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| FAIR LAWN,
NJ - September 14, 2004 - Maxell Corporation said today that it
believes price increases are inevitable on all magnetic media products in its
data storage, professional and consumer divisions due to rising prices for raw
materials and other distribution and supply chain cost increases.
"We are in an extremely competitive business environment that has been very beneficial to our customers with respect to product pricing ," said Don Patrican, executive vice president of Maxell. "However, raw materials costs continue to escalate as do other costs of doing business. These economic realities have forced us to re-examine our magnetic media pricing models to ensure the strategic long term stability of our company. The specifics regarding the implementation of the revised pricing policy are in the final stages of development." The company said anticipated price increases will affect computer media products such as SuperDLTtape and LTO Ultrium tape, professional-use tape and consumer products, such as VHS and camcorder tape. ...Maxell profile, Tape drives Editor's comments:- Increased prices are a classic phenomenom in the tail end of technology markets. If you take the view that tape backup will eventually be replaced almost entirely by disk to disk backup in the next 3 years then tape media companies will be hit by declining sales in new tape systems. But if users already own a tape drive or library then it's possible for media companies to increase prices to the captive market eventually to the point of pain. As the number of tape media companies will eventually decline - those left in at the end can make more profit. DUBLIN, Ireland - September 14, 2004 - Research and Markets has announced a new report - Nanostorage: The Impact of Nanotechnology on Memory, Disk Drives and Other Storage Devices. The report (price Euros 3,205) evaluates the market opportunities for devices and sub-systems being created for use within computing, telecom and datacom equipment and provides timelines for their introduction as well as examining the impact of nanotechnology on conventional memory chips and storage devices. The report evaluates both the role of incumbent disk drive and memory chip manufacturers and the promising new start-ups in this space, where their money is coming from, and their prospects for success, given their strategies, market conditions and funding levels. This report is targeted towards semiconductor, computer, disk drive and telecom equipment companies. It will enable readers to better understand drivers and demand patterns for nanoelectronics products. Taking demand-side analysis as a starting point, the report digs down to what requirements nanostorage devices will have to meet over the next few years and which of the R&D programs and commercial companies seem best prepared to seize the available opportunities. ...more info, storage market analysts HP Americas StorageWorks Conference - September 14, 2004 - HP today outlined its strategy and roadmap to transform the network storage industry by unlocking the value of information in real time, regardless of how it was created or where it is stored. Created in HP Labs, the company's central research facility, the HP StorageWorks Grid strategy is designed to allow customers to better focus on how they use data, not how they store it. With more than 1,000 customers and partners in attendance at this week's conference, HP Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Carly Fiorina described how HP is delivering on its powerful storage grid architecture to help customers turn static stored data, or "corporate memory," into dynamic information assets to help meet the future in which information is increasingly becoming digital, mobile, virtual and personal. ...HP profile Editor's comments:- I've seen major storage initiatives from HP before. They use a lot of words which say very little. Acres of HP text and hype can be summarised as follows:- buy more storage software and hardware from HP and HP will solve your problems. Nothing new there really. UNION CITY, California - September 14, 2004 - FirmTek, LLC today unveiled their new external SeriTek/1SE2 Serial ATA PCI host adapter. The SeriTek/1SE2 extends Serial ATA's 1.5Gbits/sec performance to the outside of the Macintosh computer chassis, enabling users to take advantage of external Serial ATA enclosures. With two external ports, it provides the high bandwidth necessary to meet the needs of performance-hungry applications while offering hot-swap flexibility similar to that of USB and FireWire. FirmTek's SeriTek/1SE2 Serial ATA host adapter for the Macintosh will be available during the 4th quarter of 2004, with estimated retail pricing of $99.95. ...FirmTek profile, Serial ATA