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Storage news - 2005, September week 1 |
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| SAMSUNG's New
Hard Disk Drives
San Jose, CA - September 7, 2005 - Samsung Electronics Ltd. introduces 4 new hard disk drives with increased storage capacity to its award winning family. The new SpinPoint P120 Series hard drives include both Serial ATA with 3Gbps and Parallel ATA versions and are available with either a 200GB or a 250GB capacity. All four new drives are currently shipping. ...Samsung profile, SATA, Hard disk drives Uniblue Claims Fastest Outlook Backup & Restore Msida , Malta - September 7, 2005 - Uniblue Systems today announced the release of WinBackup 2.0 Professional. The latest market research shows that about 60% of small and medium sized businesses do not backup and are thus prone to the threats of data loss arising from human error, hard drive crashes, hardware failures, virus attacks, theft and other adverse With its new compression engine, WinBackup 2.0 is one of the fastest backup and recovery management solutions available to SMBs. The enhanced encryption and data verification algorithms also guarantee data security, integrity and accuracy of restores. WinBackup 2.0 allows the backup of data onto a variety of media including CD/DVD, Tape, hard drives and shared resources. "Email backup and restore is a different kettle of fish" said Bosse Malmberg, Chief Executive Officer at Uniblue. "With file-centric backup companies can only backup and restore single mailbox database files. This just doesn't do the trick. Restores become long processes with 100% business continuity not being guaranteed. We had to think about providing something over and above file-centric backup. WinBackup Professional 2.0 takes email backup and restore a step further with the WinBackup Outlook Agent which allows users to backup individual emails and folders." WinBackup 2.0 is available immediately. Trial versions are available free-of-charge from the Uniblue Website. WinBackup 2.0 Professional costs $69.95 (download) and $79.95 (box). ...Uniblue Systems profile, article:- Solving the Problem of Backing Up Outlook for SMBs (pdf) Evault Joins Healthcare Broadband Alliance Emeryville, Calif. - September 7, 2005 - EVault, Inc. today announced that it has joined the Healthcare Broadband Alliance, a forum that helps businesses in the healthcare industry transition to new broadband networks. Working together, Healthcare Broadband Alliance member companies develop awareness programs to help educate healthcare providers and their solutions vendors regarding new certified solutions, technology options and how to maximize value from virtual private networks. "The healthcare industry has more privacy and security requirements to comply with than any other industry today," said William da Cunha, vice president of alliances at EVault. "By joining the Healthcare Broadband Alliance, we hope to become a valuable data protection partner for healthcare organizations big and small to ensure their information is secure and meets compliance requirements." EVault's online data backup products and managed services enable healthcare administrators to maintain accessibility to the organization's electronic files, while at the same time remaining compliant with industry mandates such as HIPAA. Benefits of online backup include point-and-click recovery, automatic backups, secure off-site protection, and advanced encryption and data compression technologies. ...EVault profile, article:- SSL VPN Gateways: A New Approach to Secure Remote Access iTunes Service Starts on Cellphones SAN FRANCISCO, SCHAUMBURG - September 7, 2005 - Apple, Motorola and Cingular Wireless today announced the availability of the world's first mobile phone with iTunes, enabling music lovers to transfer up to 100 of their favorite songs from the iTunes jukebox on their Mac or PC to their mobile phone. Apple's iTunes software on the Motorola ROKR features easy to use menus, simple navigation and playback, and the ability to simply switch from phone to music and back again with the push of a dedicated music key. The new Motorola ROKR is available today at and will be sold exclusively in all Cingular retail locations beginning tomorrow. "We've worked closely with Motorola to deliver the world's best music experience on a mobile