Combining a high-performance NVIDIA ION graphics processor with a choice of energy-efficient dual-core Intel Atom 330 or single-core Atom 230 processors, the ZOTAC MAG delivers an eco-friendly computing experience that still packs a performance punch in a compact 186mm x 189mm x 38mm package.

"As users start equipping every room in their house with computers for a true networked digital home experience, space and power conservation becomes an issue, especially for larger houses," said Carsten Berger, marketing director, ZOTAC International. "With the ZOTAC MAG series, we're providing users with a system suitable anywhere inside a house. The compact size, performance and energy efficiency makes the ZOTAC MAG perfect for all computing uses."

ASUS is preparing an addition to its EeeBox family of nettops with the EeeBox EB1501. The new EeeBox is based on the NVIDIA ION platform, and is powered by an Intel Atom 330 1.60 GHz dual-core processor, aided by NVIDIA ION chipset, 4 GB of DDR2 800 MHz memory, and a GeForce 9400M graphics processor embedded in the chipset, which makes it full HD capable. On the storage front, is a 250 GB hard drive, and a slot-in DVD writer. The front-bezel holds this, alongside a 5-in-1 card reader, a couple of USB 2.0 ports, and audio connectors.

The rear panel holds four more USB 2.0 ports, D-Sub and HDMI for display connectivity, gigabit Ethernet, an antenna for the 802.11b/g/n WLAN, and eSATA. The EeBox EB1501 comes with Windows 7 Home Basic pre-installed, and is expected to be launched at the earliest after October 22. It is expected to be priced around 400 EUR.

Buffalo Japan is ready with its first external hard drive that uses the new USB 3.0 interface to eliminate the bandwidth bottleneck posed by the older generation of the interface. The Buffalo DriveStation HD-HXU3, with its USB 3.0 SuperSpeed interface comes in capacities of 1 TB, 1.5 TB and 2 TB. The drive offers transfer rates of around 125 MB/s, on par with drives connected using the eSATA interface. The advantage of this however, is its seamless backwards compatibility with older USB 2.0 generation of the USB interface. The company has also announced the IFC-PCIE2U3 USB 3.0 controller. The two are expected to be available in Q4.

Kanguru Solutions, announces the release of the 64GB Kanguru e-Flash, a high capacity, high performance flash drive with both eSATA and USB connectivity. The Kanguru e-Flash is a dual ended flash drive. One end supports high speed eSATA while the other end supports a USB2.0 interface. The eSATA side provides incredible performance, 5 times faster than standard USB drives. The USB2.0 side provides universal connectivity, so data can still be accessed by computers that may not have eSATA ports yet.

"The combination of performance and versatility make the Kanguru e-Flash the perfect product for people who want top tier transfer speeds without sacrificing usability," said Nate Cote, VP of Product Management for Kanguru Solutions.

The Kanguru e-Flash has a built-in powered eSATA connection so you don't have to worry about multiple wires plugging into the drive, and it's packaged with an eSATA + Power bracket and an eSATA + Power cable for easy hookup to the computer you use most.

Addronics introduced a couple of external optical drives. The two, that look the same, are Blu-Ray/DVD-RW combo, and plain DVD-RW. Not much more than enclosures housing slim notebook drives, the two provide eSATA and USB 2.0 connections to the PC, while needing the USB port at least for power. The unit measures 143 x 135 x 22 mm.

DVD burning speeds offered for are 8x for DVD±R/+RW, 6x for DVD-RW/±R double-layer, 5x for DVD-RAM, and 24x for CD-R/RW. Backed by a one-year warranty, the Blu-Ray/DVD combo drive is priced at US $235, and the DVD-RW at $99.

Scythe announces the availability of a new multifunctional panel for 3.5inch bay. Kaze Station 3.5 is available in black (KST01-BK-3.5) and silver (KST01-SL-3.5). This new device combines a 2-channel fan controller with an easy to access front panel connecters including 4x USB2.0, 1 x e-SATA, 1 x MIC and 1 x Headphone. Both Front panel and fan controller knobs are made of brushed aluminum.