Maynard, Mass - September 14, 2004 - SANBlaze Technology, Inc. today introduced a complete family of CompactPCI storage blades. The SANBlaze SB1-USB-DVD, SB1-USB-HD and SB1-USB-Combo CompactPCI Storage blades provide embedded systems designers the flexibility to add in-chassis storage utilizing USB2.0 as the interconnect. The SB1-USB family of storage blades offer removable drive options, in either DVD and CD formats, as well as fixed drive options in a 6U, single slot, CompactPCI form factor. USB2.0 connectivity is provided via front panel connection or rear panel via a Rear Transition Module. The SB1-USB-DVD blade, with either a DVD and CD, allows in-chassis software load functionality and removable storage capabilities such as software backup to be incorporated into the embedded system design. Adding an optional Hard Drive onto the blade provides flexible in-chassis storage options as well as boot capability, for example. The SANBlaze SB1-USB blades are available with removable media only (DVD or CD), with single or dual Hard Drives (80GB to 160GB) or a combination of the two, a removable component and single fixed hard drive option. These options provide maximum in-chassis storage design flexibility while utilizing USB2.0 as the interface. The SANBlaze SB1-USB storage blades are available immediately. ...SANBlaze profile, SPARC SBCs - compactPCI, USB storage Fountain Valley - September 14, 2004 - StorCase Technology today announced that it will be shipping InfoStation 1U RAID enclosures supporting the newest 2.5" SATA drive technology and SCSI or Fibre dual host connections. StorCase has built upon previous technology experience and design expertise to provide a compact InfoStation 10-bay 1U enclosure supporting 2.5" SATA drives and a variety of SCSI Ultra320 or Fibre 2Gbps RAID applications. "The new 10-bay InfoStation RAID enclosures are extremely space-efficient, supporting storage capacities and data throughput rates that would require much more rack space and consume considerably more power with traditional 3.5" drive enclosures," said Joel Tang, Director of Engineering at StorCase Technology. "The SATA drive interface also provides the customer with a price and performance combination unavailable with pure SCSI or Fibre solutions." Each InfoStation 1U enclosure for SATA drives is equipped with an integrated high-performance RAID controller and supports up to two SCSI Ultra320 or two 2Gps Fibre host channels. InfoStation enclosures are accompanied by a seven-year warranty (three years for RAID controllers, power supplies and fan modules) in addition to StorCase's 24/7 technical phone support. "Fujitsu introduced the first 2.5" SATA hard disk drive to the market so that we could work with storage leaders like StorCase and deliver cutting edge solutions to the marketplace," said Lorne Wilson, vice president, channel sales and marketing, Fujitsu Computer Products of America. "Working together, Fujitsu and StorCase have created a new value and performance proposition for high performance storage users." ...StorCase profile, JBODs, RAID controller cards, Hard drives, SCSI cards Sunnyvale, Calif. - September 13, 2004 - Softek today announced Softek Performance Tuner which enables IT administrators to profile the performance of their storage environment throughout the business week to understand the normal performance of the storage environment. Server and storage network performance statistics are first collected to establish a baseline of normal operation. Then, when performance levels fall outside the normal range, Softek Performance Tuner proactively alerts IT administrators to the problem and also delivers a variety of actionable reports on performance within the storage environment. Softek Performance Tuner includes powerful performance profiling capabilities to help users identify and then resolve specific problems and return the storage environment to its normal performance range. "Today, performance management is more of an art than a science. With the addition of Softek Performance Tuner, we have expanded the management capabilities of our ESRM suite to provide powerful performance benchmarking and analysis capabilities to make performance management more of a science." said Karen Dutch, vice president and general manager for the company's Open Systems group. ...Softek profile Diamond Bar, CA - September 13, 2004 - Advanced Media, Inc. announced today the addition of ultra fast, new 16x DVD+R discs to its RIDATA brand lineup of high quality recordable media. The new discs will be available through selected retailers, RIDATA distributors and at various online outlets in September. "Our 16x DVD +R discs continue RITEK's global status as a technology leader in the optical storage media industry," stated Andy Huang, Marketing Manager for Advanced