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ioSafe Launches Disaster Proof Backup SSD

Editor:- January 5, 2010 - ioSafe launched the ioSafe Solo SSD - an ultra rugged USB / eSATA external flash SSD with upto 256GB capacity ($1,250) designed to provide data protection against disasters such as fire, flood, and building collapse.

ioSafe offers a "no questions asked" Data Recovery policy to help customers recover from any data disaster including accidental deletion, virus or physical disaster.

"The new ioSafe Solo SSD is the world's most rugged and versatile desktop external hard drive. It can be used alone or in conjunction with any offsite or online backup strategy to add real time, zero data loss, synchronous disaster protection to any data that sits vulnerable," said ioSafe CEO, Robb Moore.


Digital Video Cameras get 250GB Adapter

Editor:- December 2, 2009 - Maxell announced imminent availability of a new digital video camera adapter ( $1,500) - the iVDR VC102 designed to operate with its Firewire compatible 250GB iVDR EX rugged drive ($289).

Operating off a rechargeable, internal battery, it will operate for up to 90 minutes of nonstop recording. iVDR news


VAIOs get SanDisk SSDs

Editor:- November 3, 2009 - SanDisk announced that its 64GB (9,000 vRPM) pSSD module has been selected as a standard SSD option in Sony's new VAIO X ultra-thin laptop.


RDX QuikStor Now 640GB

Editor:- October 27, 2009 - Tandberg Data now offers a 640GB model in its RDX QuikStor cartridge "10 year data life" removable disk archive product line.

This is 28% more than the previous maximum 500GB capacity model. Tandberg Data has shipped more than 150,000 RDX QuikStor drives and more than 450,000 compatible cartridges worldwide. disk to disk backup

Editor's comments:-
You may not be impressed by the capacity - but reliability is more important than density for backup applications.

Originally launched in November 2005 - "RDX uses a patent-pending error correcting format, which makes the data 1,000x more recoverable than in a standard hard drive. This means that RDX-stored data will be readable even after the cartridge has been archived and non-operating more than a decade."

In comparison - if you use standard hard drives for removable disk archiving my own experience is that 50% are unreadable after 4 years and 80% are unusable after 6 years.


Dane-Elec Unveils USB 3 SSDs

Editor:- October 19, 2009 - Dane-Elec Memory announced it will start shipping a range of USB 3 compatible external SSDs with 250MB/s throughput in December.

These new products leverage Intel's flash SSDs. Dane-Elec will also be offering USB 3.0-compatible adapters for desktops with PCIe slots and laptops with PCIXpress slots.


Intel Walks the SSD Notebook Talk

Editor:- September 14, 2009 - Intel has published a case study about the productivity benefits of using SSDs instead of hard drives in business notebooks.

Following an internal evaluation Intel says it will deploy up to 10,000 SSD notebooks this year to its own employees.
  • Benefits to users include:- increased productivity, reduced data loss and drive-related errors, and lower thermal footprint for more comfortable use.
  • Benefits to IT include:- faster malware scans, better performance with less RAM, and extended battery life cycle.
Despite the higher cost of SSDs - Intel concluded that the case for replacing notebook HDDs (which averaged 4.9% annual failure rate according to its own experience) - was "compelling". ...read the article (pdf)


Sonnet Launches Camera to Hard Drive Transfer Module

Editor:- September 10, 2009 - Sonnet Technologies today announced the Qio professional universal media reader/writer.

It's a convenient high speed alternative to stand-alone card readers, SATA controllers and various adapters, combining their functionality in a compact rugged case, and fulfilling the data handling needs of videographers with multiple cameras using different memory card formats.

We talked to many customers who had combinations of Sony, Panasonic and Red cameras who wanted some way to transfer the data from any of them at full speed to hard drives, needed drive-to-drive copy capability, and desired a compact, portable, rugged, and battery-operable package," said Robert Farnsworth, CEO of Sonnet Technologies. "The Qio does this and more!." Removable Storage


Verbatim Acquires Freecom

Editor:- September 3, 2009 - Verbatim's parent company (Mitsubishi Kagaku Media Co., Ltd) has acquired Freecom Technologies.

