I-O Data's Latest SSD Express Card

Not sure if this will be the ultimate setting for those wantling to install an SSD on their PC. Just in case, here's I-O Data's latest SSD Express Cards with a 32GB capacity (16,800 Yen) and a 64GB (24,000 Yen).

Source
Akihabaranews

PhotoFast eSATA and USB SSD, the G-Monster-eSATA

Here you are another wonder from PhotoFast the G-Monster-eSATA, an eSATA/USB Key like SSD which is available in 32, 64 and 128GB capable to provide while used on a eSATA capable device a 175MB/sec in reading mode and 100MB/sec writing speed.

If unfortunately where are no prices yet available for this little wonder, PhotoFasta announced however to be capable to ship this SSD within the end of April in Japan.

Source
Akihabaranews

O.T Stealth.Com Releases a Powerful Rugged Fanless Mini PC

O.T Stealth.Com Releases a Powerful Rugged Fanless Mini PC

Early January Stealth.com (Toronto) introduced the LPC-650, an Ultra Compact desktop PC powered by a Core 2 Dou… And yesterday for us in Japan or Friday in North America, Stealth.com announced the LPC-625F a fanless mini Core2Duo
In Just 200 x 200 x 60mm Stealth.com succeed to fit a Penryn Dual Core P8400 CPU (optional P9500), from 1 to 4GB of RAM, 120 to 500GB of HDD Sata with optional SSD, Intel GMA X4500, HDMI & DVI Out, WiFi… For $1,595… Way more expensive than a Mini but also way more powerful too.

Source
Akihabaranews

Panasonic W8 Premium

Panasonic W8 Premium edition powered by Intel X-25M SSD.

Panasonic notebooks, better known as Toughbook overseas, are among the most reliable and crap free notebooks available on the market, and today, Panasonic announced an update of its W8 Premium Edition line-up including a 80GB Intel X-25M SSD with a 250MB/sec in reading speed and 70MB/sec in writing speed.

On Top of that you will be able to choose between 3 different lid covers for your notebook between Black, Silver and Pink Splash.

Source
Akihabaranews

Toshiba Offers a 64GB SSD for Their NB100 Netbook

Toshiba Offers a 64GB SSD for Their NB100 Netbook

Toshiba's not so exciting netbook, aka the NB100, is powered by an ATOM N270 with an Intel 945GSE Express Chipset, 1 GB of RAM and a 8.9” WSVGA with LED backlight is now available with either a 160GB HDD or a 64GB SSD... Nothing exciting, but if you're interested in this little overpriced netbook you may also be interested to know that you will have a choice of different body colors like “Champagne Gold” and “Galaxy Black”

Source
Akihabaranews

Samsung Word First 64GB SSD Full HD Camcorder

Samsung Introduces the World’s First 64GB SSD Full HD Camcorder

Here's the HMX-H106, the HD version of Samsung’s VM-MX25E. Retaining the same shape of the previous SD version of this cute and compact camcoder, for the CES Samsung released an improved version that fully supports HD (1920x1080) and features either 64GB SSD (HMX-H106), 32GB, or 16GB SSD (HMX-H105 and HMX-H106,) or a SDHC only (HMX-H100).

These cameras support the H.264 codec, a Schneider Kreuznach Varioplan HD lens with a 37mm wide angle focal length and 4.7Mpix sensor, and a 2.7” LCD...

More below in the official press release.

LAS VEGAS, N.V., January 5, 2009 – Samsung Electronics America, Inc. today extended its family of full-HD digital camcorders with four new models - the HMX-H106, HMX-H105, HMX-H104, and HMX-H100. Samsung's new H-Series offer users high-performance, full-HD video, a renowned Schneider Kreuznach Varioplan HD lens with Optical Image Stabilization, and industry leading design; however, most notable is the use of internal Solid State Drives to provide onboard memory.

The HMX-H106, Samsung's new flagship full-HD digital camcorder, is the world's first to feature an internal 64GB Solid State Drive (SSD)*. Samsung's renowned SSD technology offers a substantial advantage over the use of Hard Disk Drives (HDD) in a digital camcorder, providing consumers with higher performing and more durable internal memory. In comparison to HDD, Samsung's SSD technology is more lightweight and compact, operates silently with very low heat emission, and features no moving parts, which significantly reduces overall power consumption and enhances reliability. No moving parts also make SSD technology more durable and resistant to shock and vibrations, which pose a considerable threat to the performance of HDD based digital camcorders. Additionally, Samsung's SSD technology is faster than HDD, including quicker boot-up and read/write speeds which is required for the amount of data recorded in full-HD resolution. When actively reading and writing data, Samsung's SSD technology consumes approximately 1/8th of the power of a comparable HDD**.

