Icy news: OCZ Signs Ingram Micro as Distributor

This is a Press Release edited by StorageNewsletter.com on Fri, January 6th, 2012

In UK

OCZ Technology Group, Inc. has signed a distribution agreement with Ingram Micro (UK), a division of Ingram Micro Inc., to increase the availability of OCZ's SSDs for business and enterprise clients.

A Fortune 100 company, Ingram Micro is a large wholesaler of technology products and supply chain management services and will expand the OCZ presence in the UK market.

"Ingram Micro is a recognized leader in the region for the distribution of premium storage solutions, and we are pleased to partner with Ingram to make our client and enterprise solid state storage products more available to customers throughout the region," said Richard Singh, CSO of OCZ Technology Group. "Ingram Micro's clients can now take advantage of the complete range of OCZ's best-of-breed SSD solutions which are designed to push the envelope in performance, reliability, and total cost of ownership."

"With the solid state drive market in steep growth, it is important to us that our portfolio of available product is meeting the needs of our SMB and Enterprise customers," said Mike Farrah, Commercial Director at Ingram Micro. "OCZ has a powerful focused offering, and we are pleased to take this opportunity to bring the products to a wide audience with immediate availability." sourcre to Storagenewsletter.com

Icy news: ANALYSIS: Storage Trends in 2012

By Jean-Jacques Maleval, Thu, January 5th, 2012

≠1: the impact of HDD prices

1Q12 to be a dramatic quarter
The amount of data continues to increase - about all storage predictions begin with this one since many years - but what's new is that the price to store them increases since few months and this trend will continue during the beginning of the year. As about all storage subsystems contains hard disk drives, the vendors have no choice but to increase the price of their configuration. For how long? Apparently, following the flood, the situation in Thailand improved but it's difficult to know when the HDD makers will begin to lower their prices, probably not before June 2012. It's probably the first time in the storage industry to see such a trend, price per gigabyte going up, and it will affect all the users from home to enterprise. The need for more capacity is there and they will probably wait for lower pricing before investing in new systems. Consequently, in this period of economic crisis and recession in Western countries, the first quarter of 2012 could be one of the worst one in the industry...Full news to Storagenewsletter.com

Icy news: External Portable HDD With Square Form Factor

Freecom Mobile Drive Sq, €179 for 1TB

Freecom, a Mitsubishi Kagaku Media company, unveiled theMobile Drive Sq, a mobile hard drive with a square form factor that is the first of its kind. 

"The Mobile Drive Sq is everything you would expect of a high-quality mobile hard drive," said Cas de Heus, marketing and communications manager EUMEA at Freecom. "From a practical point of view, it's fast, portable and easy to use - but when it comes to appearance, the Mobile Drive Sq really goes the extra mile. The stylish square enclosure looks stunning next to any notebook or computer, and is a timeless piece that is unlike any other mobile hard drive on the market."

Designed in collaboration with industrial designer Arman Emami, the Freecom Mobile Drive Sq is encased in a sandblasted stainless steel enclosure that makes it less susceptible to fingerprints and scratches. A surrounding plastic trim protects the drive against impact and the combination of a thin metal surface with a plastic core creates a compound that is sleek, durable and lightweight.

"With the Mobile Drive Sq, we've incorporated sensual, organic lines without losing the refreshing simplicity of a basic geometric form," said Arman Emami, founder of the Berlin design studioEmamidesign. "The result is a product that people will want to use wherever they go - it really exudes the high quality design that the market expects of Freecom."

Available in 500GB and 1TB storage capacities, the Mobile Drive Sq has an USB 3.0 connection that enables users to transfer data at speeds of approximately 130MB/s. The Mobile Drive Sq is powered by USB port, so users can plug it into any PC or Mac and drag and drop files to share data with friends, family and colleagues.

The compact Mobile Drive Sq measures 12 x 12 x 1.05/1.3 cm so it can be slipped into a bag and carried around with users wherever they go. The drive comes with Nero backup software for Windows, as well as an energy-saving 'Green Button' function that puts the drive into standby mode when not in use.

Pricing and availability
The Freecom Mobile Drive Sq is available in 500GB and 1TB capacities. Price is €119 and €179 respectively with a two-year warranty and unlimited helpdesk support with this product.  Source from Storagenewsletter.com

Icy news:OWC Mercury Aura Pro Express 6G 480GB SSD Released: Best Upgrade Gets Better

OWC announced today that their popular Mercury Aura Pro Express 6G SSD for the Apple MacBook Air will finally be offered in a 480GB capacity. Those who have read our review from last October might remember the only con listed for that drive was the lack of this very capacity, which at the time was only available for the older 3G model. In a sense, the best upgrade for the Apple MacBook Air just got better.

