Icy dock: MB082SP EZ-FIT PRO DUAL 2.5" to 3.5" Hard drive & SSD Bracket

Feature:

* EZ-Lock mechanism for tool-less drive installation * Heavy Duty Full metal construction with matte black finish * Fits 2 x 2.5" SSD/HDD into one 3.5" device bay * Compatible with SSD or hard drives up to 9.5mm height * Anti-Vibration design for improved reliability * Universally designed screw placement for maximum compatibility

Compatible Drive Type:

2.5" IDE Hard Drive 2.5" SATA Hard Drive 2.5" SATA Solid State Drive 2.5" IDE Solid State Drive Fits any 9.5mm height drive More inormation needed please contact roy@cremax.com.tw

Icy games: Uncharted: Golden Abyss Review: Drake's triumphant outing is Vita's best launch game Review Drake returns for a little big adventure

So there are two ways to look at Uncharted: Golden Abyss. You could see it as the one Naughty Dog isn't making, with the absence of the series' regular developer signalling the cynical exploitation of the Uncharted franchise, a lack of top-level investment in PS Vita, and the end of Western civilisation as we know it. That's a valid view - Nintendo brings its big boys out to play on 3DS. Why aren't Sony's A-team getting involved?

The other way to look at it is as the one that still stars Nolan North as Nathan Drake, the presence of the game's charismatic star highlighting the fact that the groundbreaking production practices initiated by Naughty Dog are still in place, that the game is as character and story-focused as ever. And you're still in for a hell of a ride...full review to computerandvideogames.com

Icy games: Darksiders 2 release date confirmed THQ also announces a range of pre-order bonuses

THQ has confirmed that Darksiders 2 will be out on Xbox 360 and PS3 on June 29 in UK.

The publisher also today confirmed a US release date of June 26 via its Twitter feed.

UK gamers who pre-order the game at GameStation or GAME (and GameStop in Ireland), are in for an extra treat - the 'Death Rides' pack. This free DLC gives you additional side-quests which let you "explore more of theMaker's Realm and Dead Plains and earn additional experience and loot. Aid an ancient Construct, battle The Bloodless and retrieve Karn's lost treasure in around two hours of unique game play content."

Amazon UK pre-orders get the 'Deadly Despair' pack. THQ explains: "This unique pre-order offer adds an additional speed boost for Death's trusty steed Despair, allowing players to travel across the vast world even faster than before. This perk is a permanent increase that will last throughout the game."

The 'Angel of Death' pack will also be available via a retailer that's yet to be decided. This one will give you a "unique set of enhanced armour with an angel inspired design as well as a pair of upgraded matching scythes and a exclusive visual trail for your companion crow Dust."

"Darksiders: The Abomination Vault", a new novel set a millennia before the events of the first game, will be released on the same day as Darksiders 2, THQ recently confirmed.

Source from computerandvideogames.com

Another cool game will release this year!! Just heard that THQ close Japan branch due to Fiancial problems, just hope THQ can overcome this difficulty!

Icy games: The 25 best PC games of 2012 Looks like it will be a vintage year for PC owners...

PC gamers: it's time to brace yourself for what promises to be a rollercoaster ride in 2012. This year's roster of PC games is going to be simply monstrous in terms of both quality and quantity.

So you might want to invest in a new graphics card, and splash out on that flash gaming keyboard/mouse combo you've had your eye on. And perhaps have a word with your bank manager: 20-odd must-buys adds up to a pretty penny. These, then, are the upcoming PC games we're most stoked about - arranged in alphabetical order to avoid any suspicion of favouritism.

1. Alan Wake

Not before time, Remedy's third-person action-adventure, studded with plot-twists, surreal episodes and a heavy dose of horror is endowed with an agreeably intelligent storyline that would grace a best-selling psychological thriller. Thanks to Nordic Games, which picked up the PC game's publishing rights, its stunning Pacific Northwest landscapes will be lusher than ever, with the graphics cranked up to the max now that it has been unleashed on PC freed from the constraints of the consoles. It may not be all-new, but PC Alan Wake oozes quality... full review to computerandvideogames.com

Did your favorable games in this list of 2012? I think most gamers are waiting for Diablo 3 released this year...Because I am also looking forward to this game! How about your idea?