By using the integrated fan controller up to two fans can be adjusted with an output voltage of 5 to 12 V. Supported fan speed is specified in the range from 0 up to 9,990 rpm. For convenient purposes, Kaze Station 3.5 comes with the required connection cable such as two fan extensions, one power adapter, one USB cable, one audio cable and one S-ATA cable. Overall dimensions of the unit are 102 x 25 x 93 mm (4.01 x 0.98 x 3.66 in) and it weights 130 g (4.58 oz).

Thecus Technology has racked up an impressive number of firsts. In 2005, Thecus introduced the world's first DAS device with eSATA support, enabling file transfers of up to 3Gb/s. With the N3200 in 2007, Thecus brought the security of RAID 5 to a home NAS. Today, Thecus is pleased to reveal the world's first NAS device with the ability to accommodate both 2.5" and 3.5" hard disks - the N0503.

One look at the N0503 tells you it's different. Using its special combo hard disk bays, the N0503 can actually support up to five 2.5" hard disks or three 3.5" hard disks. Fill the N0503 with three 3.5" hard disks and the N0503 is a high-performance three-bay NAS with up to 6TB of storage capacity. Equip the N0503 with five 2.5" hard disks, and you have a five-bay NAS unit that offers lower power consumption and noise. With dual form-factor hard disk support, users are given unparalleled flexibility with the N0503.

Akasa expanded its portfolio of hard drive enclosures with the DuoDock. This highly portable desktop dock measuring 140 x 108 x 71 mm, uses a top-loader to mount 3.5 inch and 2.5 inch HDDs or SSDs using the standard SATA II interface. The loader allows you to insert and eject the drives like SNES cartridges. The device draws power from an external DC power plugin, and connects the drive to the system using eSATA or USB 2.0 interface. With an AHCI-aware operating system, the dock provides hot-plug capability it is available in matte-black and piano-white colours. It will be priced around US $40.

Synology Inc. today launched the new 2.5" 4-bay Disk Station DS409slim, a highly anticipated addition to the 09 series product line that brings lower power consumption, virtually quiet operations and an extremely small footprint both physically and financially while providing the same reliable data sharing and backup solution that Synology is well known for.

The DS409slim is equipped with a 1.2 GHz CPU, 128MB DDRII RAM, one Gigabit LAN port, two USB2.0 ports and one eSATA port. The snap-in disk tray requires minimal effort to install and replace disks. Supporting up to 2 TB with the combination of four 2.5" SATA or SSD hard drives of 500GB which is the largest capacity on the market, it remains stylish and compact (120 x 105 x 142 mm).

Reacting to users' demands for portable, high speed storage, Walton Chaintech has announced its new APOGEE Pronto eSATA drive. Modeled after APOGEE's award-winning SSD design, the Pronto uses the eSATA port instead of the USB 2.0 port for its file transfers. This product specifically targets users who require better performance and capacities than conventional flash pen drives but do not require speeds to run software and operating systems like SSDs.

The APOGEE Pronto eSATA has dualistic connectors, supporting both the eSATA and USB ports. This flexibility allows users to use the Pronto as a simple high capacity storage device, while also supporting read/write speeds of 90/50MB/s respectively, about three times faster than conventional flash pen drives. Available in 32G and 64G capacities, the Pronto supports users to store a multitude of different file types, from multimedia to office documents or any combination of both.