OWC Mercury Aura Pro Express 6G 480GB Specs

• Capacity - 480GB (OWCSSDAPE6G480)
• Formatted Capacity - 447GB
• Toshiba 3X-nm MLC NAND
• SandForce 2281 Series Processor with 7% Over Provisioning
• SATA 6Gb/s interface
• 511 MB/s read speeds, 448 MB/s write speeds
• 4K Read Up to 60,000 IOPS, Random 4K Write Up to 60,000 IOPS
• 3 Year OWC Warranty
• Power - Active Less than 3000mW (3.0W) expected maximum draw, Idle Power Less than 1200mW (1.2W)

The new 480GB Aura Pro Express 6G has a MSRP of $1,149 and is expected to start shipping January 21st.

News from Storagereview.com

Icy News: Sony PlayStation Vita (PS Vita) Features, Specifications & Pricing

After a huge success of the PlayStation Portable which was unveiled on May 11, 2004, Sony is now all set to release the next version of the handheld gaming console called PlayStation Vita (pronounced “vee-tah”, not “vy-tah”). After much rumour and speculation, the company finally announced the new PS, which was formerly code named NGP (Next Generation Portable) with some brilliant specs and features.

The Sony PlayStation Vita which was formerly unveiled at Sony’s E3 2011 press conference, aims to provide the most comprehensive portable gaming experience around. The new version of the handheld gaming console comes with two analog sticks, a 5-inch OLED multi-touch screen, supporting Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and optionally 3G. The PS Vita will also support social networking apps like the PS4, such as Facebook, Skype, Twitter, and foursquare, which will be available for download for free from the PlayStation store...Full news at TheTechLabs

Icy Comment: PS vita has released! Do you wait in line in front of the Sony Store in order to get it at first hand (like iPhone 4S)? I like this gadget 'coz lot of games I am interested in PS vita :-D I like the touch screen feature, it makes the games more funny and variable playing. If you get PS vita, please share with us!

Icy Dock: Top 100 Products of 2011

Reviewing 2011

The year has come and gone in the blink of an eye, and it has undeniably been a year filled with surprises and innovation that have created an impact in our lives. Consumers have begun to 'adopt' 3D as more 3D TVs are lining the store front, while we saw more compact interchangeable lens cameras (commonly referred asmirrorless cameras) from Sony, Panasonic, Nikon and many more landing on retail shelves. Also notable are the rising variety of advanced compact cameras closing the gap between the casual and enthusiast groups. Elsewhere, Apple's MacBook Air is no longer the king of slim notebooks with Ultrabooks paving the way for companies such as ASUS, Lenovo, Toshiba and many others to join in the limelight for the new standard of consumer notebooks.

2011 is also the year of the tablets, when Apple's iPad 2 was challenged by the likes of Google and its hardware partners with the launch of Android 3.2 Honeycomb. Unfortunately, the competition still paled in comparison, and Apple is still leading the race. While the yearly mobile OS update from Apple's iOS 5 and Microsoft's Windows Phone 7.5 highlighted the importance of cloud services with iCloud and Windows Live, Google is also stepping up with services such as Google Music and the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich update. The latter aims to unify the fragmented tablet and smartphone experience.

Smartphones, however, turned out quite differently. With dual-core processors making its way into devices such as the Samsung Galaxy S II, and added features such as Beats Audio on the HTC Sensation XE, the choices were aplenty for consumers. Mobile processors aren't the only ones making an impact, as Intel's Sandy Bridgelineup goes mainstream to makes its way onto a wide range of notebooks, as well as to the workstation and enthusiasts segment with the ubber expensive Intel Core i7-3960X Sandy Bridge-E processor. Even in connectivity standards, Intel, in collaboration with Apple, managed to debut its new serial data interface, Thunderbolt.

Phew, what a busy year! As we gear ourselves up for even more exciting times in 2012, let us honor the products (in no order of merit) that made all the above (and more) possible with the Top 100 Products of 2011...Full news at HWZ

Icy Dock: Happy New Year in 2012

Dear everybody,

We are in 2012, Happy New Year to all of you! I wish everyone's dream will be coming true, have a best time with family, friends and couples, good harvest at your job or schoolwork. Once again Happy New Year~~^^