Media (RITEK USA). "Discs of this incredibly fast speed require an extremely precise production process as well as the highest quality materials and cutting edge production technology. That our new discs consistently achieve these requirements is due to the great success of RITEK's research and development capabilities." With its large 4.7GB capacity and great capability for multimedia recording, the write-once formatted 16x DVD+R RIDATA disc provides a dependable high-speed storage medium. In terms of high speeds the Advanced Media RIDATA 16x+DVD disc spins at a blazing 10,800 RPM. It offers a high-quality, stable medium through the use of premium organic dyes for recording all types of data. Conforming to DVD specifications for recordable disc v2.0 (4.7GB), it delivers stunning video resolution and audio performance. It is ideal for massive archival storage, duplication, network backup, multimedia presentations, and digital video/photography. It too has long-term data archiving and 30 years safe storage life functionality through its excellent UV and heat resistance. A limited lifetime warranty is also included on all RIDATA media. The new RIDATA write-once formatted 16x DVD+R is a high-capacity multimedia data storage medium that can accommodate an entire full-length movie on a single disc. Its excellent durability allows over one million readings, ensuring data protection for an extended period of time. It conforms to DVD+R 4.7GB basic format specifications v1.0 and features convenient single formatting for both video and data storage; constant linear data density; long archival and storage life; very low recording error rate; and low jitter. ...Advanced Media profile, DVD drives, Storage Media MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. - September 13, 2004 - VERITAS Software today reported new research findings reveal that 43% of organizations worldwide remain largely unprepared to respond to a major disaster. The third annual study conducted by UK-based Dynamic Markets Ltd., surveyed 1,259 IT professionals around the world found that only 38% of respondents claimed to have comprehensive, integrated disaster recovery and business continuity plans in place, in spite of the fact that 92% acknowledged that serious consequences would result if they were faced with a major disruption to their IT infrastructure. Compared to the results of the 2003 survey, the frequency of disaster recovery execution has increased significantly, with 51% indicating they had to execute on their disaster recovery plans compared to 33% in the previous year. This implies that 18% (almost 1 in 5 companies) have implemented their DR plan for the first time in the last 12 months. The most common reason cited resulted from failures across computing systems associated with hardware or software failures (37%), but other reasons included:- External computer threats including viruses and hackers (26%), Natural disasters such as fire or floods (14%), Internal computer threats including accidental or malicious employee behavior (13%) and Man-made disasters such as war or terrorism (10%). When presented with a scenario where a natural disaster (e.g., fire or hurricane) completely destroyed the company's primary data center, more than 40% had no idea how long it would take to achieve normal operations or even skeletal operations. Just 3% felt they could carry on with business as usual immediately and only 28% believed they could resume skeletal operations within less than 12 hours. ...VERITAS profile, Data Recovery Services, Backup Software SAN JOSE, Calif. - September 13, 2004 MaXXan Systems Inc. will broadcast a one-hour Webinar on the benefits of NAS gateways on September 21 at 11 a.m. PDT. Ravi Chalaka, MaXXan's VP of marketing, will explain how users can lower management costs and serve file and block data from any disk array with the latest NAS gateways. MaXXan's Storage Gateway systems combine the feature-rich Windows Storage Server 2003 Enterprise Edition software with the high-performance MaXXan I/O server platform to form a tightly integrated, easily deployed NAS gateway solution. MaXXan's NAS gateways enable businesses to leverage their investments in block-based storage devices for use in file-sharing NAS environments. ...register here, ...MaXXan profile, Fibre channel switches, Storage Events MEMPHIS, Tenn - September 13, 2004 - Remote Backup Systems, Inc., manufacturer and distributor of RBackup online backup software today announced the completion of an exhaustive review of the product's compatibility with the recent WinXP-SP2 upgrade. The SP2-compatibility test certified the core RBackup client and server software as well as all Plugins and Utilities which complement its functionality. ...Remote Backup Systems profile, Web backup MILPITAS, Calif. - September 