Flexstar Buzz for September – November 2009

Build-Vs.-Buy In Manufacturing

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Tony Lavia, Flexstar Technology, President & CEO contributes to Manfacturing.net:

High tech manufacturers have always faced the build-versus-buy dilemma in procuring “tools”, defined as capital equipment systems for the purpose of design, development, or production (e.g. test equipment). This is a question well worth revisiting, as the wrong decision can undermine the bottom line in a subtle and insidious way -- especially in these hard economic times.

Conventional wisdom mandates that a modern company build only such tools that enhance ROI and build up their competitive advantage; all others should be outsourced. So why is it that (otherwise) level-headed companies ignore this principle? All too often, they carve out valuable engineering resources and assume unnecessary market risks, when a perfectly good and highly economical solution -- in terms of quality, features, and cost -- is ready and available for purchase.

Solid State Drives Make Headway As Technology Matures: Will They Replace The HDD?

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Tony Lavia, Flexstar Technology, President & CEO contributes to Product Design & Development:

Everyone has heard of Moore’s Law, but what about Grove’s Law: that a new technology must be at least ten times better than the existing one in order to displace it?  Are Solid State Drives (SSDs) on the way to becoming the next technology leap-ahead in the computer industry?

An SSD is a solid state storage device that employs the same interfaces and form factors as Hard Disk Drives (HDDs). The storage medium is non-volatile, utilizing integrated circuits in place of rotating magnetic or optical media.

The vast majority of today’s SSDs are based on Flash (specifically, NAND) chips, a microprocessor-based controller, and software that integrates these components into a peripheral storage system which mimics a HDD. Compared to a HDD it provides high access speed by eliminating mechanical movement such as head seeks and platter rotation.

Flexstar Spotlights Storage Testing at DISKCON

In keeping with IDEMA's DISKCON USA Storage Industry Conference 2009 theme of 'New Growth Through Innovation,' Flexstar Technology, the worldwide leading supplier of turnkey storage test systems for digital storage devices, will be on hand at the conference to provide new product demonstrations and offer insight into the role that testing plays in the storage industry.

Flexstar Spotlights Storage Testing at DISKCON

The storage landscape is rapidly evolving. The growing adoption of SSDs, economic drivers, advances in technology - all of these factors have contributed to Flexstar making the commitment to advance and evolve the storage testing processes to support industry trends. "Flexstar has been providing the storage industry with standardized, repeatable, turnkey testing solutions for close to 30 years," noted Anthony Lavia, Flexstar's president and CEO. "Maintaining our reputation as the testing experts has led us to keep on the cutting edge of technology, and we continually refresh and update our testers to keep up with industry requirements and ensure the long term reliability of drives."

download the press release of Flexstar Buzz for September - November 2009