Icy news: OCZ Octane 1.13 Firmware Update: Improving 4KB Random Write Performance

The one thing that OCZ has been missing for so many years is finally one of its staples: focus. The same company that dabbled in everything from brain mice to DIY notebooks is now almost exclusively an SSD company that peddles power supplies on the side. OCZ's penchant for aggressively trying new things hasn't faded away however. As an SSD maker, OCZ is currently or will in the near future, be shipping drives based on controllers from three different vendors - each with their own strengths. OCZ's relationship with SandForce continues and the Vertex 3remains OCZ's highest performing offering. A recent partnership with Marvell gives OCZ early experience with native PCIe based SSDs, experience that is extremely important as the industry marches towards a new PCIe based interface standard for SSDs (SATA Express). Finally there's OCZ's own controller, theIndilinx Everest, which it is quickly building momentum behind. It's obviously in OCZ's best interests to have its own controllers in the bulk of the drives it makes, but one doesn't simply build a better controller than everyone else on the first try...full review to Anand Tech

Icy news: LaCie 2big Thunderbolt Series Now Available

LaCie showcased their 2big Thunderbolt drive at CES 2012 and it has now started shipping. 

Specifications of LaCie 2big Thunderbolt Series
Capacities	4TB and 6TB (and 8TB)
Revolutions per minute (rpm)	7200rpm
Maximum Read Speed	327MB/s
Maximum Write Speed	320MB/s
Connectivity	2x Thunderbolt
Dimensions (WxHxD)	3.5" x 6.7" x 7.8" (9.1 x 17.2 x 20.0 cm)
Price	$649 (4TB) and $799 (6TB)

The LaCie 2big Thunderbolt Series is essentially the LaCie Little Big Disk in 3.5" form factor. It has two swappable 3.5" drives whereas the Little Big Disk has two 2.5" drives. 3.5" drives offer larger capacities and better performance, particularly with hard drive. The 2big is rated at transfer speeds up to 327MB/s while the Little Big Disk tops out at 190MB/s (both results are for the non-SSD versions). LaCie has an 8TB model on their site as well but there is no price listed, which suggests that it's not shipping yet.

There are also two Thunderbolt ports for daisy-chaining, so you can daisy-chain several 2bigs or other Thunderbolt devices. The 2big most likely uses the same SATA controller as the Little Big Disk, which means you are limited to two SATA 3Gb/s ports. For the standard configuration this isn't an issue, but people who are interested in swapping the hard drives for SSDs should be aware that the SATA controller will be a potential bottleneck with the fastest SATA 6Gb/s SSDs.  Source from Anand Tech

Icy News: Hitachi Ultrastar SSD400M Enterprise SSD Review

The Ultrastar SSD400M is Hitachi's effort to provide a serious contender in the burgeoning eMLC enterprise SSD space. The SSD400M offers all the pedigree that enterprise buyers could want, including not just Hitachi's longstanding leadership in the storage industry, but Intel's as well. The SSD400M leverages Intel's highest quality 25nm eMLC NAND and SSD processor technology, combined with Hitachi/Intel jointly engineered firmware. The resulting SSD400M carries Hitachi's brand name but is the result of a strong co-development effort. 

Hitachi offers the 2.5" Ultrastar SSD400M with a 6.0Gb/s SAS interface and delivers throughput of up to 495 MB/s read, 385 MB/s write, 56,000 random 4K read IOPS and 24,000 random 4K write IOPS. In the enterprise though, it's not just about speed with SSDs, there's a larger total cost of ownership measurement at play too. Hitachi quotes 8,360 IOPS/watt, for those factoring in power consumption in their storage buying decision. 

The SSD400M isn't just about performance though, Hitachi's engineering and qualification leads to an SSD that supremely reliable, with just a .44% annualized failure rate (2 million hour MTBF). From an endurance perspective the drive offers writes up to 7.3PB (400GB capacity), equivalent to 4TB of writers per day for five years, and unlimited reads. Other highlights include the T10 Data Integrity Field (DIF) standard, extended error correction code (ECC), Exclusive-OR (XOR) parity to protect against flash die failure, parity-checked internal data paths without an external write cache, and a power loss data management feature that does not require super-capacitors.