13, 2004 - Maxtor Corporation today announced that it is shipping its new Maxtor SATA Ultra16 Hard Drive Kits. Featuring a 16MB buffer and offering best-in-class 7200RPM performance, Maxtor's new Ultra16 kits are perfect for consumers who want to upgrade their systems for an improved multimedia, computing and gaming experience. The new Ultra16 Hard Drive Kits come with a high-performance Serial ATA hard drive and offer capacities up to 300GB. Maxtor's easy-to-install SATA Ultra16 Hard Drive Kit includes an installation guide with step-by-step instructions, a SATA cable and mounting screws. The kit also includes Maxtor's popular MaxBlast installation software, which partitions and formats the drive for use, and helps copy files from the old hard drive to the new Maxtor drive. In addition, the new Ultra16 drive offers a 150MB/sec interface speed and SATA II features including Native Command Queuing for more intelligent hard drive operation, and runs quietly with a fluid dynamic bearing motor. Maxtor 250GB and 300GB SATA Ultra16 Hard Drive Kits are available through major distribution and retail channels. Manufacturer's suggested retail prices are $239.95 and $279.95 respectively. ...Maxtor profile, Hard drives, Serial ATA BOULDER, Colo. - September 13, 2004 - Spectra Logic today launched the Military-Grade Spectra 10K tape library with rock-solid features uniquely suited to government customers. The library offers temperature and climate control, backed by shock and vibration testing to ensure federal users the market's sturdiest tape library with more than 20TB capacity. The Military-Grade Spectra 10K tape library is designed with an internal cooling feature to offset and withstand major fluctuations in temperature. The library's filtering system accommodates dusty, sandy climates throughout the world. Additionally, the Military-Grade Spectra 10K was shock-tested to meet higher than average high G force standards. "The release of this tape library is further proof of Spectra Logic's dedication to the federal market," said Brian Grainger, director of federal sales and founder of Spectra Logic's Federal Division. "Military-Grade Spectra 10K suits customers with special requirements and meets military field operation standards." The 4U rack mounted Spectra 10K is ideal in environments where space is limited. This library's cast aluminum frame provides rigidity and ensures reliability. The Military-Grade Spectra 10K library with AIT-4 drive technology transfers up to 96 megabytes per second and stores up to 20.8 terabytes (compressed) of data in . Interface options are LVD SCSI and Fibre Channel. ...Spectra Logic profile, Military Storage, tape libraries FRAMINGHAM, Mass - September 13, 2004 - According to IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Storage Software Tracker, the worldwide storage software market grew 16.9% year over year to $1.85 billion in total revenue in the second quarter of 2004. Storage resources management now represents the largest functional market of storage software, growing more than 30% year over year. Backup and archive continues to be a healthy market with 9.2% year-over-year growth. The storage replication software and file system software functional markets also enjoyed strong results in the first quarter with 13.5% and 18.5% year-over-year growth respectively. EMC led the overall market this quarter with 32.5% revenue share, gaining 3.4 points over the second quarter of 2003. VERITAS maintained its second position with 22.6% revenue share, gaining more than 1 point of market share year over year. IBM and HP both gained ground on Computer Associates, resulting in a three-way statistical tie for the third position. ...IDC profile, Storage Software LAKE FOREST, Calif. - September 9, 2004 - Western Digital Corp. today added a USB 2.0 model to its existing external hard disk backup family. Both WD Dual-option USB 2.0 and WD Essential drives feature a front-mounted power button; the USB 2.0 interface; 7200 RPM spin speed; and capacities of 80, 120, 160, 200 and 250 GB. WD's Dual-option USB 2.0 model gives consumers the option to back up data either on-demand or automatically and ensures that all data is safely transferred before shutting down the drive with the company's exclusive Safe Shutdown feature. WD Dual-option drives are a convenient solution for backing up an internal hard drive onto one drive, rather than multiple CDs or other removable media, or backing up data from multiple sources for consumers who have a number of drives and/or PCs and notebooks. Dantz Retrospect Express backup software enables users of WD Dual-option USB 2.0 drives to choose how and when to back up data, either automatically or on-demand, with the simple touch of a button. Using an easy set-up wizard, users can schedule a