In addition to the DVRP-U8H DVD writer, Japanese company I-O Data also announced the HDPD-AUT line of shock-resistant drive enclosures. In addition to shock-absorbing material, the enclosure also features active shock-resistance. It packs a 3-axis G-sensor that can detect a drop in progress, and quickly park the drive, if it's running. HDD parking minimizes the risk of head contact with the platters, which permanently damages the drive.

Internally, the enclosures feature polyurethane thermoplastic elastomer membranes lining the inner sides, and a polycarbonate body that can dissipate shock. The HDPD-AUT can enclose 2.5-inch SATA 6 Gb/s HDDs and SSDs with 9 mm thickness, connecting them to host machines over USB 3.0, with a single cable handling both power and connectivity. Measuring 84 x 120 x 19 (WxDxH), it weighs about 180 g. The enclosures will be sold dry (no enclosed drive), or with 500 GB and 1 TB HDDs, and in two color options, black and silver.

German peripherals maker Fantec rolled out the MWiD25, a 2.5-inch SATA drive enclosure (strictly speaking, a NAS). The enclosure connects to standalone hosts over USB 3.0, but can also connect to multiple devices (PCs, smartphones, tablets) over 802.11 b/g/n WLAN and 10/100 Ethernet. The enclosure packs a 3,000 mAh battery which can keep it running for hours on a full-charge. It can enclose HDDs and SSDs up to 9 mm-thick. The company posted apps for Android and iOS that speeds up the process of connecting to it, in addition to backup, sync, and a file-manager. Measuring 80 x 128 x 25 mm, the enclosure is sold either empty, or with HDDs pre-installed. Capacities offered are 320 GB, 500 GB, 750 GB, and 1 TB.

HGST (formerly Hitachi Global Storage Technologies and now a Western Digital company) today announced that it's shipping the industry's first 1 TB, 9.5 mm, 2.5-inch, 7,200 RPM hard disk drive (HDD). The new Travelstar HDD is available in the HGST Hard Drive Retail Kit as well as in the award-winning Touro Mobile Pro USB 3.0 external storage solution for simple add-on storage and backup.

HGST Hard Drive Retail Kit
The new Travelstar 1 TB, 2.5-inch 7,200 RPM hard drive is ideally suited for upgrading notebooks, game consoles, and other high-capacity, high-performance personal storage products. This standard 9.5 mm drive leverages Advanced Format, which increases the physical sector size from 512 bytes to 4,096 (4K) bytes to improve drive capacities and error correction capabilities. With 7,200 RPM performance, 32 MB cache buffer and a 6 Gb/SATA interface, the drive delivers the highest 7,200 RPM mobile HDD performance in PCMark Vantage benchmark testing, which results in faster downloads and better application performance than 7,200 and 5,400 RPM 2.5-inch HDDs.

The Storage Products Business Unit of Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc., a committed technology leader, announces new enterprise-grade SATA SSD models supporting cryptographic-erase and self-encrypting drive (SED) models, one an enterprise SAS solid state drive (eSSD) and the other a mobile SATA hard disk drive (HDD). Collectively, these four new 2.5-inch storage device models provide both IT system and PC system administrators with more effective tools to help secure sensitive business information.

For the enterprise, the PX02AMU value line of SATA eSSD models and PX03ANU read-intensive line of SATA SSD models feature cryptographic-erase. In addition, the PX02SMQ/U series offers Trusted Computing Group (TCG) enterprise protocol self-encryption and cryptographic-erase support in high-performance eSSD SAS models.

RAIDMAX today announces the VAMPIRE, a full tower case with all the features a PC building enthusiast could want: tool-free design, convenient top I/O panel, zero-clutter cable management, water cooling support, and SSD hot swap functionality. Supporting motherboard form factors up to XL-ATX, the VAMPIRE is an ideal chassis for those looking for a spacious no hassle-case.

