CDRLabs kicks off the week with a review of Crucial's new BX200 solid state drive. Aimed at the budget-conscious consumer looking to upgrade to an SSD, the BX200 offers substantial yet affordable performance gains compared to a standard hard drive. Powered by Silicon Motion's SM2256 controller and available with up to 960GB of Micron's 16nm TLC NAND, the drive delivers true 540 MB/s sequential reads on both compressible and incompressible data for faster boot up speeds and shorter application load times. The BX200 is also 40 times more energy efficient than a typical hard drive, allowing users to run their systems longer, using less power.

QNAP Systems, Inc. today announced the world’s first and only QTS-Android Combo NAS – TAS-168 and TAS-268, which support QTS & Android dual systems. Both systems share the same storage database, allowing users to simultaneously access media files and documents from QTS and Android™. With a compact mini-tower design, the TAS-168/268 comfortably fits in homes and small offices/workspaces. Coupled with up to terabytes of storage capacity and 4K (H.265 & H.264) HDMI-out, the TAS-168/268 is the optimal budget-friendly multimedia NAS with unlimited app applications for modern digital lifestyles.

“The QNAP QTS-Android Combo NAS TAS-168/268 is an unprecedented network storage center for file storage, backup, remote access and diverse Android™ applications,” said Hanz Sung, product manager of QNAP. “Users can enjoy video streams, use apps and manage files on a big HDMI display instead of sliding and tapping on a small screen. The TAS-168/268 makes the personal cloud experience more flexible and enjoyable.”

Patriot, a leading manufacturer of flash storage solutions, computer memory and storage, mobile accessories and gaming peripherals, today announce the addition of 128GB capacities for several of their lifestyle USB flash drives.

Consistent with the latest USB specifications, the new 128GB capacities will be USB 3.1 Gen 1, backwards compatible with USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 and reach up to 110MB/s and 20MB/s read and write speeds.

“With the growing need for more storage, Patriot is excited to expand the storage capacities of our most popular lifestyle lines,” said Meng J. Choo, Patriot’s Flash Product Manager. “These new capacities make it possible to carry even the largest HD videos in your pocket, or easily expand the storage on your current device or platform.”

Tab
One of Patriot’s top selling USB drives, the Tab was the company’s leader in its catalog of compact portable flash drives. Its minimalist design makes it the perfect companion for the Apple® faithful looking to expand their storage without breaking the bank. The metal finish makes it virtually undetectable while plugged into any laptop or PC and the quintessential take anywhere USB.

CDRLabs has put together a brief review of Samsung's new Bar USB 3.0 flash drive. Designed specifically for use in PC devices, the Bar is available in 16GB, 32GB and 64GB capacities. The drive features a high-quality metal casing that is water, shock, temperature, magnetic and X-ray proof. The streamlined spherical end also makes it easy to insert and extract from devices and doubles as a key ring to help prevent loss. To top it all off, the Bar offers sequential read speed of up to 130MB/s, allowing users to transfer a 2.4GB full HD video or approximately 40 hours of MP3 music in less than 20 seconds.