Filed under: Storage

Don’t spaz out or anything, but that thing you’re peering at above actually isn’t a small flask of cologne. No, no — it’s an 8GB USB drive, and it’s one of the most expensive you can buy. Reportedly built with titanium, the drive is water-resistant, crush-proof and fancied up further with a single red ruby. Sure, it’s 21,750 rubles ($837), but dollars to donuts they’d trade you one for a sure-to-be-authentic iPhone.

[Via Gadgets-Weblog]

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Filed under: Storage

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Filed under: Digital Cameras, Peripherals, Wireless, Storage

Frustrated by somewhat sluggish transfers from your otherwise spectacular Eye-Fi card? Fret not, as the company has just announced a forthcoming update at Photokina that will reportedly enable new and existing Eye-Fi owners to make “the upload of digital photos from camera to computer twice as fast.” Also of note, as of October 5th, users can even add features that aren’t already included on their card and renew annual services by tapping into the updated Eye-Fi Manager Web application. In related news, the outfit will be pushing its wares to Japan and Canada by the year’s end, and in even more related news, Eye-Fi now supports direct photo uploads to Apple’s MobileMe and the AdoramaPix service.

Read - Eye-Fi getting 2x faster
Read - Eye-Fi going international

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Filed under: Storage

If you’re jonesing for the quickest, most nimble CF card this planet has to offer, you’ll be hard pressed to find one quicker and more nimble than this. Following up on Pretec’s launch, SanDisk has started shipping its 16GB 300x (45MB/sec) Extreme IV CompactFlash card, which marks a 12.5% increase in speed and 50% boost in capacity compared to its predecessor. Oh, but then there’s the $399.99 price tag. We know, right?

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Filed under: Cellphones, Home Entertainment, Portable Video

Movies on flash drives aren’t looking like the next big thing, but Gemalto reckons its approach to getting DVD content on smaller surfaces is different enough to get noticed. In an admittedly bizarre release, the digital security firm has announced a new Smart Video Card for Italian carrier WIND, which “embeds a DVD-compliant optical disc into the card body of a regular SIM card.” The card can store practically any digital content (including video, software or URLs) and can reportedly be played back on any DVD drive. So what, we buy a new SIM card each time we’re looking for a new batch of miniaturized content? Fabulous!

[Via FashionFunky, thanks Bob]

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Filed under: Storage

Hey Sony, since you’re so in love with tacking on random letters and such to your flash memory line, how’s about we toss three capital consonants in your direction capped off with a lovely question mark? In a move that is depressingly not at all surprising, Sony has introduced the Memory Stick PRO-HG Duo HX, that latest in a long, long line of proprietary Memory Stick products that it insists on producing. These are supposedly “ideal for high performance digital cameras and HD camcorders,” and they rely on an 8-bit parallel interface to achieve whatever level of performance they’re capable of. Weirdly, Sony only quotes transfer speeds (a maximum of 20MB/sec read and 15MB/sec write) when the card is used in conjunction with the bundled MSAC-UAH1 USB adapter, but anywho, they’ll be available in 4GB / 8GB flavors this October for those who care.

[Thanks, Rob]

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Filed under: Desktops, Peripherals, Storage

As your never-ending quest to find peripherals specifically made to match beautifully with your PowerMac G5 / Mac Pro continues, we’ve one that’ll surely shoot right to the top of your must-have list. Nervian’s CardReader Pro slips just under the front handle of your tower, providing (almost) integrated card reader functionality without putting a damper on your rig’s style. Better still, the USB 2.0 unit supports 52 different flavors of flash memory, ensuring that just about every card you toss in there will mount in short order. There’s no word on how costly this will be when it ships in October, but those definitely interested can nab 15% off by signing up for details at the outfit’s website.

[Thanks, choco]

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Filed under: Storage

Indilinx just recently caught eyes with its Barefoot solid state drive controller, which has reportedly shown a read speed of 230MB/sec. Merely days later, it’s already talking about the next best thing. Said firm, along with Mosaid, is preparing for a third-generation of the controller for the SATA 3 interface, which will provide a mind-boggling 600MB/sec. Unfortunately, no other details were provided, but just in case you were terrified that the internal drive you purchase in 2013 wouldn’t transfer files any faster than the one you’re using now, at least you’ve one less worry on your mind.

[Thanks, Johnny]

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Filed under: Storage

With SSDs, there really is no “fast enough.” In the never-ending quest for more speed, Indilinx has just introduced its Barefoot solid state drive controller with 90-nanometer process technology. Said device has reportedly shown the “fastest read speed (230MB/sec) of all the products currently available in the market and supports the capacity up to 512GB with multi-level cell (MLC) NAND flash.” Additionally, it plays nice with SATA 2.0 and flash memory from Samsung, Toshiba, Hynix and Intel / Micron. Sadly, mass production isn’t scheduled until Q4 of this year, so now you can sit on that vanilla HDD even longer as you wait for the future to arrive. Ugh, what a tease.

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Filed under: Storage

Look out memory nerds, as Toshiba has just announced a more capacious embedded NAND flash memory device than you ever thought possible. The new 32GB chip boasts full compliance with eMMC and eSD standards, is fabricated with Tosh’s 43-nanometer process technology, includes a dedicated controller and should slip right into your favorite handset / PMP of tomorrow. Samples are slated to hit couriers in September for an undisclosed price, while mass production will get going in Q4. So, how long ’til you guys and gals repeat this news with “64″ or “128″ in place of that lowly “32?”