Hitachi offers the SSD400M in 200GB and 400GB capacities with optional TCG self-encryption and are backed by a five year warranty...full review to storagereview.com

Icy News: HP P4900 SSD Storage System Announced

HP has announced the P4900 SSD G2 6.4-TB SSD Storage System, an all-solid state drive array, at its Global Partner Conference. HP’s new Storage System is a part of the company's LeftHand Network P4000 family.The P4900 uses SAN/iQ 9.5 software to monitor the health of the SSD called the HP SMARTSSD Wear Gauge. It has been integrated into the P4000 management console, which gives IT administrators the ability to see how much more remaining life an SSD has as well as alerts that predict drive outages and failures.

All-flash arrays are useful in virtual desktop and online transaction processing (OLTP) database environments because they allow millions of I/O per second to avoid boot storms. It also provides fast access to data allowing organizations to make decisions more efficiently.

The P4900 is available in two configurations: a two-node bundle of SSDs with a 6.4-TB storage capacity, and a one-node expansion with a 3.2-TB storage capacity. The new storage system uses 400GB multi-level cell SSDs with a serial attached SCSI interface, has 12GB of RAM, and uses hot-swappable power supplies. Additionally, the P4900 has four RAID controllers with 2,048 MB of battery-backed cache, which connects to the network with four 10GbE or 1GbE network ports. The P4900 supports RAID 5, 6, and 10.

With the addition of a P4000 G2 unified NAS gateway, the P4900 can support a common internet file system and network file system traffic. The 6.4TB P4900 is available for $199,000 and the expansion unit is priced at $105,000.

Full HP P4900 Specs:

• Drive Description - (8) SFF SSD Supported
• Drive Type - (8) 400 GB MLC SAS Solid State Drive
• Capacity - 3.2TB Starting, 102.4TB Maximum
• Storage Expansion Options - Use storage clustering capability and add the same P4900 G2 node into the SAN.
• Host Interface - 10 GbE (2) Ports, 1 GbE iSCSI (2) Ports
• Supported Operating Systems
  • Apple OS X
  • Citrix XenServer
  • HP-UX
  • IBM AIX
  • Microsoft Windows 2003
  • Microsoft Windows 2008
  • Novell NetWare
  • Oracle Enterprise Linux
  • Red Hat Linux
  • Oracle Solaris
  • SUSE Linux
  • VMware
  • All major operating systems and hyper visors are supported. 
• Clustering Support - Hyper-redundant clustered storage
• Availability
  • Redundant, hot plug power supplies
  • redundant fans
  • redundant, hot plug hard drives, integrated storage controller with battery-backed DDR2 cache
  • disk RAID 5
  • hyper-redundant clustered storage: Network RAID levels (per volume) 0,5,6,10,10+1, and 10+2 for up to four copies of your data allows data to remain available in the event of a disk, controller, storage node, power, network, or site failure.
• Thin Provisioning Support
• SAN/iQ Thin Provisioning
• Snapshot Support
• SAN/iQ Application Integrated Snapshots
• Replication Support
• SAN/iQ Remote Copy Asynchronous Replication with Bandwidth Throttling
• Multi-Site/Disaster Recovery Solution Pack with SAN/iQ Synchronous Replication
• Smart Clone
• SAN/iQ SmartClone
• Management
• Centralized Management Console, HP ProLiant Integrated Lights-Out 2 Remote Management, Baseboard Mgmt Controller IPMI 2.0   Source from storagereview.com

The 3.5" HDD shortage starts recovering slowly, the price may not go back to pre-flood phase soon. Even though 2.5" probably rise its price but still lower than SSD's. Through new technology of SSD and provide a cost-effective prices for people and enterprise, SSD gets the good opportunity to develop the market from this year. Just read the news of HP developing customerized SSD storage, HP is focus on the market of SSD! How do you imagine SSD market for following year?

