CES 2008: Media Storage, Maximum Capacity

Optical Storage

The biggest news at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas was actually announced before the show had even begun. The Toshiba backed High Definition Disc Format, HD-DVD, lost another major studio's support to rival Sony's BluRay format. Warner Bros Entertainment announced that starting this summer they would be joining the ranks of BluRay exclusive media companies. Coupled with widespread rumors that Paramount is not far behind, Toshiba was left desperately claiming HD-DVD is not dead, and has many declaring Sony the winner of Format Wars part 2. Meanwhile, Toshiba announced they were shipping the first US laptop with HD-DVDR/RW drive in the G45-AV690.

Solid State

In other media storage news, Solid State Drives were the order of the day.

Sandisk showed off its new SSD devices with 64Gigabyte 2.5 inch drive and 72 and 64 Gigabyte 1.8 solid state drives. A-Data unveiled several new SSD devices including a 2.5-inch SATA RAID 128 Gigabyte drive. Ritech and Samsung join in with 128Gigabyte SSDs. The capacity crown goes to BitMicro with their 832GB 2.5-inch SATA II SSD.

Network Attached Storage

NetGear launched it's ReadyNAS Duo Gigabit with 2 SATA drives available in 500GB. 750GB, and a whopping 1 Terrabte sizes. Packed with more features like auto download from USB, built in iTunes server, and Dual Gigabit Network adapters it's the fastest thing going.

Small Media

Everybody and their brother has new USB flash drives in increasing capacity this year, with some vendors reportedly handing out 2GB thumbdrives to visitors.

Compact Flash gets a much needed speed boost with the Compact Flash Association announcing a SATA interface for CF cards. PreTech showed off its 16 to 48 Gigabyte CF cards.

Not much to report in SD cards besides the usual capacity increases, for example the SanDisk 12GB microSDHC card. Notable exception, the announcement from Lexar that they will be slapping their name on the EyeFi SD card, which gives you 802.11 wireless capacity in addition to traditional storage.

In the its about time department, Sony has announced a New 16GB Memory Stick Duo coming in at around $300 in Spring 2008.

Hard Drives

Like every year, hard drives got increased storage capacity in physically smaller packages. CES showcased more removable USB and Wireless models than you can shake a stick at, many adding media server and backup functions. But, for you paranoid types out there, Seagate, through it's newly acquired Maxtor Division, introduced the Maxtor BlackArmor external storage drive. With AES government-grade encryption protection, even if some nefarious person walks off with it your data is safe from their prying eyes. 160GB portable encrypted storage with a $149.99 MSRP. Seagate also brought along the world famous all-girl competition gaming team the Fragdolls, who are more than willing to own you at your favorite game at the Seagate booth.

Obviously this only a small sampling of the interesting storage products at the 2008 Consumer Electronics Show. For more coverage including some of the more bizarre devices at CES with pics and video, I highly recommend the coverage at engadget and Gizmondo.