[Via Electronista]

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Filed under: Storage

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Filed under: Storage

Ridata has dabbled in the wonderful world of triple-data capacity SSDs before, but as with most manufacturers, it wouldn’t open its mouth and divulge a price. Now, however, we’ve got three newcomers to swoon over along with price tags to balk (or cheer, depending on wallet depth) over. The Ultra-S Plus MLC SATA SSD line has launched in 32GB, 64GB and 128GB sizes, all of which offer up to 128MB/sec read speeds and 80MB/sec write speeds. Without further adieu, the late July-bound trio will be selling for $169.90, $294.90 and $537.90 from least capacious to most. So, you gettin’ one?

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Filed under: Storage

A-DATA’s latest CompactFlash cards were designed to be looked at longingly by even the most demanding photographer, and while the average joe probably won’t have the kit to appreciate just how speedy these things are, we’ll do our best to explain. The Turbo Series CF 350X memory card features a read speed of 52MB/sec and a write speed of 47MB/sec, whereas Delkin’s “world’s fastest” model packs a sustained read / write rate of 45MB/sec. Regrettably, A-DATA isn’t handing out pricing details just yet, but we do know they’ll soon be available in 8GB and 16GB editions.

[Via Electronista]

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Filed under: Storage

We first heard about Toshiba’s plan to increase NAND flash capacities by building “3D” memory chips with “pillars” of stacked cells in January of 2007, but it looks like the effort is getting revived — Tosh and SanDisk have entered into an agreement to jointly develop and cross-license 3D memory tech. SanDisk was once rumored to be developing write-once 3D flash chips, so both companies have experience building the stuff, but it sounds like it’ll take another three or four years for the partnership to produce actual products, as high-yield production is still difficult.

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Filed under: Storage

It wasn’t long ago that IBM promised to unleash its racetrack MRAM (magnetoresistive RAM) on a power and speed-hungry computing public, but now Toshiba says its 1GB MRAM chips are “almost ready”. The chips use Spin-RAM (STT-RAM) and Toshiba fully expects them to take over where DRAM left off by 2015. They say their new chips use about 10 percent the energy used by DRAM and, like MRAM is supposed to do, retain memory even after the power supply has been cut off. So what does this mean? Instant boot-up, fast access times, and super-low power consumption. While MRAM has been announced by others, capacities and speeds promised by this 1GB jobby from Toshiba will certainly make things worthwhile.

[Via MRAM-info]

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Filed under: Storage

Just a few months back, we all gave SanDisk a round of golf claps for moving towards 43-nanometer NAND production. Fast forward to today, and that “feat” doesn’t look so mighty anymore. Intel and Micron have just announced the industry’s first sub-40nm NAND flash memory device, the 34nm 32 gigabit multi-level cell chip. The process technology was collaboratively developed by the two firms’ joint venture, IM Flash Technologies (IMFT),” and there’s nary a hint of shame when they trumpet that this is the “smallest NAND process geometry on the market.” Sample shipments are expected to leave the dock in June, while mass production should get going sometime in the second half of this year. Somehow, we get the impression this won’t stay on top for long.

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Filed under: Storage

It’s far from the first SATA-compatible SSD drive, but TDK seems to think its new GBDisk RS1 series drives will be just the ticket for some very particular users (though not likely you or us). Apparently designed specifically for industrial use, the drive uses single level cell NAND flash memory (as opposed to multi-level cell) and a GBDriver RS1 SATA controller, which TDK says will together help it maintain data reliability while standing up to frequent, high-speed data writing. You will have to make do with some fairly small storage capacities even by SSD standards, however, with the drives topping out at 16GB, all of which come in 2.5-inch drive enclosures. No word on prices just yet, but you can look for them to start rolling out this June.

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Filed under: Storage

The alphabet soup of different flash memory technologies is already a little bewildering, but it looks like the latest entrant could end up being the most promising of all, with single chip storage capacities of 1TB expected within ten years. Called array-based memory, the tech has been under development at a company called Nanochip, Inc. for nearly 12 years, and it looks like the first working samples will go out next year. Although those first prototypes will have storage roughly equivalent to NAND flash at tens of gigs per circuit, the plan is to rapidly scale up to 100s of gigs and finally to 1TB on a single chip. Because the chips can be manufactured using conventional fabs and aren’t subject to the same manufacturing constraints as traditional flash, they may also end up being far cheaper per gigabyte. The company is being funded by a number of prominent tech giants, including Intel, and says the tech can be used to improve everything from USB keys to SSDs to enterprise-grade servers — wait, bigger, cheaper, and potentially better? Yeah, sign us up.

[Via Slashdot]

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Filed under: CES, Storage

Just in case you haven’t had enough flash storage for one day, Pretec’s making sure you really do get your fill. Announced today at CES, the outfit unveiled a 16GB, 24GB and 48GB CompactFlash card, with the 2GB - 24GB iterations available in 333x flavors (50MB/sec) and the 1GB - 48GB models available in 233x (35MB/sec). Unfortunately, the details we’re really after — you know, price and release dates — are curiously missing, but hopefully Pretec will toss those tidbits out in the near future.

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Filed under: Storage

Everyone wants to be packing some of that sweet flash memory in their notebooks these days, but not everyone wants to shell out such high prices for such relatively measly capacities. Well along comes Santa Ana-based STEC Inc. with what it claims to be a breakthrough NAND technology that will allegedly slash the price of solid state drives down to just $2/GB within two years; specifically, the company says it has successfully leveraged so-called multi-level cell-based (MLC) NAND into SSDs with 90MB/s read / 60MB/s write speeds — good enough to exceed platter-based hard drive performance at prices supposedly half of what they are today. STEC is currently shipping manufacturing samples between 32GB and an impressive 512GB (in a 2.5-inch form factor; the largest 1.8-inch drive is 128GB), although it remains to be seen how much of these savings will be passed along to the consumer when these eventually come to market.

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