Western Digital coughs up $645 million and acquires PCIe-based flash array developer Virident Systems as part of an effort to boost the enterprise flash capabilities of subsidiary HGST. 

Virident products include the FlashMAX II low-profile storage PCIe card, the FlashMAX Connect software suite and the vFAS operating system. 

"We have established a competitive position in the enterprise SSD space and with our recently announced acquisitions we are increasing our commitment to become an even more significant player in this high growth segment,” WD says. “Virident has a proven leadership team and a culture of innovation. Its combination of great people, leading products and advanced technology will enhance our increasingly strategic position in enterprise storage." Read more...

EMC updates the 2-year old VNX midrange storage product family with a hybrid flash-first lineup able to take advantage of multi-core processors for a "major" performance boost. 

The storage systems (VNX5200, VNX5400, VNX5600, VNX5800, VNX7600, VNX8000 and VNX-F) assume the customer already uses at least some flash storage, and accelerates virtual application and file performance by what EMC claims is up to 400% via MCx (multi-core optimisation) software. 

According to the company the new VNX reaches 1.1 million IOPS with a maximum bandwith capacity of 6PB, allowing it to run FAST caching software with increased granularity.  Read more...

In a bid to protect the HDD industry from the flash-based storage Western Digital, HGST, Seagate and Toshiba join forces in the Storage Products Association (SPA).  

"HDDs are a crucial technology for storing the ever expanding data that humans and our machines are generating," Coughlin Associates says. "HDDs combined with flash memory can provide users the speed they need while providing affordable mass storage. With continued development of advanced storage technology and storage architectures these amazing storage devices will provide a home for the world's accessible data and serve every type of content users for many years to come." Read more...

Samsung is quick to find applications for its recently announced 3D Vertical NAND (3D V-NAND)-- the company reveals an enterprise SSD carrying the technology at the Flash Memory Summit 2013. 

"By applying our 3D V-NAND Samsung is providing its global customers with high density and exceptional reliability, as well as an over 20% performance increase and an over 40% improvement in power consumption," the company says. "As we pioneer a new era of memory technology, we will continue to introduce differentiated green memory products and solutions for the server, mobile and PC markets to help reduce energy waste and to create greater shared value in the enterprise and for consumers." Read more...