Thermaltake is introducing their first mid-tower chassis with integrated single bay docking station on the case top for convenient easy-swap of 3.5″ and 2.5″ SATA drives. Users can handle data access and transfer on-the-go without the need to install their hard drives or having to add an external docking device.

Two USB 2.0 connectors as well as HD audio microphone and earphone jacks on the top of the front bezel put all major multimedia connectors right in your hand’s reach. The tool-free, all black Thermaltake V6 BlacX Edition offers a total of 8 drive bays for maximum storage expansion and 7 PCI expansion slots.

As characteristic for Thermaltake chassis, special attention had been paid to optimized ventilation and airflow. Therefore one 20 cm blue LED exhaust fan on top and another 12 cm exhaust TurboFan in the back warrant that heat dissipated by the CPU is immediately blown out of the case. Further airflow is created by 2 pre-drilled ventilation hole areas on the right side panel and the top of the case.

The feet elevate the V6 BlacX Edition high enough as to allow for improved ventilation of the bottom based ATX PSII power supply. To avoid outside dust to find its way into your power supply a removable and cleanable dust filter is positioned underneath, providing users with an easy way to keep it clean.

The V6 BlacX Edition mid-tower with integrated docking station on the top of the chassis is available for a suggested retail price of US$ 69.

Intended for the corporate market OCZ announces the Company’s plan to enter mass production of the Z-Drive R2 Solid State Drive (SSD) Series, the second rendition of the original Z-Drive family. The Z-Drive R2 builds on the existing solution but provides greater performance and design flexibility due to the implementation of a series of optimized NAND modules.

The innovative Z-Drive R2 SSD maximizes bandwidth by taking the SATA bottleneck out of the equation and utilizes the speed advantages of the PCI-Express interface. Unlike competing solutions, the Z-Drive family is bootable and with 8 PCI-E lanes and an eight-way RAID 0 configuration, the R2 delivers performance ideal for enterprise applications that are limited by HDD technology. What also makes the R2 especially exceptional is the use of interchangeable modules in the place of permanent, surface-mounted NAND; this unique feature-set is designed to make the Z-Drive field-serviceable and field-upgradeable.

Addressing the emerging performance demands of storage area networks (SANs), workstations, and servers, the Z-Drive R2 creates new possibilities in enterprise data management. The R2 delivers extremely fast transfer rates up to 1.4 GB/s, while offering enhanced reliability and durability compared to mechanical hard drives.

Promoting greater productivity for a broad range of applications spanning across virtualization, caching, and high-end storage, the Z-Drive R2 can also provide cost savings when considering the total cost of ownership (TCO) versus complex and hard to maintain HDD infrastructures. With capacities ranging from 256GB to 2TB, the R2 makes SSDs a viable alternative to large, power-consuming hard drive arrays. Furthermore, OCZ offers customization options for OEM clients that may require tailored hardware or firmware solutions for their business.

Woaah — behold the future. LSI has been working on a PCI Express interface SSD. This device has a bandwidth of 1,500MB/s sustained sequential I/O and 1,200MB/s sustained random I/O, regardless of the read/write mix. The company apparently is sampling this unit to OEMs as we speak.

The product will be tagged under SKU LSISSS6200 PCIe SSS (solid state storage) solution and is meant for enterprise servers, where fast data access is crucial. It has a low latency and uses few CPU resources, even while delivering up to 200,000 4K sequential I/Os per second (IOPS), as well as 150,000 4K random IOPS.

“Future customer requirements related to price, performance, power consumption and reliability align well with the benefits of solid-state storage,” Jeff Janukowicz, research manager, Hard Disk Drive Components and Solid State Drives at IDC, said. “PCIe-based SSS solutions, such as the LSISSS6200, can reliably meet next-generation data center needs with an improved price-to-performance ratio compared to traditional storage solutions.”

“The new LSISSS6200 card utilizes the industry’s most widely deployed software stack to deliver an enterprise-capable, drop-in storage solution,” Steve Fingerhut, senior director of marketing, Storage Components Division, LSI, explained. “Providing customers with a new tier of storage between system memory and low-cost disk drives, without sacrificing reliability or simplicity, PCIe-based SSS solutions represent the next evolution in storage architectures for market segments requiring extreme performance.”

There is no word on when the device will actually be released on the market and what it’s horrendous price will be. None the less this is killer stuff, great to see it developed.

Interesting — why stay tied to the limited SATA 2 port and not use PCIe 1x Runcore must have imagined.