To minimize installation, upgrade and maintenance stress the VAMPIRE has several tool-less features. This case holds up to five 5.25" drives and seven 2.5" SSD/3.5" HDDs that are easily set into place with a tool-less mounting mechanism. The side panels and PCI slot covers use thumbscrews. Also, the fan filter on the bottom of the PSU can be easily pulled out for cleaning. For overclockers who wish to add top case fans or radiators, the metal mesh can be removed without tools.

Super Talent Technology, a leading manufacturer of NAND Flash storage solutions and DRAM memory modules, announces its UltraDrive MX2 for those that crave the need for speed in a computing environment.

With sequential read and write speeds up to 240 MB/sec, UltraDrive MX2 allows firms to cover bases from lightning fast transaction speeds for database servers to faster load times in high end gaming rigs. The UltraDrive MX2 also supports the latest garbage collection and TRIM features which are designed to keep this SSD running at peak performance.

Storage and application processor maker Marvell Technology has been ordered by a Federal Jury in the US state of Pennsylvania to pay a local university $1.17 billion in damages for patent-infringement. Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) developed and patented a technology that "increases the accuracy with which hard disk drive circuits read data from high-speed magnetic disks," which Marvell has been found to be infringing. Why $1.17 billion? Because these chips are an indispensable component in modern mechanical hard disk drives, made by both Seagate and WD, among others.

If and when US District Court Judge Nora Barry Fischer agrees with the Jury ruling that Marvell's infringements of CMU's patents are "willful," the fine could triple, according to K&L Gates. The jury found that Marvell sold "billions" of chips carrying the University's technology. What makes this verdict important for the PC industry is that since Marvell's HDD components are widely incorporated in HDDs across various brands, should CMU seek a sales-ban, it could potentially affect HDD production the way last year's unfortunate floods in Thailand did.

QNAP Systems, Inc. announced today a major expansion of the number of compatible peripherals available for its Turbo NAS products. The major additions include ten 3.5-inch internal SATA hard drives and a Kingston 2.5-inch internal SATA hard drive.
The newly compatible 3.5" internal SATA hard drives:

• Seagate - ST2000DM001 (2TB), ST2000NC000 (2TB), ST1000NC000 (1TB), ST3000NM0033 (Constellation ES.3) (3TB), ST2000NM0033 (Constellation ES.3) (2TB), ST1000NM0033 (Constellation ES.3) (1TB), ST500DM002 (500GB)
• Western Digital - WD4000FYYZ (4TB), WD3000FYYZ (3TB), WD2000FYYZ (2TB)
  The newly compatible 2.5" internal SATA hard drive:
• Kingston - SSDNow E100 (100GB)

Japanese peripherals maker Logitec announced the LHR-DS05EU3 line of 3.5-inch external HDD enclosures. Available in four color options - silver, red, black, and purple; the enclosure is sold empty/dry, priced at 4,280¥ (US $50), with a 3 TB WD Green HDD pre-installed for 19,980¥ ($237), and a 2 TB WD Green HDD pre-installed for 13,980¥ ($166); and WD Red HDD pre-installed options priced at 22,980¥ ($273) for 3 TB and 15,980¥ ($190) for 2 TB.

The enclosure features a front-loading caddie that makes it easy to swap out the enclosed HDD, lending it hot-plugging capabilities. Internally, it features a SATA 6 Gb/s interface, which is wired out as both eSATA 6 Gb/s and USB 3.0 SuperSpeed. The enclosure features shock and vibration dampening material to protect the enclosed drive, which is also kept cool by a temperature-controlled 40 mm fan. The body, made of steel and ABS, is designed to be stackable. Measuring 50 x 195 x 134 mm, its dry-weight is about 340 g.

Introducing the FlexCage MB973SP-1B, a 3-in-2 Tray-less SATA Backplane Cage for 3.5" SATA hard drives. This is a commercially designed product in the FlexCage series for use in server environments, such as towers or rackmounts. This FlexCage incorporates the best technologies to meet those demands, with second to none fit, function, and reliability.

