| USB
storage news |
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RunCore's new Express Card
SSD
Editor:- March 1, 2010 - Among the many SSDs which RunCore will show
at CeBIT 2010 this week is an
Express Card
flash SSD designed for
notebooks
As
well as providing upto 64GB capacity (R/W speeds 120MB/s and 90MB/s) - the
Express 34 module also provides 2x
USB 3.0 ports with
connectors for linking the notebook to external devices. |
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LaCie Launches Desktop USB
RAID
Editor:- January 26, 2010 - LaCie
launched
its "Enterprise"
range of desktop RAID
systems with eSATA
or USB or
FireWire connectivity.
"The
introduction of LaCie's Enterprise Class product range responds specifically to
niche industries such as creative professionals, as well as those in the
medical, legal, and accounting fields, who require highly robust and reliable
storage solutions to manage their digital assets," said Arnaud Prézelin,
LaCie Product Manager for Creative Pro Solutions.
Editor's
comments:- this is an "Enterprise" storage system in name only -
because it doesn't include redundant data paths or power supplies. It's best to
think of it as a stylish, high capacity, consumer DAS.
IDC Tallies SSD Shipments
Editor:- January 20, 2010 - IDC
says that
SSD shipments in
2009 exceeded
11 million units, an increase of 14% year over year.
Looking forward, IDC says it expects SSD adoption will continue to experience
tangible growth in 2010 and beyond, with shipments expected to achieve a
compound annual growth rate of 54% over the 2008-2013 forecast period.
Solid State
Drives - market research & analysts
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.
OCZ will show Symwave based USB 3.0 SSD at CES
Editor:-
November 24, 2009 -
Symwave today
announced that
its USB 3.0 controller
has been designed into a new
flash SSD by
OCZ - which will be
shown at CES in January 2010.
Editor's
comments:- Symwave's controller design includes a fully integrated USB 3.0 to
SATA controller
device (SoC with software) - making it easier to adapt existing designs for
SATA SSDs. It's very
fast. In September 2009 - Symwave demonstrated
270MB/s
R/W throughput for its new USB 3.0 controller.
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.
USB 3.0 SSDs Coming Soon
Editor:- October 5, 2009 -
Active Media
Products today announced imminent shipments of its
Aviator
312 line of bus powered fast
USB 3.0 external
SSDs with R/W speeds upto
240MB/s and 160MB/s respectively.
Measuring less than 3" long and
only 0.2" thin, the A312 is smaller than a credit card and is designed to
fit in a pocket. Capacity options include:- 16GB ($89), 32GB ($119) and 64GB
($209).
Jerry Thomson, VP of sales at Active Media Products commented, "Aviator
312 SSDs are a ground-breaking product with performance that is 8 to 10x faster
than today's fastest USB 2.0 flash drives."
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
Most Secure USB Memory Stick
Editor:- July 13, 2009 -
IronKey today
announced the launch of its S200 USB flash drive for government and enterprise
customers.
IronKey's CEO David
Jevans said: "The IronKey S200 is the first and only
USB flash drive to achieve
the demanding FIPS 140-2, Level 3 security validation from NIST, giving even
more proof that IronKey is the world's most
secure flash drive. We
are also releasing a suite of new enterprise remote management capabilities,
available over the Internet from the IronKey managed service, or from our
enterprise server software that companies can install and operate themselves."
Notebook SSD Market - New Overview
Editor:- June
17, 2009 - StorageSearch.com
published a new article this week called -
Overview of
the Notebook SSD Market.
This is a troubled and complex segment of
the SSD market - which has earned a justifiably bad reputation. Nevertheless SSD
vendors continue to throw products at the notebook market in many shapes and
sizes - hoping that something will stick before their cash runs out.
...read the
article
PLX Unveils Single Chip PCIe-to-USB 2.0 Host Controller Bridge
Editor:-
May 4, 2009 -
PLX Technology
announced volume production of the OXPCIe200 ($7.65) - a high-performance
PCIe-to-USB 2.0
single-chip host controller bridge.