Icy games: The Darkness 2 Review

During the six hours it takes to complete The Darkness II you rip men in half, pop off their heads like a child pulling the lid off a felt-tip, slash off their legs, rip their spines from their bodies, and tear out their hearts as they watch. And these are the tame executions. (There's one horrifying kill called 'Assecution' where your tentacles enter a man through his... look, it's one of the most disgusting things. Ever.)

And that's The Darkness II's thing. Violence. It revels in vicious, virtual gore like no other shooter of this console generation. The once-moody, character-led shooter Starbreeze created has gone to a new developer (the aptly named Digital Extremes) and been transformed into a stylish bloodbath. However, that's no bad thing. Although this sequel definitely lacks the nuanced storytelling of its predecessor, it swaps the gentle moments of the first game for relentless horror and grizzly action...Full review to computerandvideogames.com

Icy Dock: The 15 finest dungeon games

2011 may have been a dire year for everything else, but it was a corking one for dungeons. What better place to escape the woes of economic meltdown than somewhere dank, dark, foetid and virtual, populated by rats, bats, giant spiders, reanimated skeletons and copious demons, and studded with treasure chests? For dungeon-divers, it was a vintage year.

So, we thought it would be fun to share with you our favourite games for dungeon-trawling, starting with the most recent ones before working our way back through the annals of dungeon history.

1. Dark Souls

From Software's fearsomely hard opus, with its refusal to compromise in any manner whatsoever, has rightly been hailed as one of the finest RPGs ever. And more or less the whole game is one big dungeon - it begins with your character locked in a cell, and every building in the game is made from moss-encrusted, dripping grey virtual stone. If you're looking for the definition of a proper RPG, Dark Souls is it - any true aficionado of dungeons will tell you that. And that, when you're playing it, you die roughly as many times as in every game you've ever played before, all added together. Possibly the most enjoyable game ever - if you're a major-league masochist.

2. Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

It's hard to think of a meatier or more epic game than Skyrim, and with more than 150 dungeons in the game, Bethesda was really spoiling us. They weren't just generic, either, plonked down to break the monotony of traversing lush, fertile countryside and meticulously designed towns. Oh no: the vast majority of them had keenly observed storylines, and offered sufficient rewards for us to become obsessed with visiting them all. Indeed, given Skyrim's overarching scope, you could probably spend an entire virtual lifetime checking them all out.

3. Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

Shigeru Miyamoto's latest opus may have only arrived in time for the Wii's death-throes, but by crikey, it was a mighty fine game. And most of the different areas of its game world had at least one dungeon to traverse. In true Zelda style, doing so mainly involved some wildly inventive puzzle-solving, coupled with taking out a vast array of enemies. But above all, mini-bosses and big bosses which really took some dispatching. Ambience-wise, Skyward Sword's dungeons may not be the most forbidding ones you'll come across. But take it from us: they're great fun to tramp around, and are deeply memorable...Full news to computerandvideogames.com

Icy News: A Look at Enterprise Performance of Intel SSDs

Case Study: SSDs in AnandTech's Server Environment

For the majority of the history of AnandTech we've hosted our own server infrastructure. A benefit of running our own infrastructure is that we're able to gain a lot of hands on experience with enterprise environments that we'd otherwise have to report on from a distance.

When I first started covering SSDs four years ago I became obsessed with the idea of migrating nearly every system over to something SSD based. The first to make the switch were our CPU testbeds. Moving away from mechanical drives ensured better benchmark consistency between runs as any variation in IO load was easily absorbed by the tremendous amount of headroom that an SSD offered. The holy grail of course was migrating all of the AnandTech servers over to SSDs. Over the years our servers seem to die in the following order: hard drives, power supplies, motherboards. We tend to stay on a hardware platform until the systems start showing the signs of their age (e.g. motherboards start dying), but that's usually long enough that we encounter an annoying number of hard drive failures. A well validated SSD should have a predictable failure rate, making it an ideal candidate for an enterprise environment where downtime is quite costly and in the case of a small business, very annoying...Full review to Anand Tech

Icy News: Intel SSD 520 Review: Cherryville Brings Reliability to SandForce

Intel was rumored to be working on a SandForce based drive for several months now, but even the rumors couldn't encapsulate just how long Intel and SF has worked on this drive. According to Intel, the relationship began 1.5 years ago. Still lacking a 6Gbps controller of their own and wanting to remain competitive with the rest of the market, Intel approached SandForce about building a drive based on the (at the time) unreleased SF-2281 controller. Roughly six months later, initial testing and validation began on the drive. That's right, around the time that OCZ was previewing the first Vertex 3 Pro, Intel was just beginning its extensive validation process.

