Samsung introduced a new lineup of SATA II drives in 1.8" and 2.5" form-factors. Samsung's new drives promise sequential write speeds of 100MB/sec and sequential reads of 120MB/sec.

Today, it's Micron's turn to shine with its RealSSD solid-state drives. Micron says that its new drives will be available in both 1.8" and 2.5" form-factors and will have a native-SATA II interface -- no SATA bridge chip will be needed for the drives.

Unfortunately, Micron made no mention of the performance figures for its RealSSDs. Most manufacturers like to throw out read/write speeds for their SSDs – often times, before mass production even begins -- but Micron's hesitance to release performance figures could indicate that they aren't quite up to par with solutions from Samsung, SanDisk, Adtron and Mtron.

"SSDs are becoming the new storage medium, fundamentally altering the way data is stored," said Micron VP Dean Klein. "The storage market is ripe for innovation, and it’s an opportunity Micron is embracing given our expertise in NAND. We know how to manage NAND flash to work best with controllers, allowing us to develop an optimized SSD solution for every application."

Micron's RealSSD lineup will be available in both 32GB and 64GB varieties. The drives are currently sampling and production-spec hardware should be available during the first quarter of 2008.

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Dell is ushering a new generation of workstations today based around Intel's new 45 nanometer Xeon processors. The new Precision T5400 and T7400 aim to continue Dell's eight-year-long winning streak with its Precision family.

All configurations of the T5400 and T7400 will come equipped with quad-core 5200 and 5400 series Xeon processors. The fastest configurations will feature a 3.2GHz processor running on a 1600MHz front-side bus.

Beginning in January, Dell will also make available dual-core configurations for customers that don't take advantage of highly multi-threaded applications and instead rely on raw speed. For those customers, high-end dual core solutions will be offered in speeds up to 3.4GHz.

The new Precision workstations feature dual-processor sockets and dual PCI Express 2.0 x16 graphics slots for high-powered graphics solutions. The T5400 offers up to a 1333MHz FSB while the T7400 ups the ante to 1600MHz.

In addition, the T7400 will also be available with 16 memory slots at a later date. The 16 memory slots coupled with 8GB DIMMs -- which Dell is currently working with memory manufacturers to develop and release -- will give the T7400 a maximum memory capacity of 128GB.

"Workstation customers rely on specialized applications and demand maximum performance from their systems," said Dell Precision workstation worldwide marketing director Antonio Julio. "These systems have some of the fastest Intel processors, high-end OpenGL graphics and massive scalability and memory capacities."

Dell is fully committed to energy efficiency with its new T5400 and T7400 and thus has given both power supplies which are 80 percent efficient. Likewise, both models also qualify for the Environmental Protection Agency’s Energy Star Standard 4.0 certification.

Customers that are looking for quieter machines will also be glad to hear that Dell has reduced noise levels on the two workstations by 33 percent. Dell achieved this feat by using larger, slower-moving cooling fans and by rearranging critical components to aide in air flow management.

The new Precision T5400 and T7400 are available to order now from Dell at a price of $1,589 and $1,839 respectively. Systems will begin shipping later this week.


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