer DVD+/-R disc. It is available in Serial ATA or Parallel ATA Interface in Bulk Packing.

“We are excited to announce the launch of one of the fastest DVD-RW writers available in the market today. As the sizeof data is increasing day by day, higher speed has become the need of the hour. This is exactly where this new Sony DVD writer fits in. I am confident that this product will raise the bar for 22X DVD-RW drives”, said Rajesh Goenka, VP-Sales and Marketing, Rashi Peripherals Pvt.Ltd.

The DVD writer features several key technologies such as vibration reduction system and heat dissipation method. Automatically adjusting CD-DA/VCD/DVD data extraction for smooth reading, the Sony AD-7220S/A also features buffer under run protection and optimized writing quality by automatically adjusting writing strategy, which provides optimal user experience.

The Sony AD-7220S/A is compatible with DVD+/-R, DVD+/-R DL, DVD+/-RW and DVD-RAM as well as CDs. It supports DVDROM, DVD+R, DVD+R DL, DVD+RW, DVD-R, DVD-R DL, DVD-RW, DVD-RAM, CD-ROM (mode 1), CD-ROM/XA (mode 2, form 1 and form 2), Photo CD, CD Extra, CD-TEXT, CD-I, VIDEO CD, DVD-Video, DVD-Audio, CD-DA, Enhance CD, UDF (fixed/variable Packet mode) and DVD-Audio.

Other technical specifications include Buffer memory capacity of 2 MB and access Time of DVD at 160ms and CD at 140ms.

Sony AD-7220S/A series is available through Rashi Peripherals and its 53 branches throughout India at an estimated retail price of Rs. 1300 and a 1 year warranty.

Blu-ray is catching on, what with Imation India announcing brand new TDK Life On Record Blu-ray discs capable of recording at 4x speed. The four new TDK LoR Blu-ray Discs include the BD-R25 (single-sided, single-layer, 25GB) and BD-R50 (single-sided, dual-layer, 50GB) write-once type discs, as well as the BD-RE25 (single-sided, single-layer, 25GB) and BD-RE50 (single-sided, dual-layer, 50GB) rewritable discs.
Commenting on the launch, Sanjay Koul, business development director (India and SAARC), Imation India Pvt Ltd, said, "Driven by the continuously evolving data storage requirements, as well as the rapid emergence of high-definition broadcasting, demand has grown for discs that have larger capacities and higher-speed recording than previous formats. The TDK LoR's BD-R and BD-RE productsare bare, cartridge-free discs that rise to the challenge by delivering larger capacities and high-speed recording without requiring a cumbersome cartridge
to ensure reliability."

TDK LoR Blu-ray Discs incorporate a recording layer comprised of inorganic material. The discs are further highlighted by TDK LoR's exclusive DURABIS 2 hard coating technology
, a smooth cover layer created through the spin coating method, and a host of other TDK LoR technologies that enable the creation of high-reliability media.

So, 4x roughly translates to a TDK LoR 25GB Blu-ray Disc fully recorded in 22 minutes, and a TDK LoR 4x 50GB Blu-ray Disc fully recorded in 45 minutes.

TDK LoR Blu-ray Discs are available at all leading computer peripherals and accessories outlets and retailers in India. Imation's Blu Ray Disks are available at Rs. 500 onwards.