Codenamed Cherryville, Intel's SSD 520 would go through a full year of validation before Intel would sign off on the drive for release. In fact, it was some unresolved issues that cropped up during Intel's validation that pushed Cherryville back from the late 2011 release to today...Full reviews at Anand Tech

Icy Dock review: MB994SP-4S

Just about two months ago, we have completed a review of Icy Dock MB662USEB-2S; an incredible dual-bay FireWire 400/800 eSATA & USB Raid 3.5" HDD enclosure and today we are going to bring you another existing product from Icy Dock; MB994SP-4S. Icy Dock MB994SP-4S is not an external HDD enclosure but an internal multi-bay HDD RAID cage; able to support up to four 2.5" SATA/SSD/SAS HDDs.

ICY DOCK is a privately held company with more than 10 years being devoted in design, manufacturing, branding and distribution of Storage enclosure peripherals. By keep improving its own new product release process from previous toil experiences, ICY DOCK has formed a standard yet efficient new product development procedures to satisfy timely requirement from the market.

As one of the leading peripheral enclosure solution provider, we will continue to commit ourselves in supplying our customers the best performance per dollar products. "Your demand is our command" is the key to ensure our success in the business world.

Features

* Fits 4 x 2.5" SATA I / II / III and SAS HDD/SSD.
* Accommodates Drives with up to 15mm Height.
* Fits 4 Drives into a Single 5.25" Device Bay.
* Status LED on Front for Each Drive.
* Full Metal EZ Slide Mini Tray System with Full Cage Design.
* Small Form Factor Perfect for IPC, Servers, and Small Form Factor Cases.
* Front, Rear, Top, and Bottom Ventilation Slots.
* Dual 40mm Fans with Active Power Technology.
* Heavy Duty Full Metal Construction.
* Support SATA 6Gbps.
* Top Cover for the Tray Adds Extra Drive Protection...  Full review to Hareware Bistro

ICY COMMENT: MB994SP-4S is 2.5" HDD/SSD/SAS for 4 bay enclosure in a 5.25" space, the size is efficiently save your PC case space and enlarge the capacity of your computer. Just no hesitate and contact our distributors right now to upgrade your computer!!

Icy News: Transcend SSD720 SATA 6.0Gb/s SSD Announced

Transcend Information has announced the launch of its new, next generation SSD720 SATA III 6GB/s SSD. The SSD720 delivers significantly improved performance over standard rotating hard drives and its focus on productivity-enhancement is the ideal solution for demanding system applications, such as specialized multimedia computing and serious gaming.

Combined with a powerful SandForce-Driven controller and the latest SATA III 6Gb/s specification, the SSD720 offers speedy transfer rates of up to 550MB/s read and 500MB/s write, taking only 15 seconds to transfer a 5GB DVD. This enables faster system boot up, application launch speed, data transfers, and overall system responsiveness. Additionally, support for Native Command Queuing (NCQ) increases the performance and efficiency of the SSD720 by optimizing the order that received read and write commands are executed.

The SSD720’s design features a durable yet lightweight metal outer case and has a slim thickness of just 7mm, catering to the size limitations of today's modern Ultrabooks, notebooks, and other thin and light form factor devices. Despite its size, the 7mm SSD720 uses the same SATA connector used on a 2.5'' HDD and is backwards compatible with SATA II/I (3Gbps/1.5Gbps) interface. The SSD is also built with reliable NAND flash memory with no moving parts and provides resistance from shock and vibration, all the while offering low power consumption and cool, silent operation to resulting in increased efficiency and longer battery runtime.

