Ridata has dabbled in the wonderful world of triple-data capacity SSDs before, but as with most manufacturers, it wouldn't open its mouth and divulge a price. Now, however, we've got three newcomers to swoon over along with price tags to balk (or cheer, depending on wallet depth) over. The Ultra-S Plus MLC SATA SSD line has launched in 32GB, 64GB and 128GB sizes, all of which offer up to 128MB/sec read speeds and 80MB/sec write speeds. Without further adieu, the late July-bound trio will be selling for $169.90, $294.90 and $537.90 from least capacious to most. So, you gettin' one?

Sans Digital caught our eyes earlier this month with a simple, albeit remarkably nifty CF to SATA adapter, and now it's doing so again with a 2-bay NAS enclosure. The AccuNAS AN2L is a RAID 0/1 chassis that supports file sharing in Windows, OS X and Linux, and it also enables playback of files via a PS3 / Xbox 360 or any other UPnP / DLNA-certified device. You'll also find that this thing doubles triples as an iTunes music server and BitTorrent client, which makes it all the more tempting, does it not? No word on pricing at the moment, but if you're strangely uncomfortable with loading in your own HDDs, the outfit will be selling these with 500GB to 2TB pre-installed for an undisclosed premium.

For budding audio / video editors that can't stand to leave home without a RAID setup in tow, you should probably give Sonnet's incredibly mobile Fusion F2 a look. This portable SATA RAID solution now tops out at 1TB (a 640GB model is also available) and features an eSATA connector, fanless design and compatibility with Sonnet's Tempo SATA ExpressCard/34 card. Within the 1.22-pound, 5.9- x 6.2- x 0.72-inch enclosure, you'll find a pair of 2.5-inch 7,200RPM HDDs that are able to deliver 134MB/sec read and write rates. Word on the street places a $995 price tag on the 1TB edition, which is all set to ship "early this month."

[Via Macworld]

Never mind those fancy BD-R critters, how's about a 42GB DVD? Researchers with a good deal more intelligence than us over at Tohoku University have reportedly figured out a way to "multiply the amount of data that can be stored on a DVD or CD by 9." Based on our best guess at translating a foreign language (we kid... sort of), the achievement was realized by shaping the pits on a DVD's surface like Vs, essentially making the disc more capacious in the process. Unfortunately, said project will probably never see any mainstream attention, as existing DVD / CD players won't recognize the malformed media, and worse still, the process can't be applied to Blu-ray Discs.

[Via CrunchGear]

If you're having a tough time picking a storage solution, the Drobo folks may have just made your choice a lot easier. Starting today, the company is offering the first-ever bundles of its much-loved drive array with Western Digital GreenPower SATA hard drives in 2TB and 4TB configurations at a pretty deep discount. Besides knocking $50 off the price of a standalone Drobo (reducing the cost to $449), the 2TB and 4TB versions will clock in at $749 and $1075 apiece, giving you a savings of up to $528. The deals require a mail-in rebate, and you can still add any type of drive you want. Hit the read link for all the info, and for the love of all that's sacred... start backing up!

From what we can tell, this is just marketing hoopla to get you to buy a drive "certified" for use in a particular application; in all actuality, users can connect any USB 2.0 external hard drive to their DISH Network HD DVR and expand their storage capacity for a one-time fee. Nevertheless, Western Digital has just let loose its 500GB My DVR Expander, which "more than doubles" your available recording hours by storing up to 300 hours of SD content and 60 hours of high-def goodness. As predicted, the drives work with the satcaster's ViP family of HD DVRs, and WD is apparently looking to expand the brand to other carriers as soon as they get with the program and enable USB storage. Those willing to fall for this ploy can procure the half-terabyte drive for $149.99, but considering that the port activation fee is still charged, we can't imagine looking elsewhere first.

[Via FarEastGizmos]

Talk about escaping the label of vaporware by this much. We've been hearing that holographic storage was right around the bend from InPhase for well over three years now, but it has finally managed to get its ducks in a row and should start shipping the unicorn-like Tapestry 300r next month. The firm had a demonstrative version on display at NAB Show earlier this month, and apparently real live working units will be making their way out to archival junkies in just weeks. Granted, it will demand a whopping $18,000 to get a shipping label made with your address on it, and each piece of 300GB media is $180 -- but hey, that's the price you pay these days to know that you'll decompose before your data degrades.