phone," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "We're also thrilled to be working with Cingular, the largest wireless carrier in the US, to bring this pioneering phone to market." ...Apple profile. ...Cingular Hitachi Launches Notebook Hard Drive Upgrade Kit SAN JOSE, Calif. - September 7, 2005 - To support two new growth trends in the consumer notebook segment Hitachi offers a complete upgrade solution that consumers can install themselves. The solution includes both a new internal hard drive for upgrade and tools to create an external storage device using the existing hard drive. The Hitachi Travelstar 2.5-inch Hard Drive Upgrade Kit will be available later this month at major retail stores nationwide. The new Travelstar upgrade kit consists of a 5400 RPM 40-100 GB hard drive, complete installation instructions, Apricorn EZ Gig II Hard Drive Cloning and Upgrade software, a high-speed USB hard drive enclosure, a one-meter USB cable and auxiliary power cables. The Travelstar hard drives will also be available in retail stores as stand-alone internal drives which are recommended for professional installation. Both the stand-alone drive and the drive with upgrade kit are available in 40-, 60-, 80- and 100-GB capacities. Pricing for the upgrade kit ranges from $139-219. "Due to the maturity and reliability of notebook PC technology, consumers are finding it less necessary to trade in their entire systems," said Jerry Kagele, executive vice president, Bell Microproducts. "What consumers want is an easy and inexpensive solution to boost data access times and storage capacity, which they can easily do by upgrading their hard drive. We believe Hitachi's strong brand in the consumer space makes the Travelstar upgrade kit a desirable option for consumers." ...Hitachi profile, Hard disk drives, Notebook drives, Removable Storage Editor's comments:- I know many people who have bought new notebooks simply because they ran out of disk space on their old ones and didn't want to take the risk of trashing their data by a botched self upgrade. This upgrade kit backed by Hitachi's branding will increase the confidence of many people who run their own business on an unbacked up notebook and just need more gigabytes rather than more gigahertz. PMC-Sierra Appoints Dr. Robert Yung as COO SANTA CLARA, Calif. - September 7, 2005 - PMC-Sierra, Inc. today announced that Dr. Robert Yung has been appointed to the position of Chief Technology Officer of the company. Dr. Yung was most recently a Founder and Partner at GSR Ventures, an early-stage private equity technology fund focusing on semiconductor design, wireless and Internet services in China and the USA. Prior to founding GSR Ventures, Dr. Yung held various CTO positions within Intel, the most recent being Chief Technology Officer, Enterprise Processors. Prior to joining Intel, Dr. Yung was the Chief Technology Officer for Sun Microsystems in Asia. "Robert's extensive technology expertise and strong industry relationships will be valuable to PMC-Sierra as we continue to invest in exciting new areas such as wireless, storage and broadband communications," said Bob Bailey, chairman and CEO of PMC-Sierra. In 2002, Dr. Yung was named to the National Committee of US-China Relation's Fellow during the inaugural Young Leader Forum. In 2000, he was named to the World Economic Forum's "Top 100 Global Leaders for Tomorrow," in Davos, Switzerland. Dr. Yung earned his BA, MS and PhD degrees in electrical engineering and computer science at the University of California at Berkeley. He is the inventor of 70 issued and over 20 pending patents, and has published over 50 technical articles in journals and at industry conferences. ...PMC-Sierra profile, Storage People, Serial Attached SCSI Exabyte Gets Increased Slice of Shrinking Tape Pie BOULDER, CO - September 6, 2005 - Exabyte Corp today that its two hallmark products in the SMB-class of tape automation - the VXA PacketLoader 1x10 and the Magnum 1x7 LTO AutoLoader - continue to outperform competitive products throughout worldwide distribution channels. According to Exabyte, the VXA PacketLoader 1x10 and the Magnum 1x7 LTO AutoLoader have become the two fastest-selling automation products in its 20-year history. The company attributes the products' success in the SMB and departmental markets to designs that specifically meet the capacity, performance, and budget