Storage and peripherals specialist Buffalo announced the HD-PEU2-RD external hard drive. It is designed to woo the fairer sex with its glossy coloured shells, available in red, white and black. The 81 (W) x 16 (H) x 130 (D) mm shell houses a 2.5 inch hard drive, which comes in capacitiesstarting from 250 GB to 500 GB. The unit tips scales at 190 g. The drive uses USB 2.0 to connect to any PC or Mac. Depending on the capacity of the hard drive, the HD-PEU2-RD is priced between $95 for the 250 GB model, and $171 for the 500 GB model.

WD (Western Digital), one of the world leaders in external storage solutions, has introduced two new external hard drives - the My Passport for Mac portable drive and the My Book Mac Edition external hard drive. Pre-formatted for Mac and offering a simple USB interface, these drives offer the Mac community reliable, easy-to-use storage. WD's latest Mac-ready drives work seamlessly with Apple Time Machine or other popular Mac backup software to provide protection for digital photos and media.

My Passport for Mac portable storage devices like the ‘Studio’ that we’ve reviewed, feature a sleek design in a shock-resistant enclosure and are available in capacities of 320GB and 500GB. The new My Book Mac Edition drives areequipped with power-saving WD hard drives with GreenPower technology, USB 2.0 interface and 1TB of capacity."WD listened to the Mac community who wanted the simplicity of a USB external drive that complements the design of their Mac computer. Now our users can choose from a full range of storage solutions that are ready to use with their Mac computers right out of the box," said Sharad Srivastava, Director Sales (India & South Asia), and Western Digital. "From the sleek design of the new My Passport for Mac, to the use of the eco-friendly hard drive technology on the My Book Mac Edition, WD continues to deliver what Mac users are looking for."

My Passport for Mac portable drives feature:

* Compatibility with Apple Time Machine;
* A shock-resistant enclosure designed to guard valuable data from the bumps and jars of everyday life;
* USB-bus powered, which eliminates the need for an external power adapter;
* Mac-ready out of the box formatted HFS+ Journaled;
* 3-year limited warranty; and,
* Sleek and stylish design that complements other Mac products.
The new My Book Mac Edition external hard drives feature:

* A sleek, elegant matte-black finish that complements other Mac products;
* Smart, eco-friendly design that utilizes WD hard drives with Green Power technology and energy efficient power saving feature that turns on and off with user's computer;
* Designed without a fan to run quietly;
* Fully recyclable product packaging;
* Shock-resistant enclosure designed to provide maximum shock protection to guard valuable data;
* Mac-ready out of the box, the drive is formatted HFS+ Journaled;
* Easy, plug-and-play set up; and,
* 1 year limited warranty

My Passport for Mac portable hard drives and My Book Mac Edition 1TB external hard drive are available at select retail stores, online retailers. The MSRP for My Passport for Mac with 320GB is Rs. 6,500 and Rs. 9,000 for 500 GB. The MSRP for My Book Mac Edition 1 TB hard drive is Rs. 16000.

Seagate has unveiled its 2008 lineup of FreeAgent external hard drives - that includes desktop and mobile options, for both Mac and Windows operated computers.The flagship pocket-sized offering, the FreeAgent Go, is the slimmest external drive available today. At a height of 12.5 mm, the new FreeAgent Go includes advanced shock and vibration protection and is the first external hard drive to offer a docking option that is sold separately and comes paired with a black leatherette carrying case.

The FreeAgent Go is available in a variety of colors, including silver, black, red, and blue. The drive also ships with a USB 2.0 travel cable.The FreeAgent Desk drive and FreeAgent XTreme drive are the family's two 3.5-inch high-capacity desktop offerings, and provide up to 1.5 Terabytes of storage. The design of these drives provides the flexibility to sit horizontally or stand vertically to maximize the workspace. The FreeAgent Desk drive comes with a brushed aluminum finish, with a USB 2.0 interface. The FreeAgent XTreme drive is a black, brushed aluminum high-capacity storage solution incorporating a triple interface of eSATA, USB 2.0 and FireWire 400.

