WDLabs, a business growth incubator of storage solutions leader Western Digital Corporation, today announced availability of the WD PiDrive 314GB, a storage device engineered to serve the Raspberry Pi® community with low-power USB operation, affordability, reliability and ease of integration.

"Adoption of Raspberry Pi computing devices is expanding at a tremendous rate, reaching eight million units in about four years1. However, the millions of Raspberry Pi users are finding limitations from data storage devices (SD card, USB hard drive or cloud storage) originally designed for other applications," said Dave Chew, chief engineer, WDLabs. "The WD PiDrive 314 GB HDD is designed to support Raspberry Pi growth by addressing barriers to hard drive adoption such as affordability, power loading and system set-up. In addition, we've maintained the key strengths of hard drive technology, including mass-storage value, high data integrity and reliability."

"With the extended capabilities of Raspberry Pi 3, we can't wait to see what new projects our community comes up with," said Eben Upton, chief executive officer, Raspberry Pi. "WD PiDrive 314GB gives our members a low-cost, purpose built hard drive solution that helps them develop even more innovative and unique ways to use Raspberry Pi."

Transcend Information, Inc., a leading manufacturer of storage and multimedia products, is proud to announce the newly released JetDrive Go 500 Flash Drive specifically designed for the Apple iPhone, iPad, and iPod. With a high-quality alloy construction, smaller size, and lighter weight, Transcend’s JetDrive Go 500 is equipped with both a Lightning connector and a USB 3.1 Gen 1 connector, providing convenient data transfer between Apple handheld devices and computers. Powered by Transcend’s exclusive JetDrive Go App, which features a Shoot and Save function, photos and videos can be captured and saved directly to the JetDrive Go 500 flash drive without having to worry about insufficient storage space. 

Transcend’s JetDrive Go 500 is incredibly compact and lightweight, and is one of the smallest flash drives on the market. Available in both gold and silver colors, the JetDrive Go 500 boasts a sleek alloy casing. The extended Lightning connector allows the JetDrive Go 500 to have expanded compatibility with oversized protective bumper cases that prevent other flash drives from properly connecting without removing the case.

Synology Inc. today launched DS216j, a NAS perfect for home media streaming, as well as file sharing and backup. Powered by a dual-core CPU with a floating-point unit (FPU), the 2-bay NAS is designed for home and personal users that are in need of a reliable, highly efficient home server requiring less power consumption.

"With Synology's intuitive user interface, upgraded platform, and versatile features, we hope to make DS216j the best home server for users who use NAS to stream multimedia content, share and sync files, as well as backup data," said Jason Fan, Product Manager at Synology Inc.

Seagate Technology plc today unveiled a production-ready unit of the fastest single solid-state drive (SSD) demonstrated to date, with throughput performance of 10 gigabytes per second (GB/s). The early unit meets Open Compute Project (OCP) specifications, making it ideal for hyperscale data centers looking to adopt the fastest flash technology with the latest and most sustainable standards.

The 10GB/s unit, which is expected to be released this summer, is more than 4GB/s faster than the previous fastest-industry SSD on the market. It also meets the OCP storage specifications being driven by Facebook, which will help reduce the power and cost burdens traditionally associated with operating at this level of performance.

“Your data is only as good as how easily you can access it and put it to use,” said Brett Pemble, Seagate’s general manager and vice president of SSD Products. “Seagate is committed to providing the full spectrum of technologies to help meet the diverse needs of organizations so they can unlock this value. Whether for consumer cloud or business applications, this SSD will help improve on demands for fast access to information, where split seconds drive incremental value gains.”

CDRLabs has taken an in depth look at QNAP's new QTS-Android Combo NAS, the TAS-268. Designed to fit in homes and small offices/workspaces, the TAS-268 features a compact mini-tower design and is powered by an ARM v7 1.1GHz dual-core processor with 2GB of DDR3 RAM. Like QNAP's other NAS servers, it also offers cutting-edge features and apps to provide day-to-day file storage, backup, sharing, synchronization and entertainment needs. What really makes the TAS-268 special, though, is that it runs both QTS and Android. Where QTS delivers efficient data transmission, rich multimedia functionalities and solid data security, the Google certified Android system lets users playback videos, download and run apps, and manage files on a 4K display with HDMI. QTS and Android also share the same storage database, so users can access media files and documents from both systems simultaneously.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the world leader in advanced memory technology, announced today that it is now shipping the industry’s largest solid state drive (SSD) – the “PM1633a,” a 15.36 terabyte (TB) drive.

First revealed at the 2015 Flash Memory Summit in August, the 15.36TB SSD is based on a 12Gb/s Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) interface, for use in enterprise storage systems. Because the PM1633a comes in a 2.5-inch form factor, enterprise storage managers can fit twice as many of the drives in a standard 19-inch, 2U rack, compared to an equivalent 3.5-inch storage drive.

QNAP Systems Inc. today announced the release of the energy-efficient and budget-friendly dual-core Compact NAS, including the 1-bay TS-128 and 2-bay TS-228. Designed with a mini-tower form factor that takes less desktop space, they are ideal for home users to create their own personal cloud. The feature-rich TS-128/228 helps users to easily handle file backup and synchronization tasks, and also provides remote access and a wide range of multimedia apps to enrich their digital lifestyle.

“As photoshooting and recording with smartphones, tablets and digital cameras has become mainstream and the desire for high-resolution multimedia content becomes stronger, users are eager to find easier and more convenient methods for digital storage and sharing,” said Jason Hsu, Product Manager of QNAP. “The new TS-128 and TS-228 presents an ideal personal NAS at a budget price to provide users with a great base for data storage, backup and multimedia entertainment.”

Running on the QTS 4.2 smart NAS operating system, the TS-128/228 is powered by an ARM® v7 dual-core 1.1GHz processor with 1GB DDR3 RAM to deliver up to 100 MB/s read speed for smooth data transmission, concurrent access from multiple users, and home applications. The TS-128/228 is suitable for serving as a multimedia center as users can back up or download files with the system retaining high performance. The tool-less design makes it extremely easy to remove the TS-128/228’s side cover to add or replace hard drives.