needs of small-and-medium businesses. In the midrange sector, which includes LTO, AIT3/4, SAIT and DLT/SDLT IDC indicates that LTO increased its shipment volume by 35% on an annualized basis while the overall midrange market grew by only 2%. The low-end tape drive market had mixed results. In this sector, which includes VXA, AIT-1/2, DDS/DAT, DLT VS and SLR, overall shipments contracted by 7% according to IDC. However, not all tape drive formats in this sector were adversely impacted. "In the low-end, VXA shipments far outpaced the overall market on a year-over-year comparison," added Amatruda. "DDS/DAT experienced a sharper decline than the overall market, decreasing by 10%. By comparison, while absolute shipments of VXA drives were smaller than DDS/DAT drives, VXA shipments increased by 86%." ...Exabyte profile, Tape backup SimpleTech and Napster Make Sweet Music PHOENIX - September 6, 2005 - SimpleTech, Inc. today announced a strategic partnership with Napster, the biggest brand in digital music, to introduce Napster-branded Flash memory and hard disk drive storage products. The licensed products include external storage, USB Flash drives, and Flash cards, among others and provide vital storage expansion, back-up and portability for valuable music files. SimpleTech will demonstrate its complete portfolio of storage products at RetailVision Fall 2005, held this week in Phoenix, AZ. According to Forrester Research, online music sales in the US are projected to reach $4.5 billion by 2008. "The combination of the iconic Napster brand with memory and storage technologies from SimpleTech results in a family of relevant products that will appeal to consumers in the digital music market," said Brad Duea, president of Napster. "These products have been specifically designed to meet the needs of fans looking for high-quality storage for all the digital music they love and to provide the innovation and quality assurance Napster symbolizes." The Napster-branded storage products are expected to be available during the third quarter of 2005. Sample manufacturer's suggested retail prices are as follows: 160GB MusicVault - $159, 128MB USB Flash drives - $18.00. ...SimpleTech profile, USB storage IOCELL Says USB is not Just Simple Storage Seoul, Korea - September 6, 2005 - IOCELL Corporation today announced the launch of the world's first developed USB drive Open Platform - 'The C2.' Using a USB drive equipped with 'The C2' enables people to carry, store and launch their own applications and data on any PC in any place through the Internet. IOCELL launched 'The C2' beta-version to the world market earlier this year. With 'The C2' platform, IOCELL is aiming at 30% of the market share in 2008 when the demand for 'The C2' USB drives will reach 200 million units. "The C2' platform will change the way individuals and business entities use and access information" said Kang Byung-Suk, Representative Director of IOCELL. "It is expected that USB drives as simple storage devices will phase out to make room for USB drives with integrated functions leading to new media products in the consumer industry using 'The C2' platform. We will work to make 'The C2' an international standard for USB drives by forming domestic and foreign consortiums." ...IOCELL profile Swissbit Adds a New Twist to USB Flash Storage Bronschhofen, Switzerland - September 6, 2005 - Swissbit today launched the SWISSMEMORY MiniTwist, a USB storage device with up to 1GB in a compact 2.4" x 0.6" x 0.4" package weighing less than 0.2 ounces. |
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| The slim-line design allows the parallel use of neighboring USB interfaces thanks to the fact that no port is being blocked. Depending on the user's personal needs, the tiny memory miracle is available in capacities of 128MB, 256MB, 512MB or 1GB.Data transfer speeds is 8MBps when reading and 7MBps when writing. |  | |||||||||
| Preinstalled
Travel-it-easy software allows partitioning and also synchronizes all personal
user data on the computer with the USB-memory. This enables users to access
emails in Outlook Express, transfer Internet favorites or process data from the
user's own files from any computer. Third parties cannot trace the Internet
trail on the MiniTwist thanks to the securitization of the temporary Internet
files and cookies. User data on the device is password protected.
