Pioneer Japan sent out a press release this morning, announcing two new commercial-grade Blu-ray Disc writers. Designed for the long-term preservation of electronic data, the BDR-PR1MC-W and BDR-PR1MA-W are certified by JIIMA (Japan Information Technology Association of Public Interest Corporation) and are capable of writing to BD-R, BD-R DL, BD-R TL (100GB) and BD-R QL (128GB) at 4x. The two drives are also compatible with Sony's long-term, 128GB BD-R media that will be available in late July. 

The main difference between the two is that the BDR-PR1MA-W can be used to check the recording quality of a disc. Using Pioneer's Error Rate Utility, the drive is able to measure the RSER (Random Symbol Error Rate) as well as the number of burst and uncorrectable errors on recordable Blu-ray media. In addition, the BDR-PR1MA-W can be used to measure PIE/POF on DVDs and BLER/CU on CDs.

Following the releases of the TS-932X (powered by an AnnapurnaLabs CPU) and the TS-963X (powered by an AMD CPU), QNAP Systems, Inc. today completes the high-capacity-compact-size 9-bay NAS lineup with the introduction of the TVS-951X 10GbE multimedia NAS. The new model is powered by a 7th-generation Intel® Kaby Lake processor, providing a NAS private cloud solution that combines high capacity and 10GbE high-speed connectivity. The TVS-951X NAS has also won the Red Dot Award (2018) and Computex d&i Award for high-quality product design.

Powered by a 7th-generation Kaby Lake 14nm Intel® Celeron® 3865U low-power dual-core 1.8 GHz processor, the TVS-951X features a hybrid drive bay design (including five 3.5-inch drive bays and four 2.5-inch SSD slots) with built-in 10GBASE-T (10G/5G/2.5G/1G/100M) network port. Combining hard drives and SSDs allow users to maximize both capacity and performance with SSD caching and Qtier auto-tiering storage. Combined with 10GbE connectivity, multimedia transcoding/streaming, and 4K HDMI output, the TVS-951X provides users with a cost-effective, highly-efficient, and high-performance NAS solution with feature-rich multimedia applications.

ASUSTOR Inc. today released two new NAS models, the AS3102T v2 and AS3204T v2, which improve on the previous design of multimedia NAS, The AS3102T and AS3204T. The AS3102T v2 and AS3204T v2 are equipped with two Gigabit Ethernet ports, allowing the use of network aggregation settings to double the network performance of the NAS. Increasing the amount of Ethernet ports allows hard drives to make better use of their rated speed for those who need it, such as those in the AV industry. Our new models also support the Intel AES-NI instruction set, which increases encryption and decryption performance using the CPU. Large amounts of data can now be encrypted far more quickly and helps increase data security and efficiency for storage, backup, and remote access.

ASUSTOR product manager Johnny Chen said: "The AS3102T v2 and AS3204T v2 integrate business-quality hardware into an affordable NAS to help increase performance and reliability. Since some higher capacity drives contained only four screw holes, we have redesigned the hard drive bays to be compatible with drives that feature four or six screw holes, greatly increasing the flexibility of an ASUSTOR NAS. Therefore, those who need high performance and high storage capacity, the AS3102T v2 and AS3204T v2 are the best choices."

CDRLabs has taken a long overdue look at Samsung's latest SATA SSD, the 860 PRO. Designed to meet the needs of creators, professionals, and gamers, the 860 PRO is powered by Samsung's new MJX controller and is available with up to 4TB of their latest 2-bit MLC V-NAND flash. This combination not only delivers industry-leading performance, it gives the drive an endurance rating that is up to 8x higher than its predecessor, the 850 PRO. The 860 PRO also supports AES 256-bit hardware-based encryption and is compliant with TCG Opal and IEEE 1667. To top it all off, it comes with Samsung's Magician software and can be used with their RAPID technology. 

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the world leader in advanced memory technology, today announced that it has begun mass producing its fifth-generation V-NAND memory chips with the fastest data transfers now available. In the industry’s first use of the ‘Toggle DDR 4.0’ interface, the speed for transmitting data between storage and memory over Samsung’s new 256-gigabit (Gb) V-NAND has reached 1.4-gigabits per second (Gbps), a 40-percent increase from its 64-layer predecessor.

The energy efficiency of Samsung’s new V-NAND remains comparable to that of the 64-layer chip, primarily because the operating voltage has been reduced from 1.8 volts to 1.2 volts. The new V-NAND also has the fastest data write speed to date at 500-microseconds (μs), which represents about a 30-percent improvement over the write speed of the previous generation, while the response time to read-signals has been significantly reduced to 50μs.

ASUSTOR Inc. has announced today that two new NAS devices will be joining the ASUSTOR family. The AS4002T and AS4004T are our first consumer NAS that integrate 10gb Ethernet with an RJ45 connector. The AS4002T and AS4004T are the world's first NAS containing a Marvell Armada Cortex-A72 64-bit dual-core processor. Compared with the previous generation of processors, these NAS offer 3½ times more computing power. 2GB of DDR4-2400 memory is also included, which is faster and more efficient than DDR3. Both the AS4002T and AS4004T have a 10gb Ethernet port and two Gigabit Ethernet ports, which create a fast networking environment that is 10 times faster than a Gigabit network. Network aggregation technology can also be used to combine the three RJ45 ports to triple the speed of a gigabit connection without 10gb hardware

The new AS4002T and AS4004T come with a brand new appearance. The front panel is a removable crystal black magnetic panel, which is not only aesthetically pleasing but also dust-proof. Actuated inlets are arranged around the panel to optimize heat transfer, while the inner honeycomb structure strengthens the pressure area to avoid damaging hard drives from external impact. In addition, both models support hot-swapping hard drives. The hard disk is fully secured using the caddy, and the hard drives can be quickly installed or replaced without any tools.

ADATA Technology, a leading manufacturer of high-performance DRAM modules and NAND Flash products, today launched its new enterprise-class SR2000 series solid state drives (SSD), which include the SR2000SP U.2 PCIe and SR2000CP PCIe HHHL AIC SSDs. These SSDs are built on 3D eTLC NAND Flash technology to offer superb transfer rates, higher capacities, and added endurance. In addition, they come with value-added scalable over-provisioning (OP) software to give IT managers the flexibility to set OP capacity.

ADATA SR2000SP U.2 PCIe SSD
ADATA SR2000SP U.2 (2.5”) solid state drives implement 3D enterprise TLC NAND Flash technology for superb transfer rates, including random read and write speeds of up to 830,000 and 140,000 IOPS respectively, and sequential read and write speeds of up to 3,500MB per second. The SSDs offer excellent power efficiency and compatibility across diverse storage applications that require security, convenience, and performance. To meet the ever-growing data volumes being handled in the context of enterprise servers, hyperscale computing, data centers, big data analytics, and others applications, the SR2000SP come with up to 11TB of capacity. For added versatility, the SR2000SP is accompanied with a scalable over-provisioning (OP) software that gives IT managers the flexibility to set OP capacity for enhancing SSD performance and endurance. The SSDs also support hot swapping to cause minimal impact to system operations, and feature TRIM command support in Windows. Purpose-made for enterprise applications, the SSDs undergo rigorous quality controls to ensure excellent reliability and durability – providing customers consistent performance and great value for money.