Pioneer Electronics (USA) Inc. continues its innovation in the optical disc drive category with today’s announcement of its new professional, high definition BDXL internal Blu-ray Disc drive. The Pioneer BDR-206MBK, BDXL writer for Windows based personal computers, is the first drive to read and write using the new multi-layer recordable Blu-ray Disc format. BDXL more than doubles the current maximum Blu-ray Disc storage capacity and is ideal for various commercial uses such as video and broadcast archiving and storage, capturing and playback of high definition programming or data archiving needs. The BDR-206MBK also enhances recording accuracy and further limits artificial noise for quality playback.

By integrating additional layers to traditional Blu-ray Discs, BDXL offers up to 128 GB of storage capacity on a quadruple layer disc. The BDR-206MBK drive allows users to read/write BD-R XL and BD-RE XL triple layer (100GB) and BD-R XL quadruple layer (128GB) discs. Additionally, the drive can play back and record on virtually all disc formats including CD, DVD, and Blu-ray Disc. The drive comes bundled with CyberLink software to support BDXL and is ready for use out of the box. For a limited time, Pioneer is including a piece of BD-R XL 100GB media for free with each drive.

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Synology America Corp. today launched the DiskStation DS211+, a high-performance and full-featured 2-bay NAS server for office and enthusiast users to share files, centralize backup, and protect data. The latest addition to the professional class of DiskStations comes with Synology’s distinctive DiskStation Manager (DSM) 3.0 software to provide an intuitive interface for managing the server.

As part of the revamped design, the DS211+ offers hot-swap drive bays, which will help businesses to minimize downtime in the event of a drive failure. Priced around $400, this is the first DiskStation to offer this feature at this price point. For photographers, it also offers an integrated SD card reader, making for easier transfers to the NAS.

“When you factor in the benefits of the newer hardware on productivity, this is just a great answer to the needs of small businesses,” said Jason Bonoan, Product Marketing Manager at Synology America. “With support for 3TB drives, that allows for volumes up to 6TB, plenty of space for many small businesses. This new model just represents a value unmatched by DAS so-called ‘solutions.’”

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Seagate today announced the availability of the Barracuda Green hard drive, the industry’s highest performance eco-friendly 3.5-inch desktop drive for low-power personal computers, multi-drive home networking systems and external PC storage.

The Barracuda Green hard drive, formerly Barracuda® LP, combines the industry’s highest spin speed (5900 RPM) with Seagate’s SmartAlign™ technology to deliver best-in-class performance. SmartAlign technology enables all the benefits of the new 4K sector standard while simplifying drive installation by eliminating the need for utilities often required to ensure optimum drive performance. The cool-running, lower-power Barracuda Green hard drive delivers whisper-quiet acoustics and helps reduce system costs associated with the fans and power supply devices often required for power-hungry systems.

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Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi GST) today unveiled a new line up of 3TB storage solutions for a broad range of users from consumers to OEMs. Given the company’s global strength, and the continued support of its retail and channel partners, Hitachi GST is well positioned to move the industry forward in leveraging high-capacity 3TB drives across a variety of segments, all while using one of the world’s most reliable hard drive platforms with proven quality and performance.

Just in time for holiday shoppers, a Hitachi Deskstar Internal Hard Drive Kit is a perfect gift for that special someone who wants to add more capacity and speed to their desktop computer for high-intensity multimedia applications like games and video. The new 3TB, 7,200 RPM Kit includes a high-performance Deskstar 7K3000 hard drive, mounting screws, step-by-step instructions, and a software download that allows 32- and 64-bit Microsoft® Windows®, Apple® OS X and Linux® systems to tap into the full capacity and power of the 3TB drive, as one big massive data drive, without having to install extra hardware. Consumers who have 32- or 64-bit Apple Mac OS X or Linux systems can enjoy the drive as a data drive or a boot drive right out of the box - no software download is required. Due to the 2.2TB limit on certain systems, Windows Vista™ and Windows 7™ users should consult Hitachi’s 2.2TB web site  for system compatibility guidelines to use the drive as a boot drive.

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