...Swissbit profile Samsung Introduces 256Mb Pseudo-SRAM Seoul, Korea - September 6, 2005 - Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. today announced that is has developed the industry's first 256-Megabit uni-transistor random access memory (UtRAM), using 90-nanometer process technology. The company said it will provide the first samples to mobile phone manufacturers later this month. The new 256Mb UtRAM offers unrivaled speed, density and compatibility for feature-rich mobile phone designs. It operates at 133MHz, the fastest of any pseudo-SRAM today. It can process data 1.7 times faster than competing 80MHz pseudo-SRAM devices now on the market, and is expected to allow for higher end multimedia functionality in 3G mobile phones. UtRAM is Samsung's unique product designation, a type of pseudo-SRAM that has the memory cell configuration of a DRAM and the interface of an SRAM or NOR flash memory device. The 256Mb UtRAM is fully compliant to JEDEC's burst pseudo-SRAM standard. ...Samsung profile, RAM, chips LeftHand Networks Secures $25 Million BOULDER, Colo. - September 6, 2005 - LeftHand Networks today announced completion of a $25 million dollar round of series C financing which brings the total equity investment in the company to $75 million. Valhalla Partners led the round, with new participation from JPMorgan Chase, as well as funding support from all existing venture investors. LeftHand is the technology leader in the iSCSI SAN market with over 3,000 systems installed in multiple industries and several patents in place for its SAN/iQ software. LeftHand Networks will use this investment towards further global expansion of its iSCSI SAN solutions based on its SAN/iQ software. The company will enter new geographic markets in Asia and expand its European presence to answer strong worldwide demand for its products. The demand is being fueled by the increasing need for distributed network storage solutions from both end-users and storage solution providers. "The value of LeftHand is in its storage software," said Tony Asaro, senior analyst for the Enterprise Storage Group. "LeftHand provides intelligence for clustered network storage, thin provisioning, virtual partitioning, snapshots, remote mirroring and other valuable capabilities that create a next generation storage system. ESG has found that customers embrace SAN/iQ once they hear the story and LeftHand is smartly using this next round of funding to expand its market reach." ...LeftHand Networks profile, Venture funds in Storage Fastest Flash Memory Card in the World Berlin, Germany - September 5, 2005 - Pretec Electronics Corp. has released 4GB MMC Plus 266X, the largest capacity MMC card, and the fastest flash memory card in the world, today at IFA 2005 in Berlin. Theoretical maximum speed of today's popular MMC 3.x and SD 1.0 cards are 2.5MB/s (16X) and 12.5MB/s (83X) in SD's favor, however, theoretical maximum speed of advanced specifications call for much higher speed of MMC 4.x at 52MB/s (346X) vs. SD 1.1 at 25MB/s (166X). Pretec 4GB MMC Plus 266X, with access speed up to 40MB/s is the fastest small form factor flash memory card of any format in the world. Pretec 4GB MMC Plus is available now for key customer sampling with unit price of $699 each, mass production is scheduled by Q4 of this year. ...Pretec Electronics profile Exanet Wins Russian TV Business Moscow, Russia - September 4, 2005 - Russia Today (RTTV), the new, globally distributed English language Russian broadcaster, has chosen Exanet's storage solution to manage its internal digital video content. By simplifying and enhancing the broadcaster's storage infrastructure, ExaStore allows multiple users at RTTV, fast, uninterrupted access to video files, enabling RTTV to quickly transform news stories to broadcast-ready packages. The need to access ever-increasing amounts of data by multiple users poses a significant storage challenge. In the highly competitive market of global television news, it was essential for RTTV to install a technical infrastructure that could support the fast paced news development environment. Quick access to news stories across a wide user base ensures minimal time-to-air, which is crucial for international broadcasters. "Unlike other storage systems, ExaStore can be arranged to provide any number of users high resolution video access, without the need to duplicate files or storage subsystems," said Per Sjofors, Vice President, Marketing and Business Development for Exanet. ...Exanet profile Disk Storage Market Grew by Nearly 10% in Q205 FRAMINGHAM, Mass. - September 2, 2005 - According to IDC factory revenue in the external disk storage systems market grew 8.6% year over year to $3.8 billion in the second quarter of 2005. The total worldwide disk storage systems market (internal plus external) grew at a slightly higher year-over-year rate of 9.9% to $5.6 billion in the second quarter of 2005, marking the highest year-over-year growth in the last 