recurring backup; a button glows blue to confirm that files will be backed up automatically. ...Dantz profile, ...Western Digital profile, Backup software, Disk to disk backup IDF, San Francisco - September 9, 2004 - 40 leading computer component and peripheral companies announced today the formation of the Serial ATA International Organization. The current SATA-IO technology roadmap includes enabling the 3Gb/s technology defined in the newest SATA spec, which was released in July. The group also plans to expand membership to include additional optical storage vendors, storage controller and hard drive vendors, system builders, storage semiconductor designers and computer technology designers. "Our transformation to the Serial ATA International Organization shows our members' dedication to the future of this technology," said Knut Grimsrud, SATA-IO chairman and senior principal engineer at Intel Corporation. "The new organizational structure is long-term, selfsustaining and empowers the SATA community to build a mighty and mature market for SATA offerings. SATA-IO will continue to maintain specifications, promote and market the benefits of the technology, foster quality and interoperability in products, and define new Serial ATA technology and future interface speeds that carry the storage industry into the next decade." ...SATA-IO profile, Industry trade associations Carlsbad, CA and Palo Alto, CA – September 9, 2004 - nStor Corporation has entered a marketing alliance with Atempo. Under the terms of the agreement, nStor and Atempo will deliver integrated solutions as part of a combined sales and marketing effort. ...Atempo profile , ...nStor profile SAN JOSE and CITY OF INDUSTRY, Calif. - September 8, 2004 - Xtore and Bell Microproducts today announced a global distribution agreement. Bell Microproducts will offer Xtore's family of DAS, NAS and SAN products through its reseller and VAR channels in the United States, Europe, and Latin America. The addition of Xtore's products - which combine innovative, reliable technology, unique chassis designs and economics - dovetails with Bell Microproducts' storage-centric strategy, enabling them to provide government organizations, commercial enterprises and SMB customers with a wider variety of options for managing and protecting their critical data. ...Bell Microproducts profile, ...Xtore profile Berkeley, CA - September 8, 2004 - Freecom Technologies announced today the FHD-3, a new storage solution for the home or office. The new drive can easily be positioned either horizontally or vertically and what might look like "just another hard drive" is in fact the start of a brand new multimedia storage concept. In the near future, Freecom will introduce more products that use the same design format. For example:- an AV-module, which connects the FHD-3 to a TV and uses the drive as a HD-recorder. When connecting to a wireless LAN module, users will be able share the data on the FHD-3 in a wireless network environment. These additional modules will stack on top of each other, thereby creating a real Multimedia Tower with the FHD-3 as basis. The fast and extremely silent hard drive with One Button Data Synchronization comes in 160, 250 and 400 Gigabyte versions. These large capacities make the drive ideally suited for working with storage-space consuming data-files like video, digital photos, presentations or MP3 music files. The FHD-3 is available in 2 versions; the customer can choose between a USB 2.0 version or a second version featuring both USB 2.0 and FireWire connections. The Freecom FHD-3 is available now, starting at a suggested MSRP of $199.99 (160GB version). ...Freecom Technologies profile, Firewire storage, USB storage Eden Prairie, MN - September 8, 2004 - I-TECH announced today the introduction of the Monarch SAS Tester for testing Serial Attached SCSI enterprise class environments and devices. This tester provides low-level testing of legal and illegal serial management protocol (SMP) and serial SCSI protocol (SSP) frames and data patterns, out-of-band and speed negotiation signals, and device powerup and reset sequences for verifying conformance to the SAS protocol specification. |
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| The Monarch SAS Tester consists of a PCI circuit board that can be installed in either a host PC or a networked PassPort (a compact portable test system), depending on the test environment. The PassPort offers the added advantage of portability and is ideal for the field or lab. |  | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| The tester's power
and versatility accommodate users of diverse needs and capabilities. Power users
can take advantage of the software development kit which includes an extensive
function library and source code for automating any testing process. ...I-TECH profile,