The Freecom acquisition represents yet another investment made by the MKM/Verbatim group aimed at the growing external hard disk drive market. The asset acquisition of SmartDisk, made in June 2007, has proved successful in establishing MKM/Verbatim in both the portable and desktop external HDD markets on a global basis.

Editor's comments:- Although virtually unknown outside Europe, Freecom was founded 20 years ago in 1989. Its acquisition is sandwiched between FolderShare and FreeDiskSpace.com in our list of 499 gone-away storage companies. Who will be the 500th? It's probably happening as you read this.


WD's 2.5" TB USB HDD

Editor:- July 27, 2009 -Western Digital is shipping a new 3 platter, 2.5" terabyte mobile hard drive.

The WD Scorpio Blue is 12.5 mm high, has a USB interface and costs $249.99


SaberTooth SSD Bites into Eee PC Upgrade Market

Editor:- July 15, 2009 - Active Media launched its SaberTooth brand of SATA Mini PCIe MLC flash SSD cards as upgrades for Asus Eee PCs. R/W speeds are upto 155MB/s and 100MB/s respectively. The 64GB model costs $219.95.

The company's marketing VP - Jerry Thomson says "SaberTooth SSDs deliver read and write speeds that are up to 5x faster than stock storage devices in the Eee PC. Upgrading gives users a huge performance boost..."


Notebook SSD Market Overview - is not pretty

Editor:- June 15, 2009 - StorageSearch.com published a new article today called - Overview of the Notebook SSD Market.

There's a simple way to summarize the complex view of the SSD Notebook / Netbook market.

Lots of initial hype and optimism that the market would deliver an astonishingly new product experience to users, followed by dismay and disillusion due to a flurry of poorly conceived, badly designed and ineptly executed products. ...read the article


2 New Storage Interface Standards

Editor:- June 11, 2009 - this month there have been 2 developments on the storage standards front.

Version 2.0 of ExpressCard - will be 10x faster than the previous version. This will mainly benefit ExpressCard SSDs.

FCoE is now a draft standard. To learn more read the (unreadable) T11 document (pdf). If, like me, you ever wondered what the difference was between this and the much older FCIP - this 2007 InfoWorld article explains.

PhotoFast Announces Faster 1.8" Notebook SSDs
Editor:- May 27, 2009 - PhotoFast launched its G-Monster 1.8" SATA SSD with internal 64MB DRAM cache and upto 128GB capacity.
.................................................................. .. PhotoFast Announces Faster 1.8" Notebook SSDs
It supports R/W speeds upto 230MB/s and 160MB/s respectively. The company says - what's important in this type of notebook product is not just sequential R/W throughput for large blocks - but also write performance for small random blocks. It claims its 12MB/s (for 4KB blocks) is best in class.

Toshiba Takes the High Ground in Notebook SSD Wars

Editor:- May 14, 2009 - Toshiba announced today it is offering 512GB SSDs as an option in notebooks for the Japanese market.

The new, Toshiba-developed 512GB SSD employs a 2-bit-per-cell MLC flash memory - which gives 4x the capacity of SLC flash used in industrial and enterprise SSDs for the same silicon wafer footprint.

One of the failures of the SSD market in 2008 was the low performance of SSDs integrated in notebooks. Toshiba's new notebook seems to address that market failure . The company says its new SSD controller boosts data throughput figures of 230MB/s reads and 180MB/s writes.


New ExpressCard SSDs Directory

Editor:- March 17, 2009 - StorageSearch.com today published a new directory on the subject of ExpressCard SSDs.

Until now - the list of ExpressCard SSD vendors has been buried in a table in the SSD Guide. It's still a small market. But what really distinguishes the ExpressCard SSD market, is that it's the easiest way for users to perform an SSD upgrade on their own notebooks. ...read the article


Pretec Samples Highest Capacity ExpressCard SSD

Editor:- March 3, 2009 - Pretec Electronics announced today it is sampling a 128GB ExpressCard SSD for the notebook market with 38/30MB/s R/W speeds and hardware encryption.

