Buffalo Americas, a leading provider of USB storage, network attached storage (NAS) and networking solutions, announces the availability of the LinkStation 520DN, a network attached storage device made specifically for the home. The LS520DN is a customizable NAS solution designed to serve as the hub of consumers’ connected home by making it easier to store, share, and secure all digital data for the modern family.

“We are excited to introduce the Buffalo LS520DN as a way for consumers to organize and protect their digital life,” said Arthur Traub, Director of Strategic Accounts at Buffalo Americas. “This new product allows home users to easily store, organize, access, stream and protect all their digital assets. We provide NAS grade disk drives for always-on performance in the LS520DN to ensure ease of use and reliability. And, as with all our Buffalo products, if a customer needs any help they simply need to contact our 24/7 US-based customer support team.”

Transcend Information, Inc. (Transcend), a leading manufacturer of industrial-grade products, proudly presents the industrial-grade SuperMLC JetFlash 740 USB flash drive. Positioned between its SLC and MLC NAND flash offerings, Transcend’s exclusive SuperMLC technology is a cost-effective solution that offers performance close to that of SLC NAND flash. Compliant with USB 3.1 Gen 1 specifications, the JetFlash 740 boasts excellent performance and endurance at affordable prices, making it ideal for demanding industrial grade applications.

Blazing-Fast Performance up to 120MB/s
Drawing on the strengths of both Single-Level Cell (SLC) and Multi-Level Cell (MLC) NAND flash, Transcend has developed SuperMLC technology by reprogramming the two bits per cell of MLC into one bit per cell, greatly boosting performance. Compliant with USB 3.1 Gen 1 specifications, the transfer speeds of Transcend’s JetFlash 740 USB flash drive can reach up to 120MB/s read and 90MB/s write, double those of MLC flash chips. Transcend’s SuperMLC technology is a great match for industrial applications that demand quality comparable to SLC NAND flash at a cost-effective price.

Pioneer Japan sent out a press release today, announcing two new 16x Blu-ray Disc writers, the BDR-S11J-BK and BDR-S11J-X. Both drives are equipped with a Serial ATA Revision 3.0 interface and are capable of 16x BD-R, 14x BD-R DL, 8x BD-R LTH, 2x BD-RE and 2x BD-RE DL writing speeds and a maximum BD-ROM read speed of 12x. The BDR-S11J-BK and BDR-S11J-X also write to triple-layer (100GB) BD-R media at 8x, quad-layer (128GB) BD-R media at 6x and triple-layer (100GB) BD-RE media at 2x.

What makes the BDR-S11J-BK and BDR-S11J-X unique is their ability to play back Ultra HD Blu-ray content. When installed in a Windows 10 PC with the included WinDVD software and an i7 or i5 Kaby Lake processor, users can play back movies at 4K resolutions. The two drives also ship with authoring software from CyberLink and are equipped with Pioneer's PureRead4+ technology, which greatly improves the reading performance of scratched and dirty discs.

The top of the line BDR-S11J-X takes things one step further by adopting a low resistance flat cable, anti-vibration parts and high gloss paint. It also has the ability to check and display the playback quality of an audio CD (CD-DA) and, in the case of a low quality level, recommend the settings for optimal playback.

CDRLabs kicks off the New Year with a review of Samsung's 960 PRO SSD. First unveiled at the 2016 Samsung SSD Global Summit in Seoul, this cutting-edge NVMe SSD is powered by the company's new 5-core Polaris controller and is available with up to 2TB of their 48-layer V-NAND flash. Also, thanks to its PCIe Gen 3.0 x4 lane interface, the 960 PRO is capable of delivering up to 3,500 MB/s sequential read and 2,100 MB/s sequential write speeds.