Japanese company Marshal announced the MAL-4725NAS, a compact NAS box which can enclose a 2.5-inch SATA HDD or SSD. Driven by a 750 MHz ARM 11MP processor, the box features 256 MB of RAM and the same amount of NAND flash storage to house its Linux-based operating system (Fedora 12 ARM). Its software provides most consumer NAS features including FTP, SMB, print server, NFS, AFP, DLNA, and iTunes. Gigabit Ethernet is its only network interface. The 2.5-inch drive bay supports drives as thick as 12.5 mm. Its limited local storage can be expanded with flash drives, enclosures, and other mass-storage devices thanks to an eSATA and two USB 2.0 ports. Measuring 123 x 123 x 33 mm, it weighs about 536 g. Slated for October 20, it is priced at 13,800 JPY (US $176).

Marshal announced its newest 2.5-inch portable enclosure for hard drives and solid-state drives, the MAL-4625SBKU3. The enclosure combines an internal SATA 6 Gb/s interface with USB 3.0 host connection. It uses a single USB cable for power and host connectivity. It is designed to accommodate 2.5-inch drives as thick as 12.5 mm. Measuring 75 x 123 x 16 mm (WxDxH), its dry-weight is 91 g, since the enclosure is mostly made of brushed aluminum. The enclosure features internal cushioning and a suspension frame to hold the drive. Slated for late-September, the MAL-4625SBKU3 is priced at 2,780 JPY (US $35.75).

Japanese peripherals company Marshal introduced Easy Go MAL-3435SBKU3, a desktop external hard drive enclosure, which can pack a 3.5-inch SATA hard drive. Apart from close to zero interface bottlenecks, thanks to its USB 3.0 SuperSpeed connection, the enclosure's design focus is on cooling. It packs an 80 mm fan on its side panel for ventilation of the hard drive and other electronics. The fan can be toggled, and its designers claim that running it can lower the drive's temperatures by as much as 10°C. Its native logic features an Eco Mode feature, which completely spins down the drive while keeping its volumes mounted on the host machine, when there is inactivity for a set amount of time. The enclosure is made of rugged materials such as steel and ABS. Measuring 46 x 210 x 146 mm (WxDxH), it weighs a little over 600 g. It is priced at 3,480 JPY (US $43).

Japanese company MARSHAL announced three new external storage solutions, which include two 2-bay enclosures and one 4-bay dock. The two enclosures are MAL-3235SBK (non-RAID mass-storage, USB 2.0), and MAL-3335SBKU (RAID mass-storage, USB 3.0); and the dock is MAL-3635SBK. The two enclosures bear essentially the same product design, that consists of two 3.5" SATA drive bays, differing only by the MAL-3335SBKU supporting RAID 0 and 1 modes, and USB 3.0. These enclosures measure 73 x 195 x 123 mm (WxDxH), use external power bricks, and cool installed hard drives using a rear fan.

The MAL-3635SBK is a one-of-a-kind top-loading 4-bay SATA drive dock, which supports both 3.5" and 2.5" drives on each bay. The main unit is merely a cuboidal box, with an ABS stand extending out, holding the four drives firmly in place. This dock is designed not essentially keeping external storage in mind, and more as a drive cloning station. For this reason, the dock connects to the host over slow USB 2.0, but packs a native drive cloning logic that can auto-clone three drives from one template, at a time, without needing a host. The dock measures 164 x 126 x 88 mm (WxDxH). The MAL-3235SBK, MAL-3335SBKU, and MAL-3635SBK, from MARSHAL, are priced at 3,580 JPY (US $42), 4,980 JPY (US $60), and 9,980 JPY (US $119), respectively. They are slated for launch this month.