WD® (NYSE: WDC) announced today that it is now shipping WD VelociRaptor™ hard drives, the next generation of its 10,000 RPM SATA "Raptor" series of drives. Designed with an enterprise-class foundation, the new WD VelociRaptor hard drive is modified specifically for PC and Mac® enthusiasts and professional workstations. Destined to become the new high-performance favorite of these groups, the WD VelociRaptor hard drive comes packed with twice the capacity and a 35 percent performance increase over the previous generation.

From the bloodlines of the WD Raptor, the most popular hard drive for high-performance enthusiasts who demand the ultimate SATA drive, the WD VelociRaptor hard drive is built with enterprise-class mechanics and packs 300 GB of storage capacity into a 2.5-inch enterprise form factor. The 2.5-inch WD VelociRaptor drive is enclosed in the IcePack™, a 3.5-inch mounting frame with a built-in heat sink -- a customization that fits the drive into a standard 3.5-inch system bay and keeps this powerful drive extra cool when installed in a high-performance desktop chassis.

"Demand for ever-higher PC performance continues to increase and WD is the leader in this category with the WD Raptor. We created WD VelociRaptor hard drives to lead PC enthusiasts into the next era of PC and Mac storage performance and satisfy their insatiable thirst for computing speed," said Tom McDorman, vice president and general manager of WD's enterprise business unit. "The new WD VelociRaptor delivers the greatest performance and reliability of all SATA hard drives currently on the market."

WD VelociRaptor is the next step up for the speed-craving PC enthusiast, and as with all WD drives, attention to detail in features, performance and reliability is a top priority. Features of the new WD VelociRaptor hard drives include:

Killer Speed - Built on the performance of the WD Raptor, these 10,000 RPM drives, with SATA 3 Gb/s interface, and 16 MB cache deliver mind-bending performance.

Rock-solid Reliability - WD VelociRaptor drives are designed and manufactured to business-critical, enterprise-class standards to provide enterprise reliability in high duty cycle environments. The design results in the highest available reliability rating of any SATA drive at 1.4 million hours MTBF.

IcePack Mounting Frame - The 2.5-inch WD VelociRaptor drives are enclosed in a 3.5-inch enterprise-class mounting frame with a built-in heat sink that keeps this powerful little drive extra cool when installed in high-performance desktop chassis.

Rotary Acceleration Feed Forward (RAFF™) - Optimizes performance when the drives are used in vibration-prone, multi-drive chassis.

SecurePark™ - Parks the recording heads off the disk surface during spin up, spin down and when the drive is off. This ensures the recording head never touches the disk surface, resulting in improved long-term reliability and increased drive protection when the chassis is moved.

Toshiba announced it started mass production of multi-level cell (MLC) NAND memory based solid state drives. The first models to begin shipping this month have a capacity of 128GB and will feature a lightweight, 15 gram embedded module form factor.

To achieve performance levels of 100MB/second read and 40MB/second write in these first generation drives, Toshiba utilized a SATA II interface and an innovative MLC controller supporting fast read-write speed, parallel data transfer, and wear-leveling. As a result, Toshiba SSDs achieve overall PC Benchmark scores that are better than 5400 rpm and 7200rpm HDDs and comparable to selected SATA SLC NAND SSDs.

The SSD drives excel in Windows Vista boot speed, application loading, general usage and virus scan operations. Compared to hard disk drives, SSDs realize a number of advantages that address needs in the mobile computing market for performance, ruggedness, and lightweight, compact form factors.

Don't worry, you're not losing it -- yet, anyway. Corsair has indeed already launched a 16GB Voyager flash drive, but its forthcoming Voyager GT promises access speeds "up to four times faster" than standard USB 2.0 drives.

Source: Guru3D 

With the ever-increasing popularity of low-priced compact notebooks and lightweight portable devices, the demand for solid-state disks (SSD) is greater than ever. Transcend is poised at the forefront of this new solid-state revolution, offering a full range of SSD products. Compared to traditional hard drives, SSDs are made of solid-state NAND flash memory with no moving parts, and are therefore not susceptible to mechanical failure resulting from vibration, sudden impact or power loss, heat, and other common factors that often cause irrecoverable data loss in portable devices that use regular hard drives.

Two months ago, Samsung announced its new SATA II-based 64GB solid-state disk (SSD). The 64GB SSD promised read speeds of 120MB/sec and write speeds of 100MB/sec as Dailytech reported.

Although HD DVD continues to be the leader when it comes to affordable hardware, Pioneer is helping Blu-ray take a step closer towards a lower cost of entry. While not a standalone player, those with capable PCs will be able to watch Blu-ray movies on Pioneer’s upcoming BDC-2202, a Blu-ray Disc computer drive, which will be available to consumers beginning next month for a suggested price of $299.

The BDC-2202 can read BD-ROM/BD-R/BD-RE at up to 5X and can read BD-ROM (DL) and BD-R/-RE (DL) at up to 2X speed. The drive can also read and write digital content to DVD and CD.  

“With the BDC-2202, computer savvy consumers are now privy to what was previously only available to professional users.  In addition to maintaining the same benefits of current optical disc drives, the included software means users can now enjoy their favorite Blu-ray Disc movies as well as their own personal disc creations,” said Andy Parsons, senior vice president at Pioneer Electronics (USA) Inc.

Those with home theatre PCs will likely view the BDC-2202 as a low-cost way of viewing Blu-ray Disc movies. The next cheapest Blu-ray Disc player is the PlayStation 3 at double the price, though it is a standalone solution. The low-cost HD DVD player for HTPC owners is the HD DVD drive for Xbox 360, which is compatible with PCs, at $199. The cheapest HD DVD standalone player, the Toshiba HD-A2 is also double the price at $399.