8 quarters. Capacity continues to outpace overall revenue growth with total disk storage systems petabytes growing 59.3% year over year to 457 petabytes for the second quarter. "The growth in internal storage indicates richer configurations and increased sales of servers with 3 or more hard disk drives," said Brad Nisbet, program manager in IDC's Storage Systems program. "Storage continues to be an area filled with opportunity..." EMC maintained its lead in the external disk storage systems market with 21.2% revenue share, followed by HP and IBM with 18.8% and 13.8% revenue share, respectively. Dell edged out Hitachi for the fourth position with 8.3% revenue share while Hitachi ended the quarter with 7.3%. Three of the top 5 vendors had double-digit growth during the second quarter with Dell leading the way with 27.1% year-over-year growth followed by HP and IBM, each with more than 13% year-over-year growth. HP's strong year-over-year performance was due in part to an easy comparison, with an unusually weak second quarter in 2004. "The top five vendors accounted for almost 70% of the external disk storage systems market - up from 68% a year ago, confirming the maturity of the market," said Natalya Yezhkova, senior research analyst, IDC Storage Systems. The total network storage market (NAS combined with Open and iSCSI SAN) posted 16.1% year-over-year growth in the second quarter to nearly $2.5 billion. EMC continues to maintain its leadership in the total network storage market with 27.9% revenue share, followed by HP with 21.3%. Dell and IBM posted the strongest year-over-year revenue growth for the quarter among the top 5 vendors, with 33.2% and 22.9% growth, respectively. ...IDC profile, storage market research & analysts, RAID systems, Hard disk drives, NAS Dropped Hard Disks - Reducing the Ouch! Factor IFA, BERLIN, Germany - September 2, 2005 - Hitachi has developed new technologies to reduce the ouch! factor of trashed data when hard disk drives used in portable consumer products are dropped. The most recent of these measures is a technology called ESP or Extra Sensory Protection, which Hitachi believes should be as essential to hard-drive-based devices as airbags are to cars. Acting like a sixth sense, ESP uses a 3-axis accelerometer – a type of drop sensor – to detect a fall in as short as four inches. This in turn activates the hard drive controller to suspend a read or write operation and park the head safely away from the surface of the disk. By "unloading" the read/write head, the drive is placed into non-operational mode, avoiding potential head/disk contact – the most common cause of data loss. In effect, Hitachi's ESP technology renders every shock or impact to be a non-operational one, significantly increasing the overall shock tolerance of the hard drive and, more importantly, the overall safety of consumers' data. ...Hitachi profile, Hard disk drives, rugged drives Alliance Semiconductor Names New CTO SANTA CLARA, Calif. - September 2, 2005 - Alliance Semiconductor Corp today announced the appointment of Nirmal Saxena as Executive Vice President, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Technology Officer of the Company. Nirmal Saxena has served as the Company's Chief Technology Officer since joining the Company in April 2003 and brings more than 20 years of management, technical and research experience in the areas of VLSI design and test, instruction and packet processing architectures, coding and information theory and fault-tolerant computing. In addition to his duties with Alliance, Dr. Saxena is also a Consulting Professor in the Electrical Engineering Department at Stanford University. Prior to joining Alliance, Dr. Saxena was Vice President of Architecture at Chip Engines (which was acquired by Alliance), a start-up company that designed semiconductor products for the networking, communications, cable and storage markets, where he was responsible for the design and development of Resilient Packet Ring controllers. Dr. Saxena has served in senior technical positions at Tiara Networks (now Tasman Networks), the Stanford Center for Reliable Computing, Silicon Graphics, HaL Computers, and Hewlett Packard. Dr. Saxena holds a Ph.D from Stanford University, and he is a Fellow of the IEEE. ...Alliance Semiconductor profile iVivity Does 400,000 IOPS on iSCSI Atlanta - September 1, 2005 - iVivity today announced a new high water benchmark for IP Storage Area Networking. iVivity used a standard 10 Gigabit Ethernet fabric to demonstrate an unprecedented combination of IOPS and throughput. Approximately 400,000 IOPS and 20Gbps (19.926Gbps) of iSCSI traffic throughput was continuously and directly terminated on a single iDiSX-2000-10 storage network processor ASIC with dual 10Gbps iSCSI ports. All iSCSI traffic was terminated by the iVivity iDiSX-2000-10 ASIC without any external processors. "These impressive results demonstrate the very real viability of 10Gb iSCSI for storage