Crucial, a leading global brand of memory and storage upgrades, today announced the new Crucial BX200 solid state drive (SSD), which offers substantial yet affordable performance gains compared to a standard hard drive. The drive, designed for consumers and SMBs, allows users to load applications in seconds, boot up almost instantly, and accelerate every day applications.

The new BX200 provides sequential read and write speeds up to 540 MB/s and 490 MB/s respectively on all types of data, as well as random read and write speeds up to 66k and 78k IOPS respectively. Additionally, when compared to a typical hard drive, the new BX200 is more than 13 times fasteri and 40 times more energy efficientii for almost instantaneous access to data, resulting in longer battery life and a cooler, quieter system. The new drive utilizes a Silicon Motion SM2256 Controller and is coupled with Micron verified firmware, allowing users to upgrade their existing infrastructure at an affordable price, which is a great alternative to buying a whole new system.

QNAP Systems Inc. today announced the release of the latest addition to its Silent NAS series, the more advanced HS-251+ with a quad-core Intel® Celeron® 2.0GHz processor, 2GB DDR3L RAM, and powerful integrated graphics. It is designed as a home NAS for entertainment, and supports a wide range of multimedia applications, HDMI connectivity for local playback, real-time and offline video transcoding, and scalability to accommodate large HD media collections. Housed within a stylish and compact set-top box design with no moving parts and supporting up to two 8TB hard drives, the fanless HS-251+ is the best choice for those looking for a silent NAS, as well as a Home Theater PC/NAS combo.

"We are proud of our Silent NAS series and are happy to announce the launch of the upgraded quad-core Silent NAS which provides more power to handle multimedia applications and brings greater entertainment potential with a free remote control,” said Jason Hsu, product manager of QNAP, adding “This amazing NAS is coupled with an unrivalled set of apps and features that allow home users to enjoy a perfect home theater experience while providing a secure centralized storage for all of their files, and much more.”

ADATA Technology Co., Ltd., the world's leading brand in memory modules, today announced a major strategic move towards deeper investment and involvement in Apple-compatible products. The Apple Series announcement coincides with the launch this week of three ADATA products for Apple devices: i-Memory UE710 USB 3.0 Flash drive, i-Memory SD Card, and UC350 Type-C USB 3.1 OTG Flash drive.

ADATA has developed several patented technologies that are being applied in Apple-related products and is leveraging extensive research capabilities as part of this new focus. Based on its strong track record in memory and storage, ADATA plans to integrate existing proficiencies in future innovations to benefit Apple users. Notable areas include advanced storage expansion, rapid device charging, and products that make the most of proprietary Apple Lightning connectors and emerging USB Type-C. With a series of products dedicated to Apple platforms, ADATA expects to deliver exciting new innovations to customers while promoting long-term business growth.

Team Group, the world’s leading memory brand, today launched its newest extreme lightweight flash drive, T151. Being the most compact soft rubber USB drive in the industry, you are able to carry it around wherever you go since it is as small and lightweight as a coin, and it is also easy to open/close the cap or use it one handed. Besides the advantage of being able to use it conveniently with one hand, now all your important data is at the grasp of your fingertips.

T151’s design is inspired by the surface tension of water droplets. Its sleek sides make it even more eye catching for consumers. In addition, T151 is exclusively using TPR soft rubber material and COB (Chip On Board) assembly process to offer waterproof, dust proof and shockproof protection. It avoids data corruption or data loss which caused by external forces during the operation. It provides an all-around protection to every moment of your precious memory. T151’s cleverly designed bead chain and hangtag not only allow you to match and hang it on your personal belongings, you can also hide the hangtag inside the cap. The smart design of the hangtag and the USB drive cap can prevent the problem of losing or misplacing the cap.

Western Digital Corporation and SanDisk Corporation today announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Western Digital will acquire all of the outstanding shares of SanDisk for a combination of cash and stock. The offer values SanDisk common stock at $86.50 per share or a total equity value of approximately $19 billion, using a five-day volume weighted average price ending on October 20, 2015 of $79.60 per share of Western Digital common stock. If the previously announced investment in Western Digital by Unisplendour Corporation Limited closes prior to this acquisition, Western Digital will pay $85.10 per share in cash and 0.0176 shares of Western Digital common stock per share of SanDisk common stock; and if the Unisplendour transaction has not closed or has been terminated, $67.50 in cash and 0.2387 shares of Western Digital common stock per share of SanDisk common stock. The transaction has been approved by the boards of directors of both companies.

The combination is the next step in the transformation of Western Digital into a storage solutions company with global scale, extensive product and technology assets, and deep expertise in non-volatile memory (NVM). With this transaction, Western Digital will double its addressable market and expand its participation in higher-growth segments. SanDisk brings a 27-year history of innovation and expertise in NVM, systems solutions and manufacturing. The combination also enables Western Digital to vertically integrate into NAND, securing long-term access to solid state technology at lower cost.

The Storage Products Business Unit of Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc., a committed technology leader, announces its newest enterprise performance hard disk drive (HDD) line, the AL14SE series, designed for mission critical servers and high-performance, high-availability storage systems. The AL14SE is Toshiba’s latest 10,500 rotations per minute (RPM) HDD to support 12Gbit/s SAS and 512n sector length for compatibility with the latest generation host controllers and host bus adapters.

The AL14SE features a new four platter design, increasing storage capacity by 33 percent over the previous AL13SE generation models. The new AL14SE family is also updated with a 128MB data buffer for improved performance. The AL14SE family of HDDs provides 12Gbit/s dual-ported SAS support and 512n sector models in industry standard capacities of 300GB, 450GB, 600GB, 900GB and 1200GB.

ZOTAC International, a global innovator and leading manufacturer of graphics cards, ZBOX Mini PCs, and Solid State Drives (SSDs), ramps up a new line of storage aimed at offering enduring speed in desktops, notebooks, and external storage as it becomes an essential to every PC. 

Available in 240GB and 480GB capacities, the Premium Edition SSDs bring with it a suite of features. At the heart sits a quad-core Phison SSD controller and outstanding MLC NAND for marathon reliability with up to 480 TBW and up to 3,000 PE cycles. With robust performance delivering sequential read/write speeds of up to 520MBps and 500MBps, the Premium Edition SSDs are within a hair’s width of the SATA III bandwidth saturation point.