The HMX-H105 and HMX-H104 offer 32GB and 16GB SSDs, respectively, and like the HMX-H106, also allow consumers to expand memory capacity using an SD/SDHC memory card. The HMX-H100 does not feature an internal SSD and requires the use of a SD/SDHC memory card.

The new H-Series full-HD digital camcorders also utilize H.264 compression, which significantly increases recording time. At full-HD resolution and when set to fine mode, users can record up to three hours directly to the 16GB HMX-H104, six hours to the 32GB HMX-H105, and an unparalleled 12 hours to the 64GB HMX-H106.

Producing a high-quality image starts at the lens, which is highly regarded as one of the most important components of a camcorder. Precision optics are paramount in helping produce inspiring video and Samsung's H-Series camcorders underscore this assessment by incorporating world renowned Schneider optics. The camcorders' Schneider Kreuznach Varioplan HD lens features a 10x optical zoom and is paired with Samsung's new Optical Image Stabilizer to help reduce the blur found in footage as a result of vibrations and hand shake.

The Schneider lens also features a 37mm wide-angle focal length. Unlike other camcorders offering a typical angle of view of 40~50mm, the H-Series' 37mm wide-angle Schneider lens allows users to fit more of their desired scene into the frame, making the camcorder ideal for recording large groups of family or friends, breathtaking landscapes or even capturing all the action at sporting events.

The trusted Schneider lens also helps capture remarkably clear and sharp video with accurate color reproduction. The H-Series' direct HDMI connections allow consumers to effortlessly enjoy their full-HD content on their HDTV without the need for proprietary docking cradles. Consumers can also utilize the camcorders to take more than just stunning high-definition video, as each offers a built-in strobe flash and the ability to capture 4.7 mega-pixel digital still photos.

"This new series of high-definition digital camcorders clearly speaks to Samsung's commitment to providing today's consumers with the most advanced and highest-performing digital imaging technology," said Tony Sorice, Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Digital Imaging at Samsung Electronics America. "Our ability to leverage the synergies that exist across our various businesses in the design and manufacture of digital camcorders and cameras, allows us to better meet customer demands and bring higher-performing digital imaging solutions to market faster and more efficiently."

At the heart of Samsung's new H-Series of full-HD digital camcorders is a high-performance CMOS imaging sensor. Measuring 1/4.5 inches, the CMOS sensor boasts 2.2 mega-pixels and yields impressive light sensitivity helping enhance the overall imaging experience for the end-user. The camcorders also offer a large 2.7 inch touch-screen LCD, which serves as the gateway to the camcorders' comprehensive suite of features. The swiveling LCD also gives users access to key camcorder controls, including record and zoom. When utilized in conjunction with Samsung's proprietary swivel grip, the additional placement of controls on the LCD screens allow users to effortlessly control the camcorder at low or high angles.

The camcorders also feature a HD Time Lapse recording mode that will give consumers the ability to experiment with their creativity. When shooting in the Time Lapse recording mode, the camcorder will record a single image at an interval pre-selected by the user, either 1, 3, 5, 10, 15, or 30 seconds, and will save each image as one single movie file.

Source
Samsung

Lenovo Gives More Details on Their Dual Screen Thinkpad

Lenovo Gives More Details on Their Dual Screen Thinkpad

Lenovo gave us more details on the next Lenovo featuring a dual screen, the ThinkPad W700ds. At the moment it will feature a 17-Inch primary screen, a 10.6-Inch secondary screen, a Core 2 Quad QX9300 (2.53GHz), up to 8GB of memory, 960GB of SATA HDD – SSD storage space. It will also have a built-in WACOM digitizer (electronic drawning pad), two DisplayPort video adapters, and dual-link DVI.

From ComputerWorld's product marketing manager, Wes Williams, "Why two screens? Most people use two monitors at their desktop. We wanted to give them all the things they're used to on their desk."

Price: $3,600 (2585€).

Source
Akihabaranews

512GB SSDs from Toshiba

512GB SSDs from Toshiba

Toshiba introduced their latest SSD wonder, the industry's first 2.5” 512GB SSD, the THNS512GG8B.
We don't have any details on the price, however, Toshiba announced that it will display this almighty beast next January at the CES 2009.

TOKYO--Toshiba Corporation (Tokyo: 6502) today announced the expansion of their line up of NAND-flash-based solid state drives (SSD) with the industry's first 2.5-inch 512-gigabyte (GB) SSD and a broad family of fast read/write SSDs based on 43 nanometer (nm) Multi-Level Cell NAND. The new drives provide a high level of performance and endurance for use in notebook computers, gaming and home entertainment systems, and will be showcased at International CES 2009 in Las Vegas, Nevada from January 8 to 11, 2009.