ASRock has yet another socket LGA-1366 motherboard up its ranks: the X58 Extreme. This model is distinct from the X58 SuperComputer and X58 Deluxe, which shared the same PCB. It has three PCI-E 2.0 x16 slots, from which only two are routed to the X58 northbridge. The CPU is powered by an 8-phase circuit, similar to the other ASRock models. The blue PCI-E x16 slots are connected to the northbridge with full 16-lane bandwidth, while the third orange slot is wired to the southbridge with 4-lane bandwidth. The package bundles only the 2-way SLI bridge, and 3-way SLI is not advertised, although 3-way CrossFireX is. The ICH10R southbridge provides 6 SATA ports, while an additional controller provides IDE and eSATA connectors. ASRock's InstantBoot feature is supported. Looking at the features on offer, we expect this board to sell for a lower price than the X58 Deluxe, which is on the brink of entering the sub-$200 segment.

Patriot Memory, a global pioneer in high-performance memory, NAND flash and computer technologies, today announced their Convoy Series Dual 3.5" HDD/SSD enclosures.

Convoy XL is a complete RAID solution with USB and eSATA connectivity. Dual 2.5" drive bays hold either two SSDs and/or HDDs mounted in one standard 3.5" form factor bay. The built-in RAID controller can be configured for performance (RAID 0), redundant for backup (RAID 1) or two drives combined to be one large drive (JBOD). Additionally the one-touch-backup (OTB) feature is a perfect complement of SSD's robust and durability nature.

The Serial ATA International Organization today, made the third-generation SATA interface official. The new interface provides a 6 Gbps high-speed serial data connection between the system and most of today's data storage devices such as hard drives, solid-state drives, optical drives, and enterprise tape drives. The interface also provides connectivity to external storage devices in its eSATA port variant. It is 100% backwards compatible with devices that support the SATA 150 MB/s and SATA II 300 MB/s standards.

The organization listed some of the standard's key enhancements, as follows:

• A new Native Command Queuing (NCQ) streaming command to enable isochronous data transfers for bandwidth-hungry audio and video applications
• An NCQ Management feature that helps optimize performance by enabling host processing and management of outstanding NCQ commands
• Improved power management capabilities
• A small Low Insertion Force (LIF) connector for more compact 1.8-inch storage devices
• A connector designed to accommodate 7mm optical disk drives for thinner and lighter notebooks
• Alignment with the INCITS ATA8-ACS standard

Hardware manufacturers have already implemented draft versions of the standard in some of their newest storage controllers. As the year progresses, it is hoped that the standard finds its way to storage controller cards and motherboards.

QNAP Systems, Inc. today announces the first 2-bay network-attached storage (NAS) which supports both 2.5-inch and 3.5-inch SATA hard drives - TS-219P Turbo NAS. Dedicated to home and SOHO users, the TS-219P is an advanced version of the previously released TS-219. Powering Marvell 1.2GHz high performance processor and 512 MB DDRII memory, the NAS comes with 3 USB ports and 2 eSATA ports to deliver the best storage expansion capability compared with other 2-bay NAS in the market.

The TS-219P supports two hot-swappable 2.5" or 3.5" SATA hard drives with maximum 4TB storage capacity. The device can be accessed across Windows, Mac, Linux, and UNIX. It is a highly reliable and powerful NAS with abundant business-class features, such as built-in iSCSI target service (max 8 iSCSI devices) with Thin Provisioning, Online RAID Capacity Expansion, Online RAID Level Migration, automatic policy-based IP blocking, hard drive status report, instant SMS and email alert, built-in TwonkyMedia UPnP/ DLNA media server, BT and eMule download, schedule power on and power off, one Giga LAN port, and 2 IP cameras for network surveillance.

Silicon Power, the leading brand among Solid State Disk (SSD) Manufacturers lifts the benchmark another notch with their new Portable eSATA / USB SSD II. It is the world's first eSATA (eSATA; External Serial ATA) /USB dual interface portable SSD drive. The new drive emphasis the convenience of USB connection and the ultra fast performance of eSATA interface as an external drive. Overall, the drive has excellent aesthetics and the performance to match.

