ADATA Technology, the world leader in DRAM modules and flash memory products, proudly launched the N004 2.5-inch flash drive, equipped with both USB 3.0 and SATA II interfaces. The N004 is truly an outstanding work of art that differs from conventional portable storage devices.

Re-defining the perception of advanced portable drives, the N004 adopts a 2.5-inch plush aluminum case, and the super-size storage capacity runs to 256GB. Moreover, the USB 3.0 and SATA II dual interface supports both SuperSpeed USB 3.0 and SATA standards. Adoption of 8-channel technology allows the N004 to outperform normal flash drives in delivering blazing transfer rates, up to 200 MB/s and 170 MB/s in sequential read/write performance respectively.

ADATA Technology, the world leader in DRAM modules and flash memory products, proudly launched the N004 2.5-inch flash drive, equipped with both USB 3.0 and SATA II interfaces. The N004 is truly an outstanding work of art that differs from conventional portable storage devices.

Re-defining the perception of advanced portable drives, the N004 adopts a 2.5-inch plush aluminum case, and the super-size storage capacity runs to 256GB. Moreover, the USB 3.0 and SATA II dual interface supports both SuperSpeed USB 3.0 and SATA standards. Adoption of 8-channel technology allows the N004 to outperform normal flash drives in delivering blazing transfer rates, up to 200 MB/s and 170 MB/s in sequential read/write performance respectively.

Samsung’s newest line of consumer solid state drives (SSDs) in the 2.5″ SATA form-factor have made a quiet entry into European markets. Samsung, which is known more in the SSD industry for its NAND flash chips than an SSD line under its own banner, designed the new Samsung 470 series SSDs to pack the latest technologies, offer high IOPS and throughput for PCs and notebooks. In these, Samsung is using its a homegrown “multi-core” SSD controller that works to give high data rates without provisioning a portion of the NAND flash memory for controller operations. The drives use Samsung’s 30 nanometer-class MLC NAND flash memory chips.

The Samsung 470 series SSDs come in capacities of 64 GB, 128 GB, and 256 GB; offering data rates of 250 MB/s (read) and 220 MB/s (write), with up to 31,000 IOPS for reads, 21,000 IOPS for random writes. The 64 GB variant, however, writes at up to 170 MB/s. The drives use the newer SATA 6 Gb/s interface, though are backwards compatible with older versions of SATA. The TRIM feature is also present, it keeps the drives’ write performance from deteriorating over time. Samsung advertises a mean time before failure (MTBF) or 1.5 million hours, and backs these drives with a three-year warranty. The drives are designed to withstand mechanical shocks of up to 1,500 G. The 64, 128 and 256 GB variants are each priced at €152.39, €294.46 and €558.57, respectively.

Source: clubic

Innovative motherboard maker ASRock seems to be liking designing high-end motherboards – a lot. The latest model in the works is a socket LGA1366 motherboard based on the Intel X58+ICH10R chipset, called the ASRock X58 Extreme6. This motherboard provides no less than six SATA 6 Gb/s and six USB 3.0 ports, a large step beyond the chipset’s original specifications. ASRock is achieving this using three NEC µPD720200 2-port USB 3.0 and three Marvell 88SE9123-NAA2 2-port SATA 6 Gb/s controllers, some of which are connected to the system over a PLX PEX8613 PCI-Express 2.0 switch chip. All six SATA 6 Gb/s ports are internal, and color-coded white, next to the six SATA 3 Gb/s ports from the southbridge, while four out of six USB 3.0 ports are on the rear-panel (color-coded blue), and two ports are via an internal header, that connects to USB 3.0 case front-panels or expansion brackets.

Apart from this ‘unique’ feature set, the ASRock X58 Extreme6 is fairly standard, with six-core processor support out of the box, an 8-phase VRM that powers the CPU, six DDR3 DIMM slots for triple-channel memory, expansion slots that include three PCI-Express 2.0 x16 with 3-way SLI and CrossFire support, two each of PCI-E x1 and PCI, 8-channel HD audio with optical and coaxial SPDIF connectors, a gigabit Ethernet, FireWire, eSATA, and a number of USB 2.0 ports. Exclusive features include THX TruStudio Pro support, debug LEDs, OC DNA, ASRock Instant Boot, Instant Flash, and OC Tuner. One can expect the board to be out soon.

Source: OCWorkbench

Zalman is proudly introducing a Dual HDD Docking Station series, MH200 U3 / MH200 Hub which support up to 2 SATA HDDS simultaneously with 2.5” & 3.5” SATA Ⅰ/Ⅱ (Up to 3TB) and Port-Multiplier function, not to mention our Dual HDD Docking Station series comes with Hot Swap and Plug & Play, Blue LED indicator for HDD access, it has beautiful and sleek appearance to be perfectly matched for any working places. If anyone who looking for a Dual HDD Docking Station with state of the art technologies and great features, the MH200 series will be a perfect choice.

Viking Modular Solutions, a division of Sanmina-SCI Corporation, and leading manufacturer of innovative memory and flash solutions, today announced its Slim SATA SSD, a case-less, small form-factor and rugged SATA SSD, is available for immediate customer qualification.