In addition to the 2.5-inch, 512GB drive, the 43nm NAND SSD family also includes capacities of 64GB, 128GB, and 256GB, offered in 1.8-inch or 2.5-inch drive enclosures or as SSD Flash Modules. Samples of the new drives will be available in first quarter (January to March) 2009, with mass production in the second quarter (April to June) 2009.

Toshiba's second-generation SSDs bring increased capacity and performance for notebook computers, utilizing an advanced MLC controller which is also compatible with further advanced process, that achieves higher read/write speeds, parallel data transfers and wear leveling to optimize performance, reliability and endurance. The drives enable improved system responsiveness with a maximum sequential read speed of 240MB per second (MBps) and maximum sequential write speed of 200MBps, enabling an improvement in overall computing experience, and faster boot and application loading times. The drives also offer AES data encryption to prevent unauthorized data access.

"The solid state drive market is evolving rapidly, with higher performance drives to meet market requirements, and differentiated product families targeted for appropriate applications,” said Mr. Kiyoshi Kobayashi, Vice President of Toshiba Corporation's Semiconductor Company. "This new 43nm SSD family balances value/performance characteristics for its targeted consumer applications, through use of MLC NAND and an advanced controller architecture."

Toshiba and many market analysts expect SSDs to begin to gain significant traction in the market in 2009, growing to approximately 10% of the notebook market by 2010, and 25% of the notebook market by 2012. Toshiba expects the value/performance of its MLC NAND-based SSD line-up to help speed the acceptance of solid state storage.

Toshiba will continue to promote innovations that widen the horizons of the NAND Flash market and support its continued leadership in that market. The company will spur demand for SSD in notebook PCs, netbooks and digital consumer products by enhancing its lineup, offering products with different densities and interfaces in a range of packages, while advancing device performance.

Source
Toshiba

CFD to release 2.5'' SATA SSD in Japan

CFD to release 2.5'' SATA SSD in Japan

Here’s another 2.5’’ SATA Solid State Drive from CFD in Japan with a choice between 30GB/60GB/120GB of storage capacity.

As for performance, this MLC-based SSD provides a reading speed of 150MB/s and a writing speed of 90MB/s.

The price? 9,000 Yen (70€) for the 30GB version, 16,800 Yen (130€) for the 60GB version and 30,000 Yen (240€) for the 120GB.

Source
Akihabaranews

Samsung 256GB Solid State Drives

Samsung Now Producing 256GB Solid State Drives

Seoul, Korea – November 20, 2008: Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the world leader in advanced semiconductor technology, announced today that it has begun mass producing 256 gigabyte (GB) solid state drives for use in notebooks and desktop PCs. With the addition of the high-speed 256GB drive, Samsung now offers the most extensive line of SSDs in the industry with 8, 16, and 32GB SSDs for low-density designs and 64, 128 and 256GB alternatives for the higher densities.

The new 256GB SSD more than doubles the performance rates of Samsung 64GB and 128GB SSDs to become the SSD with the highest overall performance in the personal computer industry, combining sequential read rates of 220MB/s (megabytes per second) with sequential write rates of 200MB/s. This sharply narrows the performance gap between read and write operations to only 10 percent, compared to a read-write speed difference of between 20 and 70 percent for other SSDs. In addition, erase cycles are a rapid 100GBs per minute, allowing the entire drive to be re-written much faster, when needed.

”While SSD’s have always been touted for their performance, Samsung is turning the storage industry upside down now with an SSD that delivers truly disruptive performance,” said Jim Elliott, vice president, memory marketing, Samsung Semiconductor, Inc. ”Getting our exceptionally high performing 256GB SSD in a notebook is analogous to having a 15,000rpm drive, without all of its size, noise, power and heating drawbacks.”

The Samsung 256GB SSD expedites data transfer when large multimedia files are simultaneously read and stored. It can store 25 high-definition movies* in just 21 minutes, a significant advancement over a 7200rpm HDD, which takes about 70 minutes. Furthermore, the 256GB SSD launches applications ten times faster than the fastest 7200rpm notebook HDD.

The 256GB SSD’s advanced performance can be attributed to a new, optimized, single platform design consisting of a chip controller, NAND flash and special drive firmware all developed by Samsung. This single platform is designed to easily adapt to Samsung’s 40nm class NAND flash memory.

Also offering a high degree of energy efficiency, the new drive consumes 1.1 watts of power versus two or more watts for a comparable HDD, while delivering outstanding reliability and durability. The high operating speed of the 256GB SSD translates into longer periods in either stand-by or idle mode resulting in 40 minutes of extended operation on a single battery charge.