Having won rave reviews with their 64GB eSATA /USB SSD, Silicon Power releases the new lidless and portable eSATA/USB SSD II. Through the eSATA interface, maximum read speed reaches 90MB/Sec and maximum write reaches 50 MB/Sec. Maximum read through the USB connection is rated at 30MB/Sec and 20MB/sec for write. It is the perfect solution for professional multimedia enthusiasts or users that often carry and transfer large capacity files.

The all new Slider Pro Hard Drive Enclosure Series offers you the very best in design, combined with the peace of mind that Spire is protecting your harddrive with its all aluminum casing for maximum heat dissipation and strength. And to make it that much easier, the innovative SliderPro is equipped with a slide tray that will save you time and hassle installing or replacing your Hard Drive into the enclosure. Equipped with a pre-installed 30mm cooling fan in the front for fresh cool air intake to keep your drive at best operating temperatures.

The Slider Pro HDD enclosures are portable and stand alone, not base or support is required. Date transfer is safe and fast between office, home or laptop computer with the RIFD and OTB features available on the Slider Pro enclosures. Enjoy that piece of mind and ensure safe back up and data storage with the new Slider Pro from Spire - Powered by Innovation!

LaCie announced today the availability of two new high capacity Network Attached Storage (NAS) solutions - Big Disk Network and d2 Network. These professional file servers are optimized for users to instantly store, share, and back up files, from any PC or Mac on a wired or wireless network. LaCie's new NAS solutions deliver high-performance and professional-class reliability, in an easy-to-use network solution for the home or small office.

The d2 Network supports up to 1.5TB capacity, while the Big Disk Network combines two drives in a RAID 0 setting, for up to 3TBs of storage. Both NAS solutions are perfect for advanced users or small to medium sized offices that want to develop workgroup environments for up to 50 users (15 at one time). Network administrators can choose from various security levels for user profiles, groups, and public or guest access. Users can connect an external USB drive to increase security through scheduled backups, or even expand capacity. The d2 Network also includes an eSATA connection for storage expansion.

There is a new X58 "SuperComputer" motherboard, this time not from ASRock, but from ASUS. The company is ready with a new LGA-1366 single-socket workstation motherboard that concentrates quite heavily on its PCI-Express expansion slots. THe motherboard packs seven full-length PCI-Express slots. To support these, ASUS used a clever design: two 16-lane PCI-Express channels from the X58 northbridge provide connectivity to an NVIDIA nForce 200 (BR-03) chip each. Each of these chips in turn broadcast the connection to two PCI-E 2.0 x16 slots (blue slots). The blue slots with a neighbouring black slot further have PCI-E switching logic that can divert 8 lanes to the black PCI-E x16 slots, when populated. As a result, it has seven slots worked out in all. The board supports ATI CrossFireX and NVIDIA SLI.

A large heatsink cools the lower cluster of chips that include the board's ICH10R southbridge, and the two nForce 200 chips. Heatpipes distribute heat to an elaborate array of heatsinks over the northbridge and the board's VRM areas. The board features six DDR3 memory slots for supporting up to 24 GB of memory. Storage is care of the southbridge and an additional controller to provide extra internal SATA ports along with the eSATA connectivity. 8-channel audio, and two gigabit Ethernet controllers, and an ASUS-exclusive system diagnostics card make for the rest of the equation. The P6T7 SuperComputer is yet to hit stores.

The newest in toolless technology, the eSATA EZvault is the pinnacle of stylish design and functionality. Made with the highest quality materials combined with outstanding design, the EZvault is vibration proof and excellent at getting rid of and keeping out any heat that could damage your harddrive.

Pretec, creator of the world's smallest USB drive and pioneer of SSD technology innovation, today introduced fresh line of 32 GB and 64 GB eSATA/USB dual interface solid-state drives compliant with the Power Over eSATA specification. In other words these SSDs do not need external power connector to operate normal and transfer data via either eSATA or USB. Another nifty feature of the new Pretec Cobra pocket SSDs are their super fast read and write speeds of 90 MB/s and 60 MB/s respectively. Considering the size and the mobility of the drives, these speeds are more than you can ever want. Unfortunately, Pretec didn't mention the price and availability date in their announcement.

