CDRLabs finishes up the week with a review of Plextor's new 256GB M6M series SSD, the PX-256M6M. Designed for ultrabooks, tablets and other portable devices with limited space, the M6M provides high-performance and reliability in a space one-eighth the size of a standard 2.5-inch SSD. The drive combines Marvell's 88SS9188 "Monet Lite" controller with Toshiba's Advanced 19nm (A19) Toggle Mode MLC NAND to deliver up to 520MB/s read and 440MB/s write transfer rates. The M6M also supports Plextor's exclusive True Speed and True Protect technologies as well as the SATA Device Sleep (DEVSLP) standard which extends the battery life of a device by reducing the drive's power consumption when it is not in use.

CyberLink Corp., today launched PowerDVD 14, the latest version of the world’s pre-eminent movie and media player for Blu-ray, 3D & HD content. With tablet and mobile video viewing experiencing record-breaking growth, PowerDVD 14 offers cross-platform support with free mobile apps for leading tablets and smartphones, and for the first time, integrates the new CyberLink Cloud service to provide more convenient storing, syncing and sharing of videos, photos and music.

“As the first and only media player to integrate PC, mobile device and cloud platforms into a seamless entertainment ecosystem, PowerDVD is designed to enhance how people experience their media,” said Alice H. Chang, CEO of CyberLink. “In an increasingly media-rich and mobile-focused world, we’ve designed companion mobile apps and introduced our new CyberLink Cloud service to draw together all the content scattered across people’s digital lives so that they can enjoy their entertainment anywhere they want, on any device they choose.”

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Samsung Electronics, a market leader in advanced memory technology and an innovator in consumer electronics, announced today that it is now shipping a new line of advanced SD and microSD cards that are ideal for digital imaging and mobile devices. The products will be available in PRO, EVO and Standard categories, suited for various use cases and performance levels for consumers and professionals.

Samsung’s extensive memory card lineup offers SD cards and microSD cards for use in many different consumer electronic devices. The PRO, EVO and Standard lineups are available in a wide range of capacities from 4 gigabyte (GB) to 64GB. While SD cards are most often used in digital cameras, DSLR cameras and camcorders, microSD cards are mainly used in mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets, as well as certain cameras and camcorders with microSD card slots.

The new lineup of Samsung memory cards have newly designed exteriors and branding, with refreshing color choices for each category—professional silver for PRO, romantic orange for EVO and emerald blue for Standard. Each of the new memory cards also have distinctly printed white numbers that indicate the capacity of each card.

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G-Technology, a leader in delivering premium storage solutions for audio/video production, photography and the creative professional market, today announced the first products in its new Studio line – the G-RAID Studio and G-SPEED Studio. Continuing G-Technology’s popular design legacy, the Studio family comes in new high-quality, sleek black enclosure for today’s high-performance computers and workstations. The Studio line features multiple RAID options, removable enterprise-class 7,200 RPM drives, 20 gigabits per second (Gbps) Thunderbolt 2 interfaces, and the industry’s highest capacity 6TB hard disk drives (HDDs) for pre- and post-production workflows.

G-SPEED Studio

The G-SPEED Studio with hardware RAID is a four-bay Thunderbolt 2 storage solution that supports user selectable RAID 0, 1, 5 and 10 for ultimate flexibility and speed. With its built-in RAID controller, the G-SPEED Studio is not tied to a single workstation and can be easily transported and used on a Mac® laptop or desktop in the studio, edit bay or on the road. The G-SPEED Studio boasts sustained transfer rates of up to 660MB/sec in RAID 0 and can be daisy-chained via dual Thunderbolt 2 ports. This G-SPEED Studio solution ships with four removable enterprise-class hard drives, designed to support multi-stream compressed 4K and 2K workflows. In a RAID 5 (data redundant) configuration, the G-SPEED Studio RAID can easily handle up to 30 hours of 4K footage in ProRes 4444 and can seamlessly edit three streams of compressed 4K. The G-SPEED Studio with enterprise-class hardware RAID will be available in May for an MSRP of $3,599.95 for 24TB, $2,699.95 for 16TB and $2,199.95 for 12TB.

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Sony’s new 2TB (terabyte) portable storage hard disk drive takes the worry out of back-up in the field, and gives professionals reliable, bus-powered high-speed storage.

The new 2TB hard disk drive (PSZ-HA2T) expands Sony’s line of portable storage drives, and joins three current models including a 500GB and 1TB (PSZ-HA50 and PSZ-HA1T) hard disk model and a 256GB solid state drive (PSZ-SA25).

Each drive has a heavy silicon cover and protective case to withstand the rigors of field production and reduce shipping damage. Built-in shock resistance can absorb falls of up to 2.3 meters for SSD and up to 2 meters for HDD.

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Seagate Technology plc, a world leader in storage solutions, today announced it is now shipping the world’s fastest 6TB hard disk drive (HDD) — the Seagate Enterprise Capacity 3.5 HDD v4. Boasting industry-leading performance, the Enterprise Capacity 3.5 HDD v4 is an important step forward in scale-out data infrastructures delivering supersize storage and enterprise reliability to meet the explosive growth of corporate and cloud-based data centers.

“Unstructured data growth is doubling exponentially and will propel the digital universe to reach 16 Zettabytes of data by as early as 20171. This will cause cloud service providers to look for innovative ways to store more within an existing footprint while lowering operational costs,” said Scott Horn, Seagate vice president of marketing. “Seagate is poised to address this challenge by offering the fastest 6TB enterprise capacity HDD based on our proven, reliable platform meeting this never-ending demand in both private and public cloud data centers.”

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Showing continued growth and market interest from both consumers and enterprises for long-lasting, compliance-ready permanent data storage, Millenniata has introduced its 25 GB Blu-ray M-Disc. The M-Disc optical media (DVD and now Blu-ray) is the only storage option to preserve information, photos and videos for hundreds of years. Optical media is the responsible choice because of its unparalleled longevity, broad compatibility, high reliability, energy efficiency and durability against electromagnetic pulses and catastrophes. With the recent Blu-ray Disc Association approval, the M-Disc Blu-ray works in most standard Blu-ray drives and is being shipped to customers as of April 1, 2014.

According to International Data Corporation (IDC), the digital universe is growing at a remarkable pace – doubling about every two years in both the consumer and enterprise segments. Consumers, for instance, take twice the photos/videos per person now than a few years ago and those images are much larger files. For both enterprises and consumers, this increase in file creation and the reality that virtually all storage mediums have a limited life, means that reliable, long-lasting, archival quality storage options are essential.

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