Similar in weight to a 128GB SSD (81 grams), the 2.5-inch Samsung 256GB SSD retains the standard 9.5 millimeter (mm) drive thickness.

Samsung's 256GB SSD is also available with optional proprietary encryption programming that provides full disk encryption, a key feature for many corporate users.

Source
Akihabaranews

2 New SSDs from Green-House

2 New SSDs from Green-House

It seems that our little friends over at Green-House has the SSD fever, and today again they just announced 2 new IDE SSDs, with the GH-SSD**GP-1 Series, a 1.8” SSD which is available in 16 to 64GB and its big brother, the GH-SSD**GP-2 Series, a 2.5” one available in 16 to 128GB.

The 1.8” Model use a SLC chip which offer a 45MB/s reading speed and a 41MB/s in writing. And the 2.5” Module use SLC Chip from 16 to 64GB and MLC Chip (41MB/s reading speed and 16MB/s writing speed) on the 128GB version. No prices yet available.

Source
Akihabaranews

Sanyo's Gorilla GPS Navigator

Sanyo Announces Their New Gorilla GPS Navigator

Sanyo announced their new Gorilla GPS, the NVA-GS1580FT. Equipped with a solid state drive, it features a 7-inch touch screen, 4GB of SSD, and dual tuner TV (12Seg / 1Seg and terrestrial). Of course it has many features, like the EcoDrive Function to optimize you driving style.

As for the AV function, it reproduces MP3/WMA/AAC audio files, and plays DVD and CD. It's also compatible with SD cards for saving CDs, and equipped with a built-in 43W x 4 (4 Ohms) amplifier.

Available November 20th, we no information on the price.

Source
Sanyo

Next Generation SSD

The next generation of SSD, the fastest ever signed by Mtron!

SEOUL, South Korea-- Mtron Storage Technology Co.,Ltd. (KOSDAQ:046320), a manufacturer of Solid State Drive (SSD) in South Korea, announced today that they were going to reveal new 260 MB/s controller technology at “World IT Show 2008” and OECD Ministerial Meeting on the Future of the Internet Economy in Seoul, Korea from June 18 to 20. Mtron also added that they would launch new SSD products equipped with the new controller technology in early 2009.

Improved from current 4-channel system with the maximum read/write speed of 130/120MB/s, Mtron’s next generation controller technology provides an outstanding performance based on its 8-channel system with the maximum read/write speed of 260/240MB/s(based on SLC) and random write IOPS 8,000(4KB). It is twice faster than current controllers and the fastest speed in the current SSD market by far.

Steve Jeon, CEO of Mtron, said, “This new controller provides not only improved performance, but also it provides high stability and reliability by minimizing errors and instability that a typical flash memory chip has. Based on the superb technology from our 1st generation controller, Mtron will lead the next generation controller industry with the latest technology.”

In addition to the announcement of new controller, Mtron uncovered their new SSD products as well. The new Mtron’s SSD products are Mtron SSD Express Card, Mini PCI-E Card for mobile devices, and Mtron XTM 7500 for highly specialized industries such as aviation, military, and medical industry.

Mtron SSD Express Card and Mini PCI-E Card deliver maximum read/write speed of 110/65MB/s, run its own software for OS installation and booting, and provide the best environment for the system running. Based on Mtron’s innovative technology, these new products are not limited to the current HDD standard sizes, and therefore can be applied in various forms and sizes for different devices and usage.

Mtron SSD XTM 7500 provides an excellent stability and performance against extreme environment such as rapid temperature change from -45℃ to 90℃. In May, this product proved its strong protection against extreme temperature, shock, and vibration when it was chosen as the primary storage for NASA’s Anita Project. It will be available on the market in August

Source
Akihabaranews

SanDisk pSSD

SanDisk pSSD: Solid-State-Drives for ULPCs

SanDisk launchd a new version solid-state-drive, the pSSD. Introduced at Computex, this parallel ATA solid-state-drive is destined for the low-cost notebook sector. You should expect sa reading speed of 39MB/sec and a writing speed of 17MB/sec. Our pSSD use MLC (Multi Level Cell) and SLC (Single Level Cell) flash memory chips. This new SSD, produced in Yokkaichi, Japan, should be available in 4/8/16 Go versions at the beginning of August.

Source
Sandisk

TDK puts its new 1.8'' SSD with encryption function on the market

TDK will launch its new 1.8'' SSD with 1.8'' with AES encryption function, the DSS HS1. Our small SSD, which should be available in 16Go/32Go/64Go, uses a SLC chip , and offers a reading speed of 100MB / s and write 50MB / s.

Source
Akihabaranews