The MB973SP-1B has been designed to maximize space use by allowing up to 3 x 3.5" SATA III hard drives, while only consuming two 5.25" device bays. The FlexCage also only requires two 4-pin power ports (or two 15-pin power ports with included 4 pin to 15 pin adapter cables), to power up to three 3.5" hard drives. In order to further the convenience of the FlexCage, our renowned tray-less technology is integrated into the cage -- no screws or tools are required to insert or eject the drives, making hot swapping a completely hassle free experience. However, because of the tray-less technology used, maintenance becomes dramatically reduced to simply ejecting a failed drive, and then reinserting the replacement.

Seagate Technology today announced the Seagate Video 2.5 HDD, a 2.5-inch drive specifically engineered for use in 24/7 video applications like digital video recorders (DVRs), set-top boxes (STBs), and surveillance applications.

The Video 2.5 HDD delivers superior performance and operation in three key areas of importance to manufacturers - high reliability, acoustics, and energy efficiency. Featuring best in class reliability, the drive has an annual failure rate of approximately 0.55, based on current configurations, enabling it to keep product in the field longer while reducing the cost of field deployment and maintaining customer retention. It also boasts 24/7 operation capabilities in extended temperature ranges and enhanced acoustics for near silent operation - features crucial for consumer electronics and video applications.

Toshiba Corporation today announced that samples of two new large capacity nearline hard disk drives (HDDs) are available now. The 3.5-inch 7,200 rpm MG Series includes both SATA and SAS versions, "MG03ACA400" and "MG03SCA400" respectively, that deliver 4TB[1] of storage, the largest capacity yet offered by Toshiba. Samples of lower capacity models in each series are also available.

As business works to keep up with the explosion of unstructured data, large capacity HDDs are crucial tools in IT systems designed to organize and access fast growing reservoirs of valuable information. The massive capacities of the MG Series drives are suited to RAID storage and arrays, tiered virtual infrastructures for public and private cloud deployments, archives and disk-based backup.

Toshiba Electronics Europe (TEE), Storage Products Division has today announced that the SlimFITT HDD is now available to buy from select distributors across the EMEA region. With 900 GB of capacity and a spindle speed of 10,500 RPM, the drive provides enterprises with a dependable, high speed drive for business critical data.

The SlimFITT model of the 2.5-inch (6.4 cm) SAS drive is mounted in a 3.5-inch frame making it ideal for blade and rack mount servers accustomed to larger form factor drives. Its small form factor has the added benefit of lower energy consumption, helping businesses to cut down on energy bills.

Japanese PC maker Mouse Computer announced the LuvMachines Mini (Lm) series VESA-mount compatible nettops. It includes three models, the Lm-mini40B (base), Lm-mini40S (SSD-equipped), and Lm-mini40X (hybrid HDD-equipped, top). The three are based on a common design, which measures 5.2 x 153.6 x 172.6 mm (HxWxD), which can either latch on to your monitor via VESA wall-mount, or sit around on your desk with its stand. The base configuration includes an Intel Celeron 847 processor clocked at 1.10 GHz, 4 GB RAM, 320 GB HDD, Intel NM70 chipset, USB 3.0, 802.11 b/g/n, gigabit Ethernet, and Windows 8. It is priced at 29,820¥. The Lm-mini40S tops that with a 120 GB SSD, and is priced at 34,650¥. The Lm-mini40X leads the pack with 750 GB hybrid HDD, and is priced at 39,900¥.

Toshiba's Storage Products Business Unit of Toshiba America Electronic Components Inc., a committed technology leader, announces four new large capacity nearline hard disk drives (HDDs), including the first self-encrypting models in the company's enterprise capacity-optimized storage lineup. The 3.5-inch 7,200 rpm MG Series includes both SATA models - the MG03ACA400 and the MG03ACA400Y - and SAS models - MG03SCA400 and the MG03SCP400 - and all deliver 4 TB of storage, the company's largest capacity to date.

As businesses work to keep up with the explosion of unstructured data, large capacity HDDs are crucial for IT systems designed to organize and access the growing pools of valuable information. The massive capacity of the MG Series is perfectly suited for RAID storage and arrays, tiered virtual infrastructures for public and private cloud deployments, archives, and disk-based backup and data protection solutions. The robust 24x7 design and massive capacity provide the cost-effectiveness required for business-critical servers and external storage systems, including NAS, SAN and tiered storage deployments for large enterprises, as well as for direct-attached storage in general purpose servers and SMB-oriented systems and applications.