The new device delivers up to
62.5Mb/s data throughput, has a low power requirement of 300mW, and a small
footprint (9x9mm) Thin Array Plastic Package.
storage chips
RunCore Offers 256GB SSD Upgrade for $890
Editor:-
May 1, 2009 - RunCore
announced pricing
for its new Pro IV 2.5"
SSD user installable PC / Mac upgrades which will ship in 2 weeks.
These
SSDs clone externally via USB
and then run internally via
SATA. Street price
for the 256GB model is expected to be approx $890.
WD Ships New 2TB Enterprise Hard Drive
Editor:- April
20, 2009 - Western
Digital - announced details of a new 2TB 3.5"
SATA
hard drive - the
WD RE4-GP.
Features include time-limited error recovery for use in
RAID systems, and lower
power consumption than older hard drives. MSRP is $329.
Editor's
comments:- this kind of drive is optimized to provide high capacity at low
cost, rather than high performance. Typical applications include
disk to disk backup and
video or other massive
content storage.
Aleratec Launches High Volume USB Flash Duplicators
Chatsworth, CA
- March 10, 2009 - Aleratec Inc. announces 2 new USB flash
duplicators.
Both the 27 way model (ESP $3,799) and 118 way model
(ESP $15,749) can copy up to 33MB/s. Aleratec's President and CEO, Perry
Solomon says - "The performance of the duplicators is not degraded when
simultaneously copying large numbers flash drives, a common shortcoming in most
USB flash drive
duplicators." ...Aleratec
profile, Disk
Duplicators | |
| ...............................................................storage history
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| USB
Storage Milestones from
Storage History
|
The USB (for Universal
Serial Bus) is a low cost serial bus which, when originally shipped in
1996
(USB 1.0), provided upto 12Mb/S. That's about 100x faster than the
RS-232
style serial interfaces used in earlier generations of computers which it
replaced.
The USB is now widely used in Macs, PC's and even Linux
systems. USB is typically used to connect devices such as printers, scanners,
keyboards, digital cameras, MP3 players and external storage devices.
In
June 2002, Intel and others started to demonstrate
USB 2.0, which increases the speed of the peripheral to PC connection
from 12 megabits per second (Mbps) on USB 1.1 to up to 480 Mbps on USB 2.0, or
40 times faster than with the older technology.
USB 3.0 - which
at 5Gbps is
10x faster than USB 2.0 - was originally expected to be available in
the summer of 2008. Instead shipments started in December 2009. It
offers throughput similar to
eSATA 2.0 - upto
approx 300MB/s.
The article -
USB 3.0 - A simple idea
full of challenges - summarizes the problems facing chip designers hoping
to achieve 5Gbps on cheap USB cables.
What if you're stuck with a USB 2 notebook and need fast cheap
external storage now?
Some companies, such as
Dane-Elec Memory,
are marketing USB 3.0 adapters.
Another solution - for those who want
to get more performance out of legacy USB 2.0
flash memory sticks is
to look at USB SuperCharger Software
from EasyCo which can
apparently speed up writes by 2x to about 5x.
eSATA is another option
- although for most notebooks it too - requires an adapter card.
Finally
AoE storage provides a
way for consumers to hook up a storage
network using their inbuilt ethernet - which may be easier to set up than
traditional NAS. | | |
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| We have
hundreds
of SSD articles on StorageSearch.com |
Here, below, are some
examples.
- SSD
Market History - lists product and technology milestones in the 30 years of
the SSD market upto the end of 2009.
- RAM Cache
Ratios in flash SSDs - it's important to know the underlying RAM cache
architecture - even if you're happy with the R/W and IOPS performance.
- 2010 - 1st Fizz
in the SSD Bubble? - even the dogs in the street know this is going to be a
multibillion dollar market. Greed will play as big a part as technology in
shaping the
SSD year ahead.
- the pros and cons of
using SSD ASAPs - auto tuning SSD appliances are a new category of SSD
which entered the market in the 2nd half of 2009 to accelerate servers without
needing human tune-ups. How can you tell if they are right for you? And how
well do they work?
- the Problem
with Write IOPS - in flash SSDs - long established as a useful performance
modeling metric - this article explains why some specs are exaggerated when
applied to flash SSDs - or predict the wrong results for many common
applications.
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