Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., a world leader in digital consumer electronics and information technology, today announced that its new 3.5-inch external hard drive, STORY Station, will feature the industry’s first standby power consumption below a watt starting in November. The reduced standby power level easily meets requirements for the forthcoming European Union’s EuP (Energy Using Products) Directive for Standby Regulation, effective January 2010.

Samsung has lowered the standby power consumption by over 95 percent, to 0.09W from the conventional level of 2.5W, a move that will cut down on indirect CO2 emissions. Samsung’s introduction of the low standby power level is the first for any 3.5-inch external hard drive.
“User requirements for external hard drives now include eco-friendliness and lower power levels in addition to performance, reliability and exceptional design,” said C.H. Lee, vice president, Storage sales & marketing, Samsung Electronics. “Samsung’s STORY Station, which has been praised for its appealing external-drive design, takes a huge step forward in setting the stage for the timely introduction of environmentally-conscious hard drive technology.”
Clickfree, the inventors of Effortless Backup, today announced the launch of C2 its new flagship portable hard drive. With C2, Clickfree once again redefines consumer backup by bringing together an amazing set of features that have never before been available in a single backup product. Without adding complexity to Clickfree's signature approach, consumers will now be able to automatically import music from iPods and iPhones, burn backed up files to CDs and DVDs, extract and organize all email attachments and protect files with encryption. All these new features in a beautiful high-gloss unit with a built-in USB cable makes it the most portable drive on the market.

Today LaCie, in collaboration with world-famous designer Philippe Starck, announced the LaCie Starck Desktop Hard Drive and the LaCie Starck Mobile Hard Drive. The new products showcase more than just Starck’s iconic signature; there is an intellect revealed throughout each component of the design.

From Philippe Starck: "Technological genius explodes exponentially, each time with incredible power whose limits are yet to be known. The power remains, never abating, symbolically characterized by the sculptural magma that one attempts to cleave, to master within this geometrically perfect strongbox. A symbol of strength mastered, of freedom guided, of incandescent magma heeding to the form of its cast. The interpretation is free. But the mystery remains."
Complementing Starck’s design philosophy is an intelligent surface that responds to your touch. Exclusively featured on the LaCie Starck Desktop Hard Drive, you can customize the touch-sensitive surface to open an application of your choosing with the touch of a finger. It’s an easy, efficient way to streamline your digital life.
Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi GST) today announced worldwide availability of two new 15,000 RPM Ultrastar hard drives for Tier 0/1, mission-critical, enterprise storage applications. The new drives include the Ultrastar C15K147, Hitachi’s first 15,000 RPM, 2.5-inch 6Gb/s Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) hard drive, and the new 600GB Ultrastar 15K600, the company’s fourth generation 3.5-inch drive with either 6Gb/s SAS or 4Gb/s Fibre Channel Arbitrated Loop (FCAL) interfaces. To help enterprises protect sensitive data and comply with privacy and data protection regulations, Hitachi now offers industry-compliant, self-encrypting, enterprise-class hard drives as an option across all of its 10,000 and 15,000 RPM Ultrastar drives.

While enterprise operating costs continue to escalate, most IT budgets are either flat or trending downward. At the same time, enterprise data is proliferating at an unabated rate and sensitive data must be protected. These factors combine to make storage efficiency, data protection and return on assets (ROA) among the most pressing concerns for today’s data center managers. In these environments, every possible technique must be applied to achieve maximum value, efficiency and security. This could mean applying tiered storage methods, implementing encryption technologies, reducing power, maximizing cooling while minimizing space requirements, or obtaining maximum performance out of individual components and systems.
WD, the world's leader in external storage solutions, today introduced its new My Book® Elite™ desktop external drives featuring a customizable e-label that's always visible, even when the drive is unplugged, making it easy to know what's on the drive and how much space is left. The new My Book Elite also features automatic and continuous backup with WD SmartWare™ software and 256-bit hardware-based encryption. Available now at select retailers and shopwd.com, the new My Book Elite drives are offered in capacities of 1 TB, 1.5 TB and 2 TB.

The e-label smart display on the spine of the My Book drives can be changed easily and as often as desired. It utilizes e-paper technology which reads like ink on paper. With the included WD SmartWare software, users can easily create a label to name their drive or remind themselves of its contents. The e-label also shows available capacity and whether the drive is locked via WD SmartWare software's powerful password protection and hardware-based encryption. Utilizing e-paper technology, the information on the display remains clearly visible, even when the drive is unplugged, and the customized label can be changed easily as often as desired.