For Windows 7 users, the SSD720 fully supports the TRIM command, which automatically, and permanently, removes deleted data, helping to maintain optimum write speeds and prevent long-term SSD wear. For other operating systems that do not support the TRIM command, the SSD720 uses an intelligent garbage collection algorithm to manage advanced free space.  Built-in wear-levelling and Error Correction Code (ECC) help ensure reliable data transfer to further increase the lifespan of the SSD720. In addition, it fully supports the S.M.A.R.T. command, which helps detect possible hard drive failures before they occur.

Transcend's SSD720 is now available and is priced at US$149 for the 64GB model and US$249 for the 256GB model. It is also back by a standard three-year warranty. Source from StorageReview.com 

Icy News: Seagate GoFlex Thunderbolt Adapter Now Available

A few weeks ago at CES 2012, Seagate showcased their GoFlex Thunderbolt adapters. They come in two flavors: the GoFlex Desk Thunderbolt adapter takes 3.5" drives, requires an external power supply, and has two Thunderbolt ports; the GoFlex Thunderbolt adapter is suitable for 2.5" drives, is bus-powered, and has a single Thunderbolt port (i.e. no daisy-chaining).

The GoFlex Desk adapter won't be available until later this month, but Seagate has now updated theiraccessory page and started shipping the 2.5" GoFlex adapter. It's available from Seagate's online store for $100 (no cable included, so that's another $50), which is quite a lot more than a $15 USB 3.0 enclosure, but at least this is better pricing than the LaCie and Promise solutions we have seen so far. Unfortunately, you are still limited to using Seagate's GoFlex drives, but fortunately they are reasonably priced. By way of comparison, a solution using the GoFlex TB adapter and 1TB GoFlex external would cost around $230, whereas LaCie charges $400 for a similar setup.

UPDATE: It appears that a GoFlex drive is not needed and any 2.5" SATA drive should work.

MacWorld has already received a review unit and run a few basic tests. As you might have expected, Thunderbolt is noticeably faster than USB 2.0 but not much faster than FireWire 800. In terms of raw numbers, USB 2.0 had a maximum throughput of 33.7MB/s while FireWire and Thunderbolt had 70.3MB/s and 81.3MB/s respectively. Obviously, the 500GB 2.5" 5400rpm drive is the bottleneck here—the gap would be a lot bigger with a 3.5" hard drive, or better yet, an SSD.

To be honest, the GoFlex Thunderbolt adapter isn't really worth it unless you plan on using an SSD, which requires you to open the GoFlex enclosure and change the hard drive to an SSD, which is not supported by Seagate and may void your warranty. In the case of regular 2.5" hard drives, you're better off with the GoFlex FireWire 800 adapter ($50 from Seagate's online store and no $50 cable required), assuming you have a Mac with FireWire 800—otherwise USB 2.0 should be sufficient as well. For those not using Mac hardware, Thunderbolt may have more bandwidth, but right now USB 3.0 is a far more economical solution. Source from Anand Tech

Icy News: Apple Updates Final Cut Pro X, Brings Back Features from Final Cut Pro 7

Apple has today issued an update for their professional video editing suite, Final Cut Pro X (FCPX). The update carries version number 10.0.3 and re-introduces some crucial elements, such as multicam editing. Multicam filming is widely used by video professionals as many scenes require multiple video angles, and it's obvious that you also need editing software that supports multicam editing in order to achieve the best outcome. Other new features include advanced chroma keying that allows color, edge and light adjustments; media relink that allows content to be modified with third party software and then be relinked to your project; import Photoshop graphics; and broadcast monitoring that allows video to be output to an external monitor using PCIe or Thunderbolt devices...Full news at Anand Tech

Icy News: NZXT Switch 810: When Too Much Isn't Enough

Introducing the NZXT Switch 810

NZXT recently released the Switch 810, a new high-end full tower model they proudly had on display at CES at the same time they were seeding samples to reviewers. It's a looker to be sure, but NZXT's engineers also played a lot with the insides of the enclosure, and what they've put together is a chassis with a remarkable number of uncommon features designed to appeal to enthusiasts who want to maximize both the utility of their machines along with the control they have over that utility. It looks great on paper and great on display, but how does it work in practice...Full review at Anand Tech

Icy Dock: MB974SP-B SATA 3 version released now!!

More information go to MB974 link: http://www.cremax.com.tw/eng/goods.php?id=93