Western Digital Corporation, a global storage technology and solutions leader, today announced its fastest, high-capacity USB flash drive to date with the launch of its high-performance 256GB SanDisk Extreme PRO USB 3.1 Solid State Flash Drive. The new drive delivers the speed, capacity, and reliability of an SSD in the convenient form factor of a small USB flash drive, and is ideal for creative professionals, tech enthusiasts, or anyone who creates and shares massive files.

A game-changer in the USB storage category, the drive is capable of read speeds up to 420MB/s and write speeds up to 380MB/s1. With its unprecedented speeds, you can transfer full-length 4K movie to the drive in less than 15 seconds2. With its USB 3.1 interface, people can rapidly access and move files on the go, without having to worry about a cable. The new drive also features a sophisticated design with a durable aluminum metal casing and a retractable connector for ultimate style and reliability.

Western Digital Corporation (“Western Digital”) today announced the availability of new WD Black PCIe solid state drives (SSDs), the first WD-branded client PCIe SSDs. The new SSDs complement the recently announced WD Blue and WD Green SATA SSDs, as well as the company’s industry leading family of hard drives for PCs and workstations, providing a full portfolio of WD storage devices for virtually any application.

The WD Black PCIe SSD is a performance PCIe Gen3 x4 NVMe-based SSD that delivers more than three times the sequential read speeds of current SATA SSDs. The 256GB and 512GB capacities make it ideal as a boot drive when paired with a high-capacity hard drive, or as primary storage when building a future-ready PC. Consumers who are using the new WD Black PCIe SSD to boot up, load read-intensive games or applications, or shut down a system may realize a performance improvement of more than 10 seconds when compared to SATA SSDs.

Patriot, a global leader in performance memory, SSDs, gaming peripherals and flash storage solutions, today announced the release of two new Type-C USB drives. The Stellar-C Vertical (STC-Vi) and the Stellar-C Pass-Through (STC-Ti) will provide users with high capacity, portable storage solutions for the ever growing Type-C technology.

The Patriot STC-Vi will provide users with an upright solution to minimize obstruction while in use with Type-C smartphones or tablets and provides a low-profile, plug-and-stay, drive for use in notebooks, such as the MacBook®, and desktop PCs. “With the STC-Vi, the new vertically positioned Type-C flash drive, we are giving the consumer something that will mesh well with Type-C mobile devices both in style and portability,” said Meng J. Choo, Patriot’s Flash Product Manager. Available in a range of capacities from 64GB to 128GB, the STC-Vi will have a transfer rate of up to 225MB/s read and up to 25MB/s write for a seamless transfer between devices.

LaCie, the premium brand from Seagate Technology plc, today announced at the Consumer Electronics Show significant updates to its legendary LaCie Rugged and d2 storage solutions. Photographers, videographers and musicians from around the globe have trusted these products for more than a decade to help them capture, edit and deliver their creative work. New technologies let users film and photograph at unprecedented resolutions, requiring more efficient ways to manage the exponential increases in data. To address this challenge, LaCie, with design by Neil Poulton, has engineered its next generation of storage solutions with more speed, higher capacity and better compatibility—and best-in-class reliability.

LACIE RUGGED THUNDERBOLT USB-C

First, the new LaCie Rugged Thunderbolt USB-C combines iconic Rugged toughness with USB-C compatibility and fast Thunderbolt speeds. Users can store even more footage, and so carry fewer devices, thanks to the industry-leading mobile HDD capacity up to 5TB. The LaCie Rugged features Seagate BarraCuda drives for best-in-class reliability and performance. In addition, the 1TB SSD version delivers speeds of up to 510MB/s, a 30 percent increase over the previous SSD generation. With these speeds, creative professionals can transfer 100GB of content in about three minutes and enjoy more responsive photo library browsing in Adobe Lightroom.

Kingston Digital, Inc., the Flash memory affiliate of Kingston Technology Company, Inc., the independent world leader in memory products, today announced DataTraveler Ultimate Generation Terabyte (GT), the world’s highest capacity USB Flash drive. DataTraveler Ultimate GT offers up to 2TB of storage space and USB 3.1 Gen 1 (USB 3.0) performance.

Power users will have the ability to store massive amounts of data in a small form factor, including up to 70 hours of 4K video on a single 2TB drive*. DataTraveler Ultimate GT offers superior quality in a high-end design as it is made of a zinc-alloy metal casing for shock resistance. Its compact size gives the tech enthusiast or professional user an easily portable solution to store and transfer their high capacity files. For more information please see below or refer to the following reference table for storage capacities.

Patriot, a leading manufacturer of SSDs, computer memory, flash storage solutions, mobile accessories and gaming peripherals, today announced the addition of a 256GB capacity to its LX Series line of microSDXC cards.

Utilizing the latest 3D NAND technology, allowing for more storage in a dime-sized form factor, the 256GB LX Series is capable of capturing hours of 4K UHD and Full HD video and thousands of high-resolution images. Ideal for support of the latest action camera, drone and Android™ smartphone or tablet, the 256GB LX delivers users top of the line performance coupled with an unbeatable amount of storage. With the infinite possibilities of cinematic production, thanks to drone technology, the new 256GB LX series fulfills a need for longer hours of video production with professional image quality.

“Patriot is excited to expand the LX microSD series with its latest addition of a 256GB capacity,” said Meng J. Choo, Patriot’s Flash Product Manager. “This U3 card will enable users to record around 12 to 14 hours of 4K, Ultra HD video, making it a perfect solution for the latest smart phones, high-end drones and action cameras.”

On behalf of the staff here at CDRLabs, I want to wish everyone a safe and happy holiday season. Drive safe, eat well and hopefully you'll get that special something you asked Santa for.