Synology Inc. today launched the new DiskStation DS115. Featuring a dual-core processor and compact design, this 1-bay NAS server allows homes and small businesses to take advantage of centralized data storage, borderless file sharing, easy cloud synchronization, multimedia streaming, home surveillance, and much more.

"DS115 makes it easy to work, play, and share files from anywhere. With its speedy performance, intuitive interface, and diverse ecosystem of add-on packages, DS115 is a great NAS server for homes or small businesses — especially for people who still rely on external hard drives, flash drives, or cloud services to swap and share files," said Jonathan Wang, product manager at Synology Inc.

Mushkin Enhanced MFG, an industry-leading designer and manufacturer of high-performance and mission-critical computer storage products, today announced at CES 2015 its new STRIKER series of solid state drives. Boasting top-tier performance specifications, the STRIKER 2.5” SSD is an important step forward for Mushkin to offer the most well-rounded SSD lineup – producing solutions for high value, performance, and capacity.

The STRIKER SSD provides sequential read and write throughput of up to 565 and 550MB/s respectively, with random performance of up to 90,000 4K IOPS.  Launching in 240-960GB capacities, the new STRIKER SSD series will be available at retail channels in Q1 2015.

Pioneer Japan sent out a press release today, announcing yet another new 16x Blu-ray Disc writer, the BDR-S09J-X. Like the original BDR-S09J, this Windows 8.1 compatible drive is is capable of 16x BD-R, 14x BD-R DL, 8x BD-R LTH, 2x BD-RE and 2x BD-RE DL writing speeds and a maximum BD-ROM read speed of 12x. The BDR-S09J-X also writes to triple-layer (100GB) BD-R media at 8x, quad-layer (128GB) BD-R media at 6x and triple-layer (100GB) BD-RE media at 2x.

What makes the BDR-S09J-X unique is its ability to check and display the playback quality of an audio CD (CD-DA) and, in the case of a low quality level, recommend the settings for optimal playback. In the case of a read error caused by dirt or a scratch, the drive uses Pioneer's PureRead3+ technology to reread these sections of a disc. Last, but not least, the BDR-S09J-X features a new technology called RealTime PureRead which reduces the occurrance of data interpolation in real time so that a CD can be played with the original sound quality.

The BDR-S09J-X ships with authoring and playback software from CyberLink and is expected to cost about 33,000 Yen ($276US) when it hits stores in late January.

DIGISTOR, a trusted provider of solid state drives, optical drives, and Blu-ray recordable media, has announced the release of their 4th generation external optical drive now with USB 3.0 connectivity. Designed to deliver tireless performance and reliability, DIGISTOR’s newest addition to their range of optical drives promises to be the most compatible external DVD and Blu-ray drives on the market.

The newly released external optical drives are self-powered with a single USB cable, offering energy efficiency and a simple setup. Thanks to the unique power efficient USB design the DIGISTOR drives are built to take advantage of the fast USB 3.0 bus as well as be fully backwards compatible with USB 2.0 connections making it the industry’s most compatible Blu-ray and DVD drive. The drive supports both USB 3.0 as well as USB 2.0 applications while still offering a single cable solution, no wall adapter needed.