Seagate has also unveiled external storage solutions designed specifically for the Mac community. The FreeAgent Go for Mac and FreeAgent Desk for Mac are both formatted for use with Mac OS X out of the box and are Time Machine ready with FireWire800/400 or USB 2.0 connectivity.

The Seagate FreeAgent Go drive is available for a manufacturer's suggested retail price of Rs. 5500 for 250GB, Rs. 7000 for 320GB and Rs. 12000 for 500GB.

The FreeAgent Go drive for Mac is available for an MSRP of Rs. 9000 for 250GB and Rs 10000 for 320GB, while the FreeAgent Desk drive for Mac is available for an MSRP of Rs. 9000 for 500GB, Rs. 14500 for 1TB and Rs. 19000 for 1.5TB

The FreeAgent Desk drive is available at an MSRP of Rs. 7500 for 500GB, Rs. 8000 for 640GB, Rs. 13000 for 1TB and Rs. 17000 for 1.5TB.

The FreeAgent XTreme drive is available for an MSRPof Rs. 9500 for 500GB, Rs. 10000 for 640GB, Rs. 14500 for 1TB and Rs. 17000 for 1.5TB.

The FreeAgent Dock and Case will be available for an MSRP of Rs. 1600.

As the very name of its producer (SimpleTech) says it, things are quite simple and fair with this new line of storage solutions, going by the name of DuoPro Drive. It's time to welcome three dual-hard-drive models that not only boast a whole lot of space but at the same time they come with a very extensive array of connectivity options sworn to integrate in pretty much any setting.
The SimpleTech DuoPro Drive units come in three flavors for now: 1TB, 1.5TB and the biggest one summing up 2TB.
Nevertheless, in case you still think that 2 TB is not enough for your current needs, you'll just have to wait one or two months more, because SimpleTech has already announced the 3TB version of the DuoPro Drive and it is expected to hit the shelves at the beginning of the winter season.Unlike many other large-capacity storage systems, the SimpleTech DuoPro Drive is not a network-attached-storage (NAS): we're talking about a completely local resource, easy to be installed with any system and, of course, most convenient to be carried from one office to another.
One of the coolest things about the new SimpleTech DuoPro Drive line is that it sports a rich palette of connectors, including the obvious USB 2.0,eSATA, FireWire 400 and FireWire 800, with a top transfer speed of around 3GB per second which is definitely no toy-feature. These storage systems can be arrayed in RAID 0 or RAID 1 and, in doing so, serve you as you consider best.
Thanks to their sturdy aluminium case, these drives can be safely stacked and thus make your workplace look cooler. The security lock slot and quiet fan operation complete the array of features for the SimpleTech DuoPro Drive. And if we add the very attractive pricing, things look even better: the 1TB retails for $280, the 1.5TB version costs $420 while the 2TB model will set you back $550. source : softpedia.com

We expected LG’s new 6x external Blu-ray burner to perform similarly to the company’s GBW-H20L internal offering, what with the two having identical read/write speed ratings, but we were wrong. The external drive is a bigger, more expensive letdown.
Like the GBW-H20L, the BE06 external model boasts an industry-leading 6x BD-R write rating. And here the latter performed accordingly, writing 22GB of data to a single-layer BD-R disc in a brisk 22:43 (min:sec)In BD-RE writes, however, the BE06 faltered—badly. Boasting the same 2x rating for rewriteable media as the GBW-H20L, the BE06 took more than twice as long as that drive to write 22GB of data to a BD-RE disc—a full hour and 28 minutes! That’s actually slower than just about any Blu-ray burner we’ve tested in recent memory. Not good.

The BE06 redeemed itself with DVD-R writes. The drive is rated at 16x and was able to write 4.38GB to a single-layer disc in 5:42—a second faster than the LG GBW-H20L. The drives were as closely matched on DVD-R reads.

While there’s something to be said for the convenience of an external drive with a USB 2.0 interface, this is offset by the BE06’s gargantuan size. The enclosure is nearly 3 inches longer and an inch wider than its internal brethren—and $100 more expensive. Blu-ray is a tough enough sell as it is without tacking on this drive’s compromises. We’re unimpressed.

