Half a day after LSI announced plans to acquire SandForce for roughly $400 million, we’ve been able to make the rounds with industry contacts to more fully understand the implications of the deal. In the immediate term, there will be no changes, the deal should close in the first quarter of next year, and even

LSI Corporation (NYSE:LSI) has announced an agreement to purchase SandForce. Under the agreement LSI will pay roughly $322 million in cash and assume $48 million of unvested stock options and restricted shares held by SandForce employees. The acquisition obviously gives LSI an immediate competitive boost, especially with their WarpDrive PCIe SSDs (WarpDrive 2 Preview), which

SMART Modular Technologies released their SLC-equipped Xcel-200 SSD, boasting read and write speeds of 500MB/s and on-board capacitors to prevent data loss in the event of a power interruption. Offered in capacities ranging from 60 to 240GB, the Xcel-200 leverages enterprise features like AES-256 encryption and MIL-STD-810 certifications for its defense and aerospace markets.

ADATA Technology has released what they’re calling the "industry’s fastest" mSATA SSD, the XM13. The ADATA XM13 uses a SandForce processor and 25nm NAND to deliver read speeds of 280MB/s and writes of 260 MB/s over the SATA 3Gb/s interface. The SSDs will be available in 30GB and 60GB capacities and weighs in at just

CIARA, a high-end computer manufacturer, announced they will be integrating the OCZ RevoDrive 3 X2 into their S Line Workstations. The new KRONOS S800 and S900 will offer the full range of RevoDrive 3 X2 capacities ranging from 240 to 960GB, as well as a line as a slew of other high-performance options. This is

Storage Visions is a must hit precursor to CES for those interested in a variety of storage topics including hardware, software and data management. This year’s theme is "Heavy Storage for Thin Clients." The conference runs January 8th and 9th at The Riviera in Las Vegas, registration is open now with a $50 early bird

Earlier Mac Pro desktops only had SATA 2.0 (3.0Gbps), and for those looking to use a faster SSD solution it could be a performance limiter. OWC offers a PCI-e internal upgrade card to bring SATA 3.0 to these desktops.

Lite-On has announced three new optical drives including an external Blu-ray writer, an external slim Blu-ray reader, and an internal Blu-ray reader. Each drive supports newer 3D movies, as well as 2D to 3D conversion. All three drives are available now.

If we’ve learned anything after Western Digital and Seagate’s quarterly conference calls this week, it’s that the hard drive industry is going to be pretty "volatile," as both companies say – or layman’s terms, a cluster$%@* – over the next 6-9 months. Flooding in Thailand has caused severe issues for both companies, but WD’s heavy exposure to not only