Viking Modular Solutions’ Slim SATA SSD is an embedded solid state drive solution that delivers outstanding performance in a standard form factor – and is less than half the size of a 2.5" SSD. With its 3Gb SATA II interface and sustained performance of up to 260 MB/s (megabytes per second), the Viking Modular Slim SATA SSD is ideal for telecommunications, gaming, embedded server & storage systems, field computing and defense & aerospace applications.

ECS’ new high-end socket LGA1156 motherboard, the P55H-AK, is closer to release with the company listing it on its website. The P55H-AK was first pictured at this year’s Computex event held in Taipei, but the company seems to have made some changes to its design, notably a different set of heatsinks and component colors. The key feature of this motherboard is its PCI-Express bandwidth management, which is care of an NVIDIA nForce 200 bridge chip that facilitates two PCI-Express 2.0 x16 links that are split between three slots, first slot being x16, and the other two being x8 constant; and a PLX 12-lane 3-port bridge chip that connects to the P55 PCH over PCI-Express 1.1 x4, and gives out PCI-Express 2.0 x1 connections to the SATA 3 Gb/s and USB 3.0 controllers.

The CPU socket makes use of 15μ gold contacts (the pins have a 15 μm thick layer of gold on the surface), it is wired to four DDR3 DIMM slots for dual-channel memory. Expansion slots include three PCI-E x16, two PCI-E x1, and a PCI, ATI CrossFireX and 3-way NVIDIA SLI are supported. Connectivity include two 2-port USB 3.0 controllers, of which one gives out a 2-port internal header, six SATA 3 Gb/s and two SATA 6 Gb/s ports, 8-channel HD audio, dual gigabit Ethernet, eSATA, and a number of USB 2.0 ports. The board’s listing is indicative of a launch sometime soon.

Source: TechConnect Magazine

Active Media Products, a leading manufacturer of SSDs, DOMs and USB drives, today announced two new 7-pin SATA DOM (Disk on Module) drives featuring a right angle SATA connector for mounting parallel to the motherboard in low-profile enclosures. The new Type-4 and Type-5 SATA DOMs are built with an SMI SSD controller and MLC NAND flash that deliver sequential read speeds up to 90MB/sec and write speeds up to 50MB/sec.

“With the addition of the Type-4 and Type-5 modules we now have a complete selection of SATA DOMs in capacities from 8GB to 32GB, including vertical and low-profile mounting, 7-pin and 22-pin SATA headers, and right and left offsets to fit in virtually any server or embedded application,” said Active Media Products VP of Sales, Jerry Thomson. “We accomplished this with just three PCB designs, as the Type-1 and 2 use the same PCB, just with different connector positioning that offsets the module in a different direction. We used a similar 2-in-1 design for the Type-4 and 5 DOMs, so we have less validation work and greater flexibility in responding to OEM requirements.”

Although USB 3.0 and SATA 6 Gb/s served as features central to new motherboard models by manufacturers for an entire year, their adoption by chipset vendors has been rather slow. While AMD has integrated SATA 6 Gb/s into its SB850 southbridge, which features a 6-port SATA 6 Gb/s RAID controller, neither Intel nor AMD have USB 3.0 integrated, with no real indication Intel doing so in the foreseeable future. Sources in the motherboard industry, however, reveal that AMD is designing a new southbridge that integrates a USB 3.0 controller, just like present chipsets have USB 2.0.

AMD’s move follows a recent announcement of collaboration with Renesas, the company behind the popular NEC uPD720200 controller, to promote USB 3.0 as an industry standard, and a new universal UASP driver model for USB 3.0 controllers. The new southbridge is codenamed “Hudson D1″, which will release along with AMD’s 40 nm Ontario Fusion APUs in Q4-2010. The company also plans to release the Llano Fusion APU in 2011.

Source: DigiTimes

ASRock is readying a new high-end socket LGA1156 motherboard based on the Intel P55 chipset, the P55 Extreme4. Designed to be a notch above the P55 Deluxe3, which packs two SATA 6 Gb/s and two USB 3.0 ports, the Extreme4 uses two 2-port controllers to drive four SATA 6 Gb/s ports, and two USB 3.0 controllers to drive two USB 3.0 ports on the rear panel, and two ports by internal headers (for the latest cases that come with USB 3.0 front-panel ports, or simply by USB 3.0 expansion brackets). Connections to these four controllers is conveniently handled by configuring the PCI-Express x4 port from the P55 PCH to work as four x1 ports, apart from the four x1 ports it gives apart from the x4 port. This way, the board is also able to provide three x1 expansion slots and drive the PCI-E GbE controller.

The other expansion slots are two PCI-Express 2.0 x16 (electrical x8/x8, when both are populated), supporting SLI and CrossFire, and two PCI. Apart from the four SATA 6 Gb/s ports (color-coded white), the six SATA 3 Gb/s ports (color-coded blue) are present internally. The CPU socket seems to be powered by an 8+2 phase VRM. The four DDR3 memory slots can take DDR3 modules with frequencies of over 2600 MHz with overclocking. Other connectivity features include 8-channel HD audio and gigabit Ethernet. ASRock will introduce the P55 Extreme4 in a few weeks’ time.

Source: Le Comptior du Hardware