Buffalo’s 500GB DriveStation Combo 4 external drive is the fastest USB drive we’ve ever tested, and it even holds its own on an eSATA connection. That’s thanks to a propriety technology called TurboUSB that squeaks additional speeds out of the device. On Windows XP, a DriveStation connected with TurboUSB improved its synthetic read and write speeds by 20 percent (even though its burst speeds confused our benchmark) over a typical USB connection. The device’s real-world speeds weren’t as dramatic—a mere four percent increase—but it was an improvement nonetheless.We didn’t see any real-world performance improvement between the two modes in Windows Vista because TurboUSB is built into the operating system itself. We’d definitely use this device on XP, but it’s a wash with Vista.

The DriveStation comes with Memeo AutoBackup software and a full-disk security utility that conceals your drive under 128- or 256-bit AES encryption. The latter program’s lock and unlock shortcuts for the encryption mechanism are mislabeled, but we were more bothered that it accepted our password via USB but rejected it over eSATA.

Minus these quirks, the DriveStation is a fine external storage product. It’s not blazing a speed trail on its eSATA connection, but it stuffs the USB pipe.

With the world is going eco-friendly (and smaller!), why should Dell be left behind?

Back in April 2008, there were rumours about the launch of Dell's smallest, greenest PC. That was then. Yesterday, Dell finally revealed the little green machine for all to see. The Studio Hybrid, as Dell chose to call it, is claimed to be 80% smaller than a mini tower and consumes 70% less energy. It also comes in an eco-friendly packaging with a system recycling kit bundled along.The machine looks similar to a large capacity external hard drive and as Dell says,it is "about the size of a collegiate dictionary". The Studio Hybrid can be set up in either a vertical or a horizontal orientation, and be personalized with a choice of seven optional and interchangeable sleeves: Bamboo, Emerald, Quartz, Ruby, Sapphire, Slate and Topaz.

With a starting price of $499, the Studio Hybrid is powerful enough for basic web page designing, editing and uploading videos and digital photo albums. It comes with an HDMI port as standard and can be customized with an optional wireless keyboard, Wi-Fi networking, a Blu-Ray Disc drive for watching high-definition DVDs, and a TV tuner.

This makes it a pretty capable PC and it should be an attractive proposition for buyers who were looking for an energy efficient, powerful computing device, in a space-saving package.

"Our goal was to design a desktop that fits in the office or in the living room, or anywhere space is at a premium," said Michael Scheschuk, desktop product marketing. "We've created a desktop PC category that combines style, performance and a high degree of energy efficiency."

Along with the Studio Hybrid, Dell also introduced two new Inspiron PCs, including the Inspiron 13 -- a sub-$800 13-inch laptop.

Expanding its portable storage offerings, Western Digital has introduced its new Mac-formatted My Passport Studio portable drives. The newest members of the My Passport family are designed for Mac users on-the-go and are equipped with both FireWire 400 and USB 2.0 interfaces, a capacity gauge, and include a soft drawstring carrying bag for protection from scratches and dirt. The My Passportstudio portable drives are offered in capacities of 320 GB and 250 GB.
Weighing in at less than 5 ounces, the My Passport Studio portable drives make it easy to carry office files, thousands of songs, videos or photos and back up a Macintosh laptop using Apple Time Machine backup software utility. With a silver metallic finish, these portable drives feature a shock-resistant enclosure to provide protection. Some unique features of the new My Passport Studio portable drives include formatted HFS+ Journaled for Mac compatibility, FireWire 400 and USB 2.0 interfaces and a capacity gauge that enables users to know at-a-glance how much space is available. These new drives also work with Apple Time Machine backup feature included in Apple's Leopard operating system.

"We designed the My Passport Studio portable drives to work seamlessly with Apple's Time Machine, making this drive an ideal storage solution for creative pros on-the-go who require high performance storage to back up and carry their massive amounts of digital content," said Sharad Srivastava, Director Sales (India and South Asia), Western Digital branded products and consumer electronics groups.

WD's My Passport Studio portable drives will be available with select distributors in India. MSRP for the My Passport Studio portable drives are up to Rs. 10,500 (depending on capacity).