Press-release: This new SSD design not only boosts your sustained performance but it also focuses on random small file read and write speeds, the speeds that create bottle necks in current and past PATA, SATA HDDs, and some SSDs. With operating system and applications consisting of thousands of small files, the RunCore Pro IV Light SSD can process these files at nearly 4 times the speed of a conventional spinning hard drive while creating a more efficient and satisfying user experience.

The RunCore Pro IV Light mini-SATA PCIe SSD is the ideal choice for the storage media of the ultra-mobile PC. With its small footprint and industry-standard design, the Mini-SATA PCIe SSD format is fit for embedded solid state storage because it allows for high capacity and high performance while ensuring compatibility in ultra-mobile PC’s.

* Key Features
* 80MB/s write and 125MB/s read speeds
* 4K random: 18MB/s read and 5 MB/s write speeds
* 32MB (16GB, 32GB) and 64MB (64GB) cache sizeSpeed increases in startup, application launch, multitasking between programs, opening/rendering/saving large files, and shutdown
* Silent operation
* Extended battery life
* Heat reduction
* Increased reliability and durability
* Compliant with SATA 2.6 protocol
* Easily install any major OS: Windows9X/Me/NT/XP/CE/Vista/Windows7, MAC, Linux and Unix.

All RunCore Pro IV SSD offers upgrading made easy with our simple 3 Step Do-It-Yourself upgrade package give you all the tools you need and simplifies the process where even novice computer users can easily complete.

1. Plug the RunCore SSD drive into an available USB port.
2. Run the included cloning software.
3. Install the SSD and enjoy.

For more information please visit www.Runcore.com

HighPoint has introduced two Serial ATA 6Gbps PCI Express 2.0 cards, the Rocket 620 and Rocket 622. Both cards will start shipping soon.

HighPoint Technologies – an industry pioneer of innovative SATA and SAS RAID host adapter manufacturing, today unleashes the Rocket 600 series – the industry’s first SATA 6Gb/s host adapter based on PCI-Express 2.0 technology. The Rocket 600 series delivers the next generation of SATA performance with robust SATA connectivity and will be available at the beginning of November 2009.

The Rocket 600 series brings a new level of cost effective pricing and will help drive mass adoption to the next generation of SATA 6Gb/s technology. They are fully industry standard AHCI (Advanced Host Controller Interface) compliant and deliver Out-of-Box Ready installation for the majority of operating systems. The Rocket 600 series are backward compatible to PCI-Express 1.0 technology and (SATA 3Gb/s & 1.5Gb/s) devices. They use the same cable and connectors as previous SATA generations to ease integration.

Pricing and Availability: The MSRP for the Rocket 620 Series is $69.99 and the Rocket 622 $79.99 and will be available at end of October 2009. All HighPoint RocketRAID products are available through channel distribution partners (Bell Micro, D and H, MaLabs and ASI).

HIS today unveils its HD 4890 iCooler x4 1GB (256bit) GDDR5 PCIe, the best performance 4890 GPU combined with the high performance dual slot iCooler x4. It delivers great in-game performance on a single GPU HIS graphics accelerator.

iCooler x4 features a high performance dual slot cooler. It comes with four 6mm copper heatpipes that transfer heat effectively from the GPU to the internal fins around.

Unfortunately the clock frequencies were left alone as the card is clocked at 850 MHz on the core and has a memory clock 3.9Gbps / MHz. Pricing remains TBA.

We all know that SSDs are the next generation of storage solution for the computer, but so far the hard drive is still holding out strong mainly because of the cost-per-GB issue.

As technology advances and narrows the gap between hard drives and SSDs where cost-efficiency is concerned, perhaps SSDs of the future like the 1TB PhotoFast G-Monster PCIe will become more commonplace, capable of hitting pehnomenal read and write speeds of 750MB/s and 700MB/s, respectively. Imagine transferring full HD videos in just seconds! No word on pricing, but we’re looking at “expensive” when it launches this April. Those with a smaller budget can also opt for the 256GB and 512GB models.

Have a look at their PDF spec sheet here.

Although the current CeBit 2009 reports 25 percent less exhibitors and an about 20 percent smaller floor space, there are some interesting things going on. Just have a look at the “P6T7 WS Supercomputer” motherboard from Asus, for example:

Besides supporting the new Core i7 processors from Intel, this X58 motherboard features seven PCIe 2.0 x16 slots. While three of these are “only” running at x8, the other four slots support full x16. Whether this makes sense or not is questionable, of course. Other specifications include: six Dimm slots for up to 24 GB of DDR3 RAM, six SATA 150/300 ports (supporting SATA RAID 0, 1, 10, 5), two SAS ports (supporting SAS RAID 0, 1, 10), two eSATA 150/300 ports (supporting SATA RAID 0, 1, 10, 5) and two Gigabit-Ethernet-Ports.