What a difference six months makes. Back before Christmas, one of the VPs at Western Digital was saying that the company only "enters markets that exist," meaning, of course, that we had to take all the tales of SSDs that we heard (in product spec sheets and reviews) on faith alone. Since then the company's acquired SiliconSystems and -- a short trip down the road to Damascus later -- it's announcing the SiliconDrive III product range. SiliconSystems' meat and potatoes were heavy hitters in such industries as communications, aerospace, and military, and it seems that WD's new range will continue to target these markets. According to The Register, the range sports SiSMART (which keeps tabs on the drive's status in real-time, notifying the user when it needs to be replaced) and includes 2.5-inch (SATA and PATA) and 1.8-inch Micro SATA devices, featuring native SATA 3Gb/s or ATA-7 interfaces with up to 100MB/s read speeds write speeds up to 80MB/s. Max available capacity is 120GB. No word yet on specific products or prices, but you'll know as soon as we do.

Aside from his stunning portrayal as Col. Kurtz ("I swallowed a bug"), Brando is our go-to guy for drive bays and memory card readers. If you're not holding out for a dock that plays DivX movies (or tells the temperature in your cube) this device should be right up your proverbial alley. The Unitek 3.5-inch USB Multi-Functional Bay sports a 2.5-inch SATA HDD enclosure, SD(HC) and MicroSD(HC) card readers, and a four pin power port -- 'cos you can't have too many four pin power ports. Since this is Brando, we were hoping to see something with a little more kitsch appeal, but we suppose that we'll just have to hold out for something from the Happy-Kid line. If a sane and sober-looking approach to portable storage is what you're after, be sure to size this guy up in the gallery below.

Sonnet's a fun little company -- when not hustling iPod chargers and transmitters, it's providing the world with more sober, serious hardware, such as its RAID storage solutions. Among the company's newest kit is Qio, a media card reader / writer that includes a E4P SATA host controller, four eSATA ports, and the usual array of P2, SxS and CompactFlash slots. If that weren't enough, this device also includes an adapter so that your SD and XF cards don't feel left out. Available for both desktop (PCIe) and laptop owners (ExpressCard), the HDD controller supports port multipliers allowing users to access up to 20 drives. Available sometime next month, pricing to be determined.

Brando, known for its zany USB gadgets (and for playing Superman's father Jor-El) is back on the scene with a combination SATA HDD dock / stereo speaker / USB hub. This might not come with the laugh appeal of, say, the Buffalo USB speakers -- and it may not tell you the temperature at your desk -- but if you don't mind one of these ugmos cluttering up your workstation we're sure you'll be able to put it to good use. Features include: compatibility with both 2.5-inch and 3.5-inch SATA hard disks, two USB 2.0 ports, USB audio, three watt stereo speakers (with "rich timbre"), and volume control.Yours for a smooth $59.

Internal SSD drives generally aren't the most exciting devices out there, apart from the fact they're SSDs, but Buffalo's new SHD-NSUM series of drives look to bit a bit of an exception, with each packing a microUSB port for some data transfers in a pinch in addition to the standard SATA-II interface. Otherwise, the drives are expectedly pretty standard fare, with Buffalo promising that they're 30% faster than a standard hard drive, and offering them in the usual 32GB, 64GB, and 128GB capacities. No word on a 'release round here just yet, but those in Japan should be able to pick 'em up in March for between $120 and $390.

[Via SlashGear]