Shuttle Inc., the market leader in the Mini-PC segment and manufacturer of Multi-Form-Factor solutions, today introduces the XPC H7 4500H complete system for satellite TV reception. Unlike present proprietary solutions, the H7 4500H now comes with satellite television conveniently and reliably integrated in Windows Vista.

The whole feature set of Windows Media Center that had previously been available for DVB-T tuners and analogue cable TV only, can now be used with a DVB-S TV tuner card as well. Timeshifting (pausing TV programmes), EPG (Electronic Program Guide) and recording, all this can be done right from the sofa by remote control.

WD, the world's leader in external storage solutions, today expanded its My Book family of external hard drives to include a 2 TB capacity, the largest available capacity in a single-drive system. With its wide variety of models, WD offers a solution for every type of user, whether they're a creative power user on a Mac or a home user on a PC. The new 2 TB My Book family includes: My Book Studio Edition, My Book Mac Edition, My Book Home Edition and My Book Essential Edition models.

Market research shows that consumer creation and acquisition of digital media is growing rapidly, driving demand for increasing storage capacities. According to market research firm IDC, the number of digital cameras and camera phones in the world surpassed 1 billion (Mar. 2008). Separately, market research firm GfK reports that HD (high definition) video camcorders are experiencing record growth and now account for 42 percent of total camcorder sales (Aug. 2008). HD video requires massive amounts of drive space: at least 8 GB per hour of video. Since 2006, when Apple began offering movie downloads, the Apple store has already sold more than 250 million TV episodes and sold or rented more than 33 million movies (Apple, Mar. 2009).

QNAP Systems, Inc. today announced the world's first one-bay and two-bay NAS with iSCSI TS-119 and TS-219 Turbo NAS for home, SOHO, and SMB users. The TS-119 and TS-219 are the next generation NAS models that combine a fashionable shiny black diamond design, outstanding system performance, rich features, and high stability. Powered by 1.2GHz CPU and 512MB DDRII RAM, the TS-119 and TS-219 support Internet Small Computer System Interface (iSCSI) target service (up to 8 iSCSI devices), Online RAID Capacity Expansion and Online RAID Level Migration (2-bay model only), automatic policy-based IP blocking, schedule power on and off, 2 IP cameras for network surveillance, UPnP/ DLNA media server, mail server, and high-speed BT/FTP/HTTP and eMule download, etc.

Pictured last month as merely a low-end variant of the Blood Rage X58 series (read here), Foxconn Flaming Blade X58 has emerged as a product series in itself, with two sub-variants: Flaming Blade X58 and Flaming Blade X58 GTI. The former being the base-model, while the latter is a scaled-down, even cheaper one.

Both motherboards feature an identical feature set for the most part: Three DDR3-1800 DIMM slots, two PCI-E x16 slots, near-identical board layouts, etc. The differences start with the GTI variant featuring simpler component cooling, with individual heatsinks over the chipset and VRM areas. The base-model has a heat-pipe based cooler. Another set of differences are present with the boards' back-panel and the connectors on offer: the GTI variant lacks two eSATA connectors and an Ethernet controller (although the picture suggests otherwise). Both models will cater to the $200 market price-point.

Silicon Power introduces today the 64 GB version of its combo eSATA/USB solid-state drive. With the size of a normal USB flash drive, this external solid-state drive can take up to 64 GB worth of data from any computer that has a free eSATA or mini-USB port. The 64 GB eSATA/USB SSD also features an integrated ECC (Error Correction Code) to ensure an accurate data transfer, as well as built-in wear leveling technology that guarantees long-term reliability and ultra-long storage lifespan. The new product is also available in 8 GB, 16 GB and 32 GB versions.