Synology today launched the new USB Station 2, an affordable and easy to use NAS server, featuring plug-and-play file sharing, multimedia content streaming, download without a PC, and low power consumption of only 4W in operation, making it prefect for home to small office networks running multiplatform.

“USB Station 2 is the most affordable Synology’s NAS server ever. Almost everyone can afford it and experience the rich features of file sharing and multimedia enjoyment delivered by its legendary Synology DiskStation Manager 3.0 (DSM 3.0) operating system,” said Chad Cheng, product manager of Synology Inc.

By simply plugging in any USB storage devices, USB Station 2 is ready to share files and multimedia content among Windows®, Mac, and Linux, vastly increasing users’ work efficiency, yet decreasing IT administration cost. Synology’s groundbreaking File Browser feature delivers effortless and intuitive file sharing with the ease of file navigation in a web browser. The USB printer sharing capability further minimizes users’ expenses by sharing printing resources throughout the working environment.

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Western Digital today introduced its new My Passport® Essential™ portable hard drive, My Passport® Essential™ SE portable hard drive, and My Book® Essential external hard drive. All three drive families come in a variety of capacities and offer lightning-fast USB 3.0 connectivity. Highest industry capacity is another key feature for the My Book Essential drive, which is now available in 3 TB capacity, in addition to 1 and 2 TB capacities. Equipped with WD SmartWare™ visual backup software for automatic, continuous backup, these drives provide users the extra space they need to store or back up all of their digital memories, such as high-resolution photos and videos, along with music and other critical files, all in one place.

The drives not only take advantage of the latest blazing-fast USB 3.0 technology, but are also fully compatible with USB 2.0 connections for those who have yet to upgrade their computers to USB 3.0. When connected to a SuperSpeed USB 3.0 port, consumers can transfer data at speeds up to 5 Gb/s. At that rate, a two-hour HD video will transfer in as little as three minutes. The same two-hour video would take approximately 13 minutes to transfer on a USB 2.0 port.

My Passport Essential, still WD's smallest portable drive, is available in a 500 GB capacity and comes in five fun colors – Midnight Black, Cool Silver, Real Red, Pacific Blue and Arctic White (Arctic White only available in EMEA and APAC). My Passport Essential SE portable hard drives are available in 750 GB and 1 TB capacities and come in stylish black, silver, metallic blue and metallic red colors. The pocket-sized My Passport portable hard drives are powered directly through the USB cable; no separate power supply is needed.

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Data Robotics, the company that is changing the way the world stores and protects digital content, today introduced DroboPro FS, the newest member of the Drobo family of automated storage products. Building on the success of the award-winning Drobo FS (introduced in April, 2010), the DroboPro FS with the newly integrated Drobo Sync application is tailored to enable small businesses to deploy network storage and offsite backup without complexity. DroboPro FS is ideal for any small office environment that requires a simple, safe, and affordable device for sharing and backing up files over the network.

"There is a significant need for simple, expandable storage solutions that address the relentless data growth happening within personal and small to medium business markets," said Liz Conner, Senior Research Analyst, Storage Systems and Personal Storage, IDC. "Data Robotics has had success in addressing the personal and SOHO storage market with its Drobo FS. The company is aiming to meet the increasingly rigid requirements for data availability with its DroboPro FS by enabling off-site backups while preserving its simple-to-use nature that can scale with the capacity needs of its users."

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Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi GST) today announced its new 375GB/platter, 5,400 RPM and 7,200 RPM, 2.5-inch hard drives – the Travelstar™ 5K750 and the Travelstar 7K750 hard drive families. Featuring the industry’s highest capacities in a standard 9.5mm two-disk design, the new drives come in capacities of 750GB, 640GB and 500GB. The drives are built on Hitachi’s proven platform for quality and reliability, and feature innovative technology that delivers high shock protection, low power and fast performance for a variety of notebook computers, external storage solutions, gaming consoles and other mobile devices.

The Travelstar 5K750 and 7K750 drive families are the first Hitachi GST hard drives that feature Advanced Format. Advanced Format increases the physical sector size on hard drives from 512 bytes to 4096 (4K) bytes. This helps utilize the storage surface area more efficiently, allowing for increased drive capacities and improved data integrity at higher storage densities. By integrating Hitachi drives with the new Advanced Format, IT managers, system integrators and OEMs can take advantage of the latest operating systems to deliver new high-capacity, power-efficient systems.

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