Buffalo has today announced a new external storage solution, the HD-LXV4.0TU3C drive featuring a 4 TB capacity and a USB 3.0 interface. This HDD measures 39 x 123 x 189 mm, it weights 1 kg and has a design enabling both vertical and horizontal use, a built-in fan, internal rubber mounts that lower vibration, AES 256-bit hardware encryption, and an eco mode that reduces power consumption by up to 97% (Buffalo claims a power draw of only 0.15 W when the drive is idle).

The HD-LXV4.0TU3C comes bundled with the Turbo PC EX2 data transfer software and costs about $458.

Have you ever felt the need to have control (which can't be second-guessed by the OS) over which drives stay active in your multi-bay drive enclosure? If so, this enclosure (model: CRCH35U3IS) from Japanese peripherals vendor Century could be a Godsend. The enclosure allows you to manually toggle power to individual drives. It features four 3.5-inch SATA 6 Gb/s lockable caddies, and connects to its host over USB 3.0 SuperSpeed interface. A single SSD has been tested to achieve transfer rates as high as an honest-sounding 400 MB/s. The enclosure is cooled by a temperature-activated fan, which can be overridden. Measuring 130 x 260 x 185 mm (WxDxH), the enclosure weighs about 3.2 kg (probably because it includes a power supply). Slated for early-December, it is priced at 17,800¥ (US $220)

According to a VG 24/7 report, Sony began shipping development kits of its upcoming game console, PlayStation 4, codenamed "Orbis" to developers. The kit is described as being a "normal sized PC," driven by AMD A10 "Trinity" APU, and 8 or 16 GB of memory. We've known from reports dating back to April that Sony plans to use a combination of APU and discrete GPU, similar to today's Dual Graphics setups, where the APU graphics core works in tandem with discrete mid-range GPU. The design goal is to be able to play games 1920 x 1080 pixels resolution, with 60 Hz refresh rate, and with the ability to run stereo 3D at 60 Hz. For storage, the system has a combination of Blu-ray drive and 250 GB HDD. Sony's next-generation game console is expected to be unveiled "just before E3," 2013.

In addition to the three new HDCA-UT Series models, I-O Data has announced a couple more HDCA-U HDDs, 1 TB and 2 TB external hard drives boasting a USB 2.0 interface. Like their USB 3.0-capable cousins, the HDCA-U HDDs measure 39 (W) x 185 (D) x 120 (H) mm, they have a fanless design, they can be installed horizontally or vertically, and can be connected directly to HDTVs to record your favorite shows. They can also be hooked up to camcorders for some PC-free video/photo storing.

The new 1 TB and 2 TB HDCA-U drives cost about $133 and $173, respectively, and will be available in black and white as of mid-November.

I-O Data has today unveiled three fresh additions to its HDCA-UT family of external hard drives. Offering 1 TB, 2 TB and 4 TB worth of storage space, the new offerings measure 39 (W) x 185 (D) x 120 (H) mm, they weight 1.1 kg and feature a fanless design, USB 3.0 connectivity, and an Eco mode for saving power while idle.

Like their predecessors, these models can be installed both vertically or horizontally and can be easily connected to TVs and camcorders for direct, PC-less use. They are backed by a one-year warranty and are coming out gradually - the 4 TB (~ $465) drive is already selling, while the 1 TB (~ $144) and 2 TB (~ $183) will debut in mid-November.

Today LaCie, together with Porsche Design, announced the P'9223 Slim SSD. This product is the latest extension of the Porsche Design portfolio and the fastest LaCie USB hard drive to date. It combines USB 3.0 speeds with an optional SSD to maximize performance, and its sleek form factor echoes the aluminum exterior of Apple's MacBook Pro and MacBook Air.

