Whats New in Data Storage from CES

by Scott Ferguson

At Toshiba’s booth, the electronics giant showed off its latest NAND-based solid-state drive. This 2.5-inch SSD offers 512GB of data storage and is based on the company’s 43-nanometer technology. This SSD also offers 240MB per second of maximum reading speed and 200MB per second of write speed. Toshiba expects to begin mass production of these SSDs in the second quarter of 2009.

Toshiba also showed off its latest external hard disk. These portable, external HDDs range in storage capacity from 160GB to 500GB. The 500GB model sells for $180.

At CES, SanDisk announced its own solid-state drive offerings: the G3 product line. The SanDisk G3 SSDs are more than five times faster than the fastest 7,200-rpm HDDs, clocking in at 40,000 vrpm and with an anticipated sequential performance of 200MB-per-second read and 140MB-per-second write. Shown is the 240GB version, costing $499.

Shown is the SanDisk G3 120GB solid-state drive.

The SD Association, a body of several hundred companies that govern technical and specification standards for SD Memory Card applications, came to CES to show off new SDXC (extended capacity) memory cards that will debut in 2009 with a data capacity of 64GB. Later, the association plans to offer memory cards with 2TB of storage.

Shown here is an example of a 1.8-inch Intel X18-M solid-state drive. Intel is selling 80GB and 160GB versions of this SSD for ultrathin, ultraportable laptops. At CES, Intel representatives were showing its SSDs running with a Lenovo ThinkPad X301 laptop.

The Intel X25-M solid-state drive is the 2.5-inch version of Intel’s new line of SSDs. This X25-M SSD has an 80GB storage capacity, and Intel is also selling a 160GB version. The 80GB version sells for about $500, while the 160GB version sells for about $900.

The Seagate Showcase external hard drive was one of several storage devices at the CES show that were designed and geared toward home entertainment instead of PCs or handset devices. This external drive works with a number of digital video recorders as well as set-top boxes. Seagate is now shipping a 500GB version and a 1TB version.

The Seagate Free Agent Go portable drive is another storage device that is now able to work with both the PC and television and home entertainment systems thanks to a new Seagate docking station that was on display at CES. These portable drives are offered in 250GB, 320GB and 500GB versions.