Beating the usual suspects out of the gate, Buffalo will launch their very own 320 GB portable hard drive, the MiniStation Turbo USB HD-PS320U2, in December. Not only will the new unit sport oodles of disk space but will spin around at 5,400 rpm which according to the Buffalo spiel about their other portable 5,400 rpm drives means they are up to 64% faster than their oh so slow 4,200 rpm siblings.

The unit also features 256 bit encryption provided by Buffalo’s Secure Lock Ware plus Memeo’s AutoBackup software. Connectivity is provided by a USB 2.0 interface, which sucks power for the unit from the attached PC rather than requiring a hefty separate power supply. The drive is encased in a ‘Shock Resistant Chassis’ although I’d like to see how it performs in my sledge-hammer testing rig :)

It talks nicely with kit running W2K, XP, Vista and Mac OS X. But what about the moola? The MiniStation Turbo has a surprisingly nice price tag of US$319 hanging around its neck. Overall I think Buffalo have come out with a little beauty for anyone looking for a ton of portable storage space.

Featured tags: buffalo external hdd hdd portable hard drive

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Handy with a screwdriver and need some more hard drive space on your laptop? Well, the latest 2.5 inch 250 GB notebook storage kits from Toshiba may be just the answer for you. They’ve just unleashed a series of five hard drives ranging in capacity from 80 GB through to 250 GB that the untrained user can upgrade their laptop or suitable external storage device with. These suckers also talk nicely to Macs as well; here are a few more bits and pieces about them

* SATA Interface
* 0.37 x 2.75 x 3.94 inches
* 3.5 oz
* 8 MB buffer
* 5,400 rpm (4,200 for the 200 GB model)
* Windows, OS X and Linux will all talk to these babies

The price for the 250 GB model is US$190 dropping down to $80 for the 80 GB which seems a steal to be able to ramp up your laptop.

Toshiba have incorporated these drives into a new range of external drives too. Rather bizarrely the 250 GB external is the same price as the standalone model at US$190. The externals have USB 2.0 connectivity and will talk with both PCs and Macs.

Source: Toshiba

Featured tags: 250GB external hdd hdd toshiba

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D-Link has announced the launch of their latest storage enclosure the DNS-313 in the UK. The unit can hold a 3.5 SATA hard disk drive and can be connected directly to a computer via USB or using the Ethernet connection hook up to a network via a router.

The DNS-313 is based on Internet Protocol so any OS can recognise these suckers for what they are and there’s also an FTP server tucked away in there for remote access.

The usual backup software is included allowing manual or scheduled backups plus real-time data protection as well. There’s also a UPnP AV media server inside which can stream out digital media content to your player.

All in all it sounds like D-Link have stuffed all they can into this enclosure unit apart from the HDD obviously. The unit will set you back 75 sterling and is due to appear on shelves in the UK about now. So if you are a storage freak in the UK then this little puppy may be just what you are looking for.

Source: D-Link UK

Featured tags: D Link DNS313 external hdd hdd enclosure network hard drive

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SimpleTech, a division of Fabrik, have announced a series of three new external hard disk drives.

	Simple Drive	Pro Drive	Duo Pro Drive
Connectivity	USB 2.0	USB 2.0 and eSATA	USB 2.0 and eSATA
Spin speed	7,200 rpm	7,200 rpm	7,200 rpm
Capacities	250, 320, 500 GB	500, 750 GB, 1 TB	1, 1.5, 2 TB
Prices (US$)	$100, $130, $170	$230, $330, $530	$400, $600, $800

The eSATA functionality can be extended to Macs by the use of a host controller adapter card and the Duo Pro Drive models provide a dual-drive solution offering either RAID 0 for super-fast performance or RAID 1 for extra data protection.

As well as the drives (Fabrik had a busy day!), they have launched ‘Ultimate Backup’, an online backup service just in case the drives don’t meet your storage needs. Unlimited storage will set you back $5 a month but you can try before you buy with a capacity limit of 2 GB.

So I think that just about covers all the storage needs you could ever require!

Source: SimpleTech external drives, Fabrik Ultimate Backup

Featured tags: external hdd Fabrik hdd online storage SimpleTech

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