Volume shipments are expected next month.


Hitachi GST Buys Desktop SSD Company

SAN JOSE, Calif. - February 23, 2009 - Hitachi GST today announced that it has agreed to acquire Fabrik, Inc. whose leading storage brands include G-Technology and SimpleTech.

Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed. Closing of the acquisition, which is subject to customary conditions, is expected to occur early in the 2nd quarter of 2009. Fabrik's business will continue intact and form the core of Hitachi GST's newly-formed external storage business.

Hitachi GST will fully support the G-Technology and SimpleTech product lines, building upon their success and differentiation in the market. The combined company will also leverage operational, technical and product development resources, distribution channels and global reach to accelerate delivery of a full portfolio of traditional hard drives, solid state drives and branded personal and professional storage products. ...Hitachi GST profile ...G-Technology profile

ZoneLoc Prevents flash SSD Data Walking into the Wrong Hands
Phoenix, Arizona - February 12, 2009 - White Electronic Designs Corp announced a new technology - ZoneLoc - which automatically desanitizes a flash SSD to military standards - when the device is moved outside a specified operating zone - to prevent data falling into enemy hands.

The boundary can be tied to a fixed location or made to be portable for mobile applications. ZoneLoc has configurable features and options, including audible warnings, programmable response times, wireless remote purging and sensitivity modes. Because the protected device takes its own action, autonomously, security is guaranteed. ...White Electronic Designs profile, Storage Security, Disk Sanitizers
Manufacturers
Accordance

Accurite Technologies

Active Media

Adtron

Advanced Media

Addonics Technologies

Agaté Technologies

Agere Systems

Amacom Technologies

California PC Products

Cenatek

Ciprico

CMS Peripherals

CompuApps

Cornice

Cremax Technology

CRU-DataPort

Dell Computer

Enhance Technology

Evergreen Technologies

Freecom Technologies

GalaxyStor

Imation

Interactive Media

I/OMagic

Iomega

JMR Electronics

JMTek

Kanguru Solutions

Kingston Technology

LaCie

Maxell

MicroSolutions

Mitsubishi Kagaku Media

Olixir Technologies

PMC Technologies

PrimeArray Systems

ProStor Systems

QNAP Systems

Quantum

Samsung

Shining Technology

Sonnet Technologies

Sony

StorCase Technology

StorCard

Tandberg Data

Toshiba

Verbatim

Western Digital

WiebeTech
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Can You Trust Your Flash SSD's Specs?
Editor:- I've noticed is that the published specs of flash SSDs change a lot -from the time a product they are first announced, then when they're being sampled, and later again when they are in volume production.

Sometimes the headline numbers get better, sometimes they get worse. There are many good reasons for this.

The product which you carefully qualified may not be identical to the one that's going into your production line for a variety of reasons... ...read the article
.
Z's Laws - Predicting Future Flash SSD Performance
A few months ago a reader asked me a very good question.

"Is there an industry roadmap for future flash SSD performance?"

That prompted other questions like...
  • How fast are flash SSDs going to be in 2009?, 2010? or 2012?
  • What are the technology factors which relate to flash SSD throughput and IOPS?
  • How close will flash SSDs get to RAM SSD performance?
There wasn't a simple answer I could give at the time. Clues lay scattered all across this web site and in my many one on one discussions with readers about the market...
But I agreed there should be a single place on the web where these answers could be found.

Forget Moore's Law. That gives you the wrong answer, and this article explains why. ...read the article
.
article - the Dangers of Removable Storage Media by Pointsec
the Dangers of Removable Storage Media - article by Pointsec

In the early James Bond films of the 1960s, viewers were introduced to an array of implausible (at the time) portable high tech spy gadgets. Nowadays we know from our own everyday experience that something the size of a cigarette lighter can actually be a video camera with its own wireless internet access.

The proliferation of miniature high capacity storage devices creates a serious problem for commercial and national security. This article provides an up to date picture of the intrinsic dangers posed by current removable storage technologies. ...read the article, ...Pointsec profile, Security, Removable Storage

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