[Via The Register]

There's certainly no shortage of research going on into unconventional means of storage, but one of the most unusual has to be protein-based storage, which we haven't heard much of in quite a while. That now looks to have changed, however, with some researchers in Japan boasting that they've made some considerable progress with the so-called "recordable proteins." To that end, Tetsuro Majima and his team reportedly employed a special fluorescent protein to record an information pattern on a glass slide, along with what's described only as a "novel combination of light and chemicals" to read and, most importantly, erase that information. While it's obviously a long ways from replacing your hard drive, the researchers apparently see no shortage of potential applications for the technology, including using the proteins to improve biosensors and diagnostic tests.

[Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons]

In an acquisition that promises to create a combined company with over $1 billion in annual revenue, storage manufacturer Iomega has "entered into a definitive share purchase agreement" with ExcelStor Great Wall Technology Limited -- another storage firm headquartered in Beijing but doing business out of the Cayman Islands. ExcelStor, a subsidiary of the $2.6 billion Great Wall Technology Company Limited, has been manufacturing certain external hard drives for Iomega since 2004. The deal, still subject to approval, would create an organization with a 3,000-member workforce, led by Iomega's current executives joined by former ExcelStor management in the positions of Executive Chairman and Chief Administrative Officer.

Everyone wants to be packing some of that sweet flash memory in their notebooks these days, but not everyone wants to shell out such high prices for such relatively measly capacities. Well along comes Santa Ana-based STEC Inc. with what it claims to be a breakthrough NAND technology that will allegedly slash the price of solid state drives down to just $2/GB within two years; specifically, the company says it has successfully leveraged so-called multi-level cell-based (MLC) NAND into SSDs with 90MB/s read / 60MB/s write speeds -- good enough to exceed platter-based hard drive performance at prices supposedly half of what they are today. STEC is currently shipping manufacturing samples between 32GB and an impressive 512GB (in a 2.5-inch form factor; the largest 1.8-inch drive is 128GB), although it remains to be seen how much of those savings will be passed along to the consumer when these eventually come to market.

Our vaporware alert hit yellow earlier this year when Call/Recall bragged about a multi-terabyte optical storage solution while providing no real proof that it existed, but now we're afraid that's been ratcheted up to orange. The latest from the company -- which still seems to believe that no pictures are necessary to substantiate its claims -- is the "industry's first 1TB optical disc." This device has reportedly been developed and tested behind closed doors, and unsurprisingly relies on its own 2-Photon-3D technology. Additionally, the company purports that it is "entering into product design and discussion with leading manufacturing partners," so we ought to see something coming down the pike relatively soon if all of this is legit.

[Via PCLaunches]

While Microsoft's multi-SKU method has allowed it to hit the market at a dramatically lower price than the PS3, there are certainly some tradeoffs to that Xbox 360 Core model. Most notably, the lack of a hard drive means almost zero games have been released that make decent use of the drive in the Premium and Elite models, since Core users would be left out of the fun, no matter how few of them there may be. Luckily, Microsoft is finally lifting that restriction, and will be allowing HDD required games on a case-by-case basis. Developers will be required to estimate the max storage their game will grab, and state plainly on the box the requirement. Of course, Final Fantasy XI has been choking up 360 hard drives for over a year now, but hopefully these new official guidelines will get the creative juices flowing at a few more MMO studios so we can finally end those painful jaunts from the couch to the PC to get in some level grinding.

[Via Joystiq]

While it's far from the most spacious storage system we've seen, Netcom's new eSATA-based NR5-4 system will accommodate four drives for up to 3TB of storage in a RAID 5 configuration, something the company claims to be an industry first. If RAID 5 isn't your thing, you can set things up in your choice of RAID 0 or 10 configurations as well, and you'll be able to keep an eye on the goings on thanks to the unit's backlit display. You'll also, of course, get the requisite PCI host adapter, along with a one meter host cable, and a "comprehensive" one year warranty. Not surprisingly, the unit doesn't exactly come cheap, with it boasting a near $2,000 price tag. If that's not a deal-breaker, you can get your order in right now.

While there's not a great deal to distinguish it from the multitude of other NAS servers out there, Lanner's new NS04-3100 looks like it should easily satisfy those with hefty storage appetites, offering four bays for some SATA drives of your choosing. Otherwise, you'll get just about all the features you'd expect from a high-end NAS, including built-in WiFi, UPnP AV media server capabilities, iTunes server and DLNA support, and support for RAID 0, 1, 5 and JBOD configurations. Lanner is also promising "ultra-quiet operation" and minimal power draw from the server's Marvel 88F5281 processor. No word on price, but it's apparently available immediately for "sampling."

[Via Akihabara News]