If you’re one of those people who get paranoid when it comes to hiding your external HDD, check out this newbie from Digital CowBoy. With their W-31UA, you’ll have the best disguise ever. An external HDD that looks just like a vintage book. The disk uses USB 2.0/1.1 with 3.5” SATA HDD and measuring at 200 x 159.5 x 40 mm. No words on the pricing yet but I’m definitely looking forward to seeing them in local stores soon. [Akihabara]

LaCie’s new Internet Space is not only sleek and sexy, it’s actually an extension to your digital life worldwide.  You can sync anything from your computers to its 500GB hard drive and access them from anywhere in the world through their www.homelacie.com website.  5 minute setup and $205 is all it takes to put your entire life online.  It also streams media files to XBOX 360s and PS3s apart from any computer. [Newlaunches]

Datamore Porté HDD gives your data funk and flair

The handsome devil pictured above is the Porté, available in Korea from Datamore. This sleek, stylish HDD enclosure is sure to make you the envy of your neighbors and a hero to your family — not only because it allows you to increase your storage options via handy USB or eSATA, but because it looks so sleek and sexy doing so. And who could resist an enclosure that offers such easy access to the hard drive? Of course there’s a catch: this bad boy is not currently available Stateside. Continue reading…

Transcend Throws 128GB Solid-State Drive Today

There’s something strong and powerful to the sound of “solid state” and more and more are jumping into this more durable storage solution.  Count Transcend in, who earlier today introduced its new 128GB high-speed 2.5-inch drive.  At $379, the 128GB SSD features the SATA-II interface and Transcend’s Multi-level cell flash memory chip.  This produces sustained read/write speeds of up to 145MB/92MB per second which is about 40 percent faster than other 2.5-inch high-speed SATA drives out there.  Two-year warranty and worldwide support, grab them while they’re hot.  [Product Page via Crave] Continue reading…

Zigsow ZSS-1 SSD NAS For People With Too Much Money

Another gadget from the land of expensive hard drives and aluminum casings, the Zigsow ZSS-1 SSD NAS specifically targeted at music junkies and people who require total silent storage for their line of work.  The Japanese company packs two 64GB SSDs (128GB of total storage) in a rack style fan-less aluminum case that comes with a LAN port and two USB 2.0 ports.  Not really worth 315,000 Japanese yens (over $3000) IMHO but who am I to judge.  [Akihabara News]

Wait, wait — you’re telling us InPhase Technologies may be the latest and greatest poster child for vaporware? Say it ain’t so! After promising (and promising) a holographic storage solution for upwards of three years now, the outfit is delaying its dead-to-the-world Tapestry solution yet again, this time to late 2009. In theory, the company would introduce a drive that could record up to 300GB on a $180 CD-sized disc around this time next year, but with Blu-ray already up to 50GB and Royal Digital Media introducing a 100GB alternative, who’s to say 300GB won’t look puny by November ‘09? And besides, we’re also hearing that GE’s Polymer Systems Lab is developing a “layered approach to holographic storage” that will soon result in — you guessed it — 300GB discs. The difference? GE is a real company.

Amazon takes a stand to eliminate wasteful

Come on folks, say it in unison with us: “Finally!” At long last, a company with a little clout has stood up and questioned the necessity of those ridiculous hard plastic containers that hold minuscule flash cards and the like (along with plastic twist-ties), and better still, it’s already doing something about it. Beginning today, consumers who are tired of borrowing the fire department’s Jaws of Life to rescue their new USB drive can opt for products in Amazon’s “Frustration-Free Packaging,” which utilizes streamlined packaging that often includes recyclable cardboard. 19 products from the likes of Fisher-Price, Mattel, Microsoft and Transcend are currently available in the new containers, and the firm’s CEO has a vision of offering its “entire catalog of products in Frustration-Free Packaging” within a few years. Hey, everyone else in the gadget world — care to hop on a meaningful bandwagon for once?

Read - Frustration-Free Packaging initiative
Read - Frustration-Free Packaging storefront

Pico-C Solid Gold USB Drive

Super Talent Technology is famous for its USB flash drive series and DRAM memory modules. The company has announced the limited edition 8GB Pico-C 18-carat solid gold USB drive. This stylish USB flash drive is water resistant and sports up to 30MB/sec of data transfer speed. The drive is also serial numbered for Certificate of Authenticity and adopts FIPS certified AES-256 Encryption software for more data security. Priced at $599 each, the Pico-C solid gold USB drive from Super Talent Technology is available only on a pre-order basis for a limited time. [Product Page]

G.Skill Introduces New 128GB Solid State Drive

Taiwan-based G.Skill has a new solid state drives for the market. The ultra-performance SATA II 2.5 inch Solid State Drives (SSD) is based on NAND MLC flash storage medium. Available in 64GB and 128GB storage capacities, these SSDs are protected by a sturdy metal alloy housing to make the devices more durable. The company claims that these SSDs will offer a read and write speed of 155MB/sec and 90MB/sec, respectively. Unfortunately, there is no word on pricing at this time. [PCLaunches]

MvixBOX Network Attached Storage

MvixBOX is the latest Network Attached Storage (NAS) from Mvix USA that feature kewl specs for all your digital living room entertainment needs. The NAS supports two drive bays, Windows file sharing support, Telnet and secure SMTP, BitTorrent client, RSS client, FTP server, Apache web server (MySQL, SQlife and PHP are pre-installed) and RapidBox functionality. Unfortunately, the pricing info is still unknown. [Mvix USA]

Thecus debuts N3200 Pro NAS: now with more AMD Geode CPU

Thecus Technology has retooled the N3200 and come up with the aptly named N3200 Pro — a brand new NAS now featuring an AMD Geode CPU. The device boasts a veritable cornucopia of features, including three SATA drive bays for up to 3TB of storage, the option of RAID 5 striping, and an LCD display. Photo, iTunes and DLNA-compatible server options as well as browser-based management should assist users with the “digital lifestyle,” while a feature called “Web Surveillance Server” allows you to take regularly scheduled photographs just by plugging in a USB webcam… which is interesting in a vaguely creepy way. No word on price or availability but the previous N3200 sells for $339.

Renegade SSD touts

pureSilicon

isn’t offering up the first rugged SSD or anything, but its Renegade line is still tough enough to be compliant with MIL-STD-810F (and this guy’s) standards. Hailed as the first solid state drive to integrate hardware-based encryption approved by the Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS), the device boasts up to 128GB of capacity, a dedicated on-board cryptographic processor, hard-anodized unibody enclosure and the ability to withstand most anything that you could put it through (save for a blender). Select customers have already received samples, but if you’re dumbstruck by such a notion, you’ll have to wait with the rest of the citizenry and nab yours in Q1 2009.

Transcend 2.5-inch 500GB Portable Hard Drive

I am glad to hear that Transcend has launched its StoreJet 25C, which is a 2.5-inch portable hard drive with 500GB of storage capacity. The device supports USB 2.0 interface and plug and play. No word on pricing at this time. [AVING]