Corsair® a worldwide leader in high-performance computer and flash memory products, today announced the Voyager Port portable backup solution for USB flash drives.

The Voyager Port transforms any USB flash drive into a powerful data backup solution, complete with a simple, one-button file backup feature. The Voyager Port requires no external power supply and features a USB 2.0 port for the latest, high-speed USB flash drives.

“USB flash drives, such as Corsair’s shock- and water-resistant Flash Voyager drives, are smaller and far more durable than portable hard disk drives, which have moving parts that are vulnerable to shock” said Jim Carlton, VP of Marketing, Corsair, “And with 64GB Flash Voyagers now available, USB flash drives are ideal backup solutions.”

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Western Digital Corp. (NYSE: WDC - News), a world leader in hard drive storage for computing and consumer electronics applications, today announced that it has completed a $65 million cash acquisition of SiliconSystems, Inc., Aliso Viejo, Calif., a leading supplier of solid-state drives for the embedded systems market.

Since its inception in 2002, SiliconSystems has sold millions of SiliconDrive® products to meet the high performance, high reliability and multi-year product lifecycle demands of the network-communications, industrial, embedded-computing, medical, military and aerospace markets. These markets accounted for approximately one third of worldwide solid-state drive revenues in 2008. SiliconSystems' product portfolio includes solid-state drives with SATA, EIDE, PC Card, USB and CF interfaces in 2.5-inch, 1.8-inch, CF and other form factors. SiliconSystems has developed extensive intellectual property to address the stringent embedded systems market requirements to ensure data integrity, eliminate unscheduled downtime, protect application data and software and provide for data security and protection through its patented and patent-pending PowerArmor®, SiSMART®, SolidStor® and SiSecure(TM) technologies.

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Lite-On, a global leader of optical storage solutions, announces the availability of the iHES208 8X internal Blu-ray Disc Combo.  The Blu-ray Disc reader, plus DVD writer, provides consumers an innovative way to playback high-definition content, while maintaining the capability of archiving personal data files onto CD or DVD. 

The iHES208 can record on the market’s most popular DVD and CD media, as well as playback from media including Blu-ray, DVD and CD.  The drive reads BD-R/RE/ROM discs at up to 8X and supports the following writing speeds: DVD±R at 16X, DVD±R DL and DVD+RW at 8X, DVD-RW at 6X and DVD-RAM at 12X.

“The iHES208 is a great solution for those looking for the advanced technologies of Blu-ray in home entertainment,” said Christine Hsing, Marketing Manager at PLDS. “The drive will not only allow them to play high-definition content such as Blu-ray movies, it will also let them easily share data files, presentations, home videos and other image files on DVDs or CDs.”

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Sony Optiarc has beaten Lite-On to the punch, releasing the world's first 24x DVD writer, the AD-7240S. Available now through various online retailers, including Newegg and Buy.com, the Serial ATA equipped AD-7240S offers 24x DVD±R, 12x DVD±R DL and 12x DVD-RAM writing speeds as well as features like Optiarc's Auto Strategy and Adaptive Self Tuning technologies.

Thanks to the fine folks at Optiarc America, we were able to get our hands on the AD-7240S and run some tests. So far things look very promising. When writing to DVD-R and DVD+R media at 24x, it took the drive about four minutes to burn an entire 4.7GB DVD, beating most 22x DVD writers by 20-30 seconds. It's writing quality was also surprisingly good, considering the speeds.

A full review of the AD-7240S is currently in the works. In the mean time, please post any comments or questions you may have in our forum.