Serial SCSI,
Test systems MILPITAS, Calif. - September 8, 2004 - Adaptec, Inc. announced today an end-to-end Serial-Attached SCSI product family - including the industry's first SAS subsystem and boards that will be demonstrated this week at the Intel Developer Forum. The Adaptec SAS ASIC, a chip that will power SAS workstations and servers, is the industry's fastest to date, delivering unprecedented 4.8 gigabyte/second performance, seven times that of Ultra320 SCSI, the fastest parallel SCSI technology available today. It is the foundation of a broad family of new Adaptec SAS controllers and boards. SAS is the next generation SCSI interface that brings many improvements in performance, scalability, reliability, and form factor over parallel SCSI, the current mainstream interface. SAS is designed for high-performance enterprise requirements and is a subset of Serial ATA (SATA), which is the storage interface for desktop environments. SAS offers both the benefits of backward compatibility with SCSI and interoperability with SATA, bringing enterprises a flexibility and cost savings previously not possible for traditional storage environments. SAS-based solutions are ideal for organizations with bandwidth-intensive applications, transaction processing systems, mainline storage requirements, and rich media types such as video. Adaptec expects its storage systems revenue for the fiscal year ending March 2006 to reach more than $200 million. Contributing factors to this 260% growth in 2 years are cited as:- last year's acquisition of Eurologic, the more recent acquisition of Snap Appliance and growth in Adaptec's core storage solutions business fueled by IBM 's adoption of Adaptec's technology in the IBM TotalStorage DS300 and DS400 announced last week. ...Adaptec profile, Serial Attached SCSI MILPITAS, CA - September 8, 2004 - Engenio Information Technologies, Inc. today announced the newest element of the Engenio Solutions Program enabling remote backup and rapid recovery for business critical applications. The solution features an enhanced version of SANtricity Storage Manager Remote Volume Mirror software utilizing asynchronous mirroring with the SANtricity Snapshot feature to create a centralized backup of data from different geographic locations to one central location. The Remote Backup/Rapid Recovery solution benefits end users by enabling backups of critical information to be stored offsite outside of an immediate metropolitan area. The solution ensures an efficient information recovery process is in place, streamlines the time and expense required to backup servers to one remote backup system, and uses existing storage and IP network resources as part of an overall business continuance/disaster recovery solution. The Remote Backup/Rapid Recovery element was built and tested with DB2 Universal Database and CNT's UltraNet Edge Storage Router. "Protecting and recovering databases is a growing challenge for all organizations today. Natural disasters and threats of terrorism are raising the importance of site-level protection," said Steve Gardner, Engenio Director of Product Marketing. "By using asynchronous mirroring and snapshot replication, users can cost-effectively manage copies of data off site and ensure they are recoverable, assuring business continuance and comprehensive disaster recovery." ...Engenio profile, Web backup SAN FRANCISCO - September 8, 2004 - this week at the Intel Developer Forum - Seagate Technology is demonstrating the powerful benefits of high-density storage that delivers greater I/O performance in a smaller footprint. Savvio, Seagate's 2.5-inch enterprise-class hard drive, increases system performance density, otherwise known as IOPS-per-U, enabling space-saving systems that can manage higher workloads. The demonstration validates the expectations of 125% IOPS-per-U improvement for today's innovative 2.5-inch-enabled storage arrays. According to IDC estimates, data center space costs are a major concern as the average space costs can range from $500 to $1,000 per square foot. Savvio-enabled systems address this concern and will assist IT professionals in consolidating data center space. The demonstration features Seagate's innovative 2.5-inch Seagate Savvio disc drives, which are housed in a StorCase InfoStation(R) 10-bay 1U SCSI enclosure. The Savvio-equipped system is loaded with 10 drives that all fit within a 1U-rack enclosure, while a second comparison array tested includes a dozen 3.5-inch drives that require a full 2U of rack space. The 10-drive array performs equivalent to the 12-drive array in performance, but does it in just half the space. ...Seagate profile, Hard drives | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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