ASUS Japan sent out a press release earlier today, announcing its new 24x DVD writer, the DRW-24D5MT. Along with support for Millenniata's M-DISC format, the drive is capable of 24x DVD±R, 8x DVD±R DL, 5x DVD-RAM, 8x DVD+RW and 6x DVD-RW writing speeds and a maximum DVD read speed of 16x. The DRW-24D5MT also feature's ASUS's E-Green technology, which puts the drive into an energy-saving mode when it is not in use. According to the company, this reduces power consumption by more than 50%.

The DRW-24D5MT ships with burning and backup software from CyberLink and Nero and is expected to cost about 2,500 Yen ($20US) when it hits stores later this month.

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.

Synology Inc. today launched DiskStation DS216, a feature-rich 2-bay NAS server conceived to be a perfect match for workgroups and office environment, and specially designed for sharing and protecting data.

"DS216 will quickly become your best work partner, providing multiple handy office applications and improving productivity at work." said Jason Fan, product manager at Synology Inc.

DS216 is built to deliver optimal multi-tasking experience at the best price/performance ratio. Powered by a dual-core 1.3 GHz CPU and 512 MB DDR3 memory, DS216 outperforms its predecessor and delivers an exceeding read and write speed at over 111 MB/s under RAID 1 configuration in a Windows® environment.

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.