targets," said Marc Staimer, President and CDS of Dragon Slayer Consulting. "iVivity has proved that iDiSX technology goes beyond slideware and is a desirable choice for storage system designs today." "This powerful display reinforces our commitment to helping drive forward the storage industry's adoption of iSCSI technology," said Ashu Joshi, VP Technology. The setup utilized the Force10 E300 Switch Router, 19 Intel Xeon based servers, 1 AMD Opteron server (each with 1Gbps iSCSI), and 64K to 256K packets from Iometer. The 20 iSCSI Gb Initiators generating the traffic load to the iVivity iSCSI target ran at the maximum possible output. ...iVivity profile, iSCSI Enlight Wins Intel Award for SAS Chassis Santa Fe Springs, Calif - September 1, 2005 - Enlight Corp USA was honored at the recent Intel Developer Forum as one of the two finalists for the Storage category. Enlight received the award for its ESR-316 Wide Port Serial Attached SCSI storage chassis demonstration powered by LSI Logic MegaRAID SAS card and Fujitsu Serial Attached SCSI hard disk drives. The awards recognize technological pioneering and adoption of Intel's new platform strategy, which centers on the integration of suites of hardware, software, services and support that enable new capabilities for people in all facets of their lives - at work and at home, in productivity, information, entertainment and healthcare. "Enlight USA is very proud to receive this award in the highly competitive field of storage appliances," said Lawrence Lee, General Manager of Enlight Corp USA. "ESR Series storage has been validated and deployed by businesses, universities and government agencies throughout the world where massively scaleable and affordable storage is required." ...Enlight, Serial Attached SCSI, SAS SSDs STORAGEsearch Reports Reader Interests Editor: - September 1, 2005 - STORAGEsearch reports on readers' changing interests in August. There was the biggest shake up ever in company rankings - with 5 new entries in the list of top 10 company profiles viewed by readers out of more than 1,000 storage companies listed on STORAGEsearch. For the first time ever - 9 out of the top 10 companies were manufacturers of solid state storage. Pageviews grew 39% compared to the year ago period. Readership grew by 21% compared to the year ago period. For more information and full rankings see Market research Free Onsite Service for Plasmon's Raidtec Cambridge, UK - September 1, 2005 - Plasmon has announced the launch of a new Raidtec Solution service programme that provides free on-site support for the first year of operation. As part of Plasmon's Service Direct offering, European customers buying a new Raidtec RAID storage system after today will automatically receive on-site support for the first year when they register their product. ...Plasmon profile, Storage Services, RAID systems SanDisk Aims at In Car Entertainment SUNNYVALE, CA - September 1, 2005 - SanDisk today introduced the Sansa Car Transmitter, a device that will play music stored on a SanDisk Sansa MP3 digital player through a car radio. | ||||||||||
| The stereo transmitter plugs
into a standard vehicle cigarette lighter and pipes music from the portable
player through an unused FM frequency on the radio. This allows motorists to
take a large library of music - as many as 48 hours of MP3 music and 96 hours of
WMA music - when using a Sansa 1-gigabyte player combined with an optional
SanDisk 2GB SD flash memory card. The Sansa Car Transmitter is a one-piece system that has a custom holder for the player. Attached to this is a flexible steel neck for easy positioning and, at the opposite end, a 12-volt connector for the lighter socket. The vehicle's power system runs the player, thus conserving the life of the Sansa's battery. |
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| The transmitter
will be sold initially in the United States, with shipments to retailers
starting this fall. With a suggested retail price of $59.99, the device comes
with a durable transparent belt clip, which is necessary for inserting the
player into the transmitter cradle, and rubber gaskets to establish a snug fit
in the 12-volt lighter socket. "The belt clip serves a dual purpose. It holds the Sansa in the transmitter and it also allows you to carry the player with you when you leave your vehicle," said Matthijs Hutten, product marketing manager for the Sansa accessory line. "You simply attach it to your clothing, plug in your earphones and continue to use it while walking or exercising." ...SanDisk profile Storage Market 7 Year Review and Forcast Editor:- September 1, 2005 - today is the 7th anniversary of STORAGEsearch.com. In a sidebar article (upper right on this page) I recall the 3 most significant changes in the storage market in the last 7 years, and also predict what I think will be the 3 most important trends for the next 7 years too. | ||||||||||
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