BUILT FOR SPEED
Designed with Apple enthusiasts in mind, the LaCie P'9223 Slim SSD version is up to 10 times faster than USB 2.0. The USB 3.0 interface is bus-powered and delivers 400 MB/s transfer speeds. This allows a photographer to move large photo files in no time while in the field. Thanks to UAS support, this product gets even better speeds on the latest MacBook Air, MacBook Pro or MacBook Pro with Retina Display running the most recent version of OS X Lion or Mountain Lion.

Icy Dock is proud to introduce the MB981U3N-1SA USB 3.0 2.5" / 3.5" SATA & IDE Hard Drive Adapter. This adapter is an ultra portable yet space saving solution for users who require high transfer speed with multiple hard drives to swap, whether it is IDE / SATA or a 2.5" / 3.5" form factor.

The MB981U3N-1SA accepts almost all kinds of drives including ATA (IDE), SATA, 2.5", 3.5" hard drives and SSDs. It allows universal adaptability with modern PCs or Macs via SuperSpeed USB 3.0. With a theoretical maximum of 5Gb/s, you get the lightning fast transfer performance you need to finish your tasks fast. With USB 3.0 capable of backwards compatibility, the adapter can be used in older systems that only have USB 2.0. This is the best interface to date with reliable compatibility for many different systems.

OCZ Technology Group, Inc., a leading provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) for computing devices and systems, will display its enterprise storage solutions at the Gartner Symposium/ITXpo, Booth #1044, Walt Disney World Dolphin Resort, Lake Buena Vista, Florida, from October 21st through October 25th. The Gartner Symposium/ITXpo is an annual gathering of CIOs and senior IT executives seeking the latest tools, technologies, and information to improve IT capabilities and data center effectiveness.

For SAN acceleration of I/O intensive workloads, OCZ will present its leading Z-Drive R4 PCIe SSDs supporting both full-height (FH) and half-height (HH) configurations, enabling the CPU with direct access (zero-latency storage) and instant boot capabilities. The FH (3/4 length) RM88 model enables an industry best 2.8GB/s of sequential throughput, 410K of random IOPS performance, and usable MLC NAND flash capacities from 800GB to 3.2TB. The HH (half-length) RM84 model is also a performance leader enabling 2GB/s of sequential throughput, 250K of random IOPS performance and usable capacities from 300GB to 1.2TB.

Iomega Corporation, a global leader in data protection, today announced the worldwide availability of the latest additions to Iomega's award-winning lineup of network storage solutions: the new Iomega StorCenter px2-300d Network Storage, a high performance, Intel Atom powered double-drive desktop network storage device with up to 6 TB of storage; and the new Iomega StorCenter ix4-300d Network Storage, the next generation of Iomega's popular StorCenter ix Series of versatile and easy-to-use four-drive desktop network storage appliances.

Designed for advanced users, small offices, small to medium-sized businesses and distributed enterprise, Iomega's new StorCenter px2-300d and StorCenter ix4-300d utilize EMC's award-winning LifeLine operating system for cross-platform file-sharing with seamless integration of security and convenience features such as RAID data protection, hot-swappable hard drives (only with the px2-300d), virtualized environment support, multiple cloud options for offsite data storage, antivirus protection (Only on px2-300d), Active Directory integration, advanced media sharing features and more. Both products are shipping with the Iomega's very latest LifeLine release 3.4, which delivers significant enhancements and new features like improved Active Directory Support, a more efficient EXT4 file system, added MySQL Server support and added video surveillance capabilities.

Seagate Technology today announced three new enterprise-class hard disk drives (HDD) optimized for traditional data centers and emerging cloud infrastructures.

Perfect for cloud bulk data storage, the Seagate Enterprise Value HDD provides up to 3 TB of storage in a low-power configuration that is perfect for efficiently and affordably storing the ever-growing amount of unstructured data typically stored in the cloud. The company also announced its next generation of highly-reliable hard disk drives, the Seagate Enterprise Capacity 3.5 HDD featuring the industry's widest range of capacities (1, 2, 3 and 4 TB) of secure data storage for robust data center usage and the Seagate Enterprise Performance 10K HDD which delivers best-in-class performance and built-in security for optimized storage efficiency and data protection.