Despite the pricy hardware, Blu-ray movies have outsold HD DVD consistently in 2007. The most recent tallies see Blu-ray totals surpassing one million, with HD DVD less than 2,000 units behind.

The most common piece of advice given to those unsure about which high-definition optical format to buy is to simply wait until a victor emerges. Early adopters, however, should be aware that being cutting edge could come with a price, such as the risk of bugs or complete hardware and software obsolescence.

The Blu-ray Disc Association has mandated that all players of the format released after October 31 must adhere to a specific feature set that is currently not standard for today’s hardware. All Blu-ray Disc players after the fall date must support BD Java, a programming language for Blu-ray Disc media used mainly to deliver picture-in-picture for in-movie commentary and special features.

“Blu-ray player requirements and BD-Java specifications have been gradually changed over and over again, which has caused a good amount of grief for player manufacturers,” said optical storage analyst Wesley Novack. “The new specification and requirements will ensure that all Blu-ray players manufactured past October will be able to support the full range of BD-Java capabilities, including picture in picture and more.”

Early adopters of Blu-ray players may find themselves with inadequate hardware to support media using BD Java software.

Novack continued, “This might be bad news for early adopters who have already purchased a player, but it will not prevent them from playing back future Blu-ray movies. Owners of first generation Blu-ray players will probably not be able to use the full range of interactive features available on future Blu-ray Disc titles.”

Owners of current Blu-ray Disc players who are concerned about the future utility of their hardware are assured by manufacturers that current players won’t be made completely obsolete with the new standard.

“As is common in new format introductions, future products will include some additional features such as picture-in-picture,” said Philips VP Marty Gordon to Video Business. “Regardless of whether first-generation hardware supports these new features, the discs will still play.”

Unlike the HD DVD standard, Blu-ray players are not required to have Ethernet ports for firmware updates. Blu-ray machines with upgradable firmware likely will have a greater chance of conforming to the mandated format this fall.

Although HD DVD is not without its own set of early adopter issues, support for a standard programming language is already solidified for the format. HDi, an XML-based format developed by Microsoft and Toshiba, is mandatory on all HD DVD players and enables picture-in-picture special features to run alongside the feature length film.

Warner Bros. has released titles such as Batman Begins and V for Vendetta for HD DVD but not Blu-ray for the sole reason of the latter format’s lack of standardization. The upcoming Matrix trilogy release will also appear on HD DVD first for the same reason. Warner Bros. said that it would release Blu-ray Disc versions of such films in the fall, assumingly after the BD Java mandate takes effect.

Paramount has taken a different approach with Blu-ray’s apparent shortcoming. The studio released Mission: Impossible 3 on both HD DVD and Blu-ray, though the HD DVD version features a video picture-in-picture commentary, while the Blu-ray version does only with audio.

Only a couple Blu-ray movies feature picture-in-picture commentaries, those titles being Descent and Crank, though they do so without BD Java. Cleverly, and perhaps inelegantly, two complete versions of the movie are stored on a 50GB Blu-ray disc. One version contains the normal version of the film, while the second one features the picture-in-picture commentary hard-encoded on top of the film.

The addition of BD Java is not the only new requirement for Blu-ray players this fall. All players released after October 31 must hold a minimum 256MB of persistent memory storage. Those with network options will have to have 1GB of memory to support Web downloads.

Famed DVD producer, Van Ling, expresses discontent over the lack of standardization of the Blu-ray format. “The whole problem comes in when some manufacturers toe the minimum line and some others might make twice the minimum [functionality] on players,” said Ling. “In my view, I shouldn’t have to know what every single player can do. Rather than downgrade my creative vision for the lowest common denominator player, I want to create something [that fully realizes Blu-ray abilities].”

Seagate Technology® today announced the worldwide distribution channel availability of the world's first 7200-RPM notebook PC hard drive to combine capacity-boosting perpendicular recording technology with free-fall protection for beefed-up laptop durability. Seagate's newest Momentus hard drive is also shipping to a major original equipment manufacturer.

"The growing number of computer users turning to laptops as their primary PCs want every inch of capacity, performance and durability they enjoy in their desktop systems," said Michael Wingert, Seagate executive vice president and general manager, Personal Compute Business. "The new Momentus 7200.2 hard drive epitomizes Seagate's focus on delivering cutting-edge storage technologies that make it easier to move, use and protect digital information in the home, in the office and on-the-go."

Momentus 7200.2 delivers up to 160GB of capacity using perpendicular recording technology and combines a fast Serial ATA 3.0 Gbit/second interface with 7200-RPM spin speed to enable the highest- performance laptops ever. The hard drive is also offered with an optional free-fall sensor to help prevent drive damage and data loss upon impact if a laptop PC is dropped. The sensor works by detecting any changes in acceleration equal to the force of gravity, then parking the head off the disc to prevent contact with the platter in a free fall of as little as 8 inches.

Momentus 7200.2, Seagate's second-generation 7200-RPM notebook drive, is designed for a wide range of systems including mainstream notebook PCs, workstations, RAID enclosures, and small form factor desktop PCs. Offered in 80GB, 100GB, 120GB and 160GB capacities, the 2.5-inch drive also is perfect for users looking to upgrade their notebooks to deliver true desktop PC performance.

The entire Momentus series is built tough to withstand up to 900 Gs of non-operating shock and 350 Gs of operating shock to protect drive data, making them ideal for systems that are subject to rough handling or high levels of vibration. The hard drives are also lean on power consumption, allowing notebook users to work longer between battery charges, and are virtually inaudible thanks to Seagate's innovative SoftSonic(TM) fluid-dynamic bearing motors and QuietStep(TM) ramp load technology.