Both solutions operate on the 5Ghz band for reduced interference and increased speeds, with the 802.11ac standard offering transfers up to 1300Mbit/s. Buffalo say that’s great for streaming HD video around the home, and improved radios should help with coverage. The router will also provide a 2.4 GHz 3×3 802.11n radio for backwards compatibility and speeds of up to 450Mbit/s.

Buffalo is also offering the WLI-H4-D1300 media bridge, which offers similar specs to the wireless router. It has 4 Gigabit Ethernet ports, 802.11ac/n radios on the 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz bands, and has the same potential transfer speeds of 1300Mbit/s. Both products will be offered with a three-year warranty, and should cost $179.99 each.

It’s worth noting that the 802.11ac standard hasn’t been finalized yet. Qualcomm and Atheres are still in talks in order to finalize the standard, with the routers from Buffalo and Netgear currently using the ac draft specification.

The new TeraStation Pro platforms use WSS and Intel Atom processors inside to provide the small businesses out there with powerful storage solutions. The offerings all come pre-configured with RAID 5. The models include the TeraStation Pro Duo WSS (WS-WV) with dual bays and supports RAID levels with 0/1/JBOD and 2TB and 4TB.

The TeraStation Pro Quad WSS (WS-QVL/R5) is a four bay unit that will support RAID 0/1/5/JBOD in 4TB and 8TB capacities. The TeraStation Pro 6 WSS (WS-6VL/R5) has six bays, supports the same RAID levels, and comes with 6TB and 12TB. The final product is the TeraStation Pro Rackmount WSS (WS-RVL/R5) that is rack mountable with four bays with 4TB or 8TB capacity and the same RAID support. Pricing and availability are unknown.

The Plus version of the MiniStation is inside an attractive looking lightweight and shockproof chassis. It will work with a Mac or a PC and offers data transfer speeds of up to 5Gbps thanks to the speedy USB 3.0 port. The drive is also USB powered so it needs no external AC adapter. That is great news for mobile users and for desktop users that are tight on AC outlets.

The Ministation Plus will encrypt the data stored on it with 256-bit AES encryption and a password will unlock the data you store on the drive. Controlling the MiniStation Plus is done with included Buffalo Tools utility suite for Windows computers. The MiniStation Plus has a 1-year warranty and will ship this month. The 500GB version is $84.99 and a 1TB version is $119.99.

The Kindle 3G is the quintessential eReader, with its eInk display and non-glare surface. And it comes with Whispernet (on some models) so Mom can download books from anywhere, with no monthly fee. Before you ask, no, I don’t get kickbacks from Amazon, I just own a Kindle and am a big fan of it. The Kindle is $114 with special offers, or the 3G model for $189 which comes with a $25 Amazon gift card.

Another eReader choice, a bit more pricey, but really an Android tablet living in an eReader’s body, the NOOKcolor for $249. This tablet (er, eReader) lets Mom surf the web, and even play Angry Birds. Note: unless you root the tablet, the apps you have access to are very limited. WiFi only.

Getting deeper into tablet-land, there is the new Asus Eee Pad Transformer, the tablet with an attachable keyboard that also charges the battery. Chris Davies gave it a great review here on SlashGear. There have been reports of shortages, but some Amazon sellers have it in stock (right now) for $549.00.

Another tablet choice is the Acer Iconia 10.1 inch tab, selling for $599.99 at Amazon.

How about the Droid Incredible 2? I love this phone, and no matter if Verizon thinks we need a “woman’s phone”, this one is perfect for me. It’s fast, thin, responsive, and with an 8mp camera. Hey, and it’s now selling for only $79.99 on Amazon through Verizon with new 2 year contract.

What Mother’s Day gift list is complete without a camera? But this is not just any camera, it’s a video camera with BlueTooth that you wear around your ear, and record video from a first person perspective. Very cool. The Looxcie Bluetooth camera sells for $200.

How about an iPod? Best Buy has all iPods on sale right now, most for about $25 off, plus a free 8×8 photo book from Shutterfly with purchase.

Is your Mom sick of all the charging cables cluttering up her desk? I sure am. Get her a WildCharge Pad, and charge everything cordlessly. This charger sells for just $49.

Who doesn’t need more storage? This Buffalo Technology Mini Station has 500GB worth, and only measures 1.8 x 5.1 x 6.7 inches. Find it on Amazon for $54.99.

And to help Mom get even more organized, there is the Neat Scanner, with which she can cut down on paper clutter and scan in all those reciepts. The desktop version is $379, and the smaller, mobile version is $178. Also available for Mac.

And last, sometimes the best thing to give Mom is something to keep the kids busy for a while. One of the best apps I’ve found for young kids is the Zoodles Kid Mode app, free on the Android Marketplace and on the App Store. There is lots of free content, but there is also a premium version that you can upgrade to for $59.95 annually.

Happy Mother’s Day!

The Pogoplug Video automatically transcodes video streaming on-the-fly so that no matter what device you’re using to remotely access the content, you should be able to play it. It’ll also support the usual multiple USB hard-drives – in Pogoplug’s unusually-shaped, but this time black chassis – for file and multimedia access.

As for the Buffalo CloudStor, that will be available as the 1TB CloudStor (CS-WX1.0TL) for $149.99, the 2TB CloudStor (CS-WX2.0TL) for $209.99 and the 2TB CloudStor Pro (CS-WV2.0TL) for $249.99. It pairs internal storage, a gigabit ethernet port, a USB port (for adding external storage) and a spare internal drive bay (for adding internal storage and optionally setting up a RAID array) with the same cloud-access as on the Pogoplug Video.

More details on Pogoplug in our review.

Press Release:

BUFFALO SHIPS THE REVOLUTIONARY CLOUDSTOR

Seamlessly Access and Share Content with Anyone, Anywhere with No Fees

AUSTIN, TX – April 4, 2011 – Buffalo Technology, a global leader in the design, development and manufacturing of wired and wireless networking and network and direct attached storage solutions, today announced the highly anticipated, revolutionary Buffalo CloudStor™ personal storage solution is now shipping. First revealed at the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, CloudStor goes beyond simple storage, creating a portal to freely access and share photos, videos, music and much more with anyone, anywhere through the cloud. Unlike online storage services, CloudStor has no capacity or service fees. Just plug it in, turn it on and create your free account at mycloudstor.com. CloudStor comes with everything you need to get started. You just have to be free to share.

“Digital content consumption has moved beyond traditional channels along with how it is stored and accessed,” said Ralph Spagnola, vice president of sales at Buffalo Technology. “Bringing CloudStor to market delivers on Buffalo’s promise of simplifying data mobility, allowing you to access and share your content freely, with anyone, anywhere.”

At the center of every CloudStor is the Pogoplug® cloud service. The popular service connects users to their storage and allows them to freely access and share their storage anywhere in the world. CloudStor is the first and only Pogoplug device with integrated storage. Files are securely shared between people and there is no need for user setup; just email a link to your family and friends. Consumers’ digital content always resides on CloudStor and the online service is only used to connect users and guests to specified files on the device.

In addition, CloudStor offers many traditional consumer network attached storage features including private share support for LAN based network sharing and pairing with the popular µTorrent™ client, allowing users to offload the task of downloading torrent files from computers to CloudStor. Buffalo CloudStor can also stream to popular media devices, including Sony PlayStation® 3 and Xbox 360®. Plus, CloudStor has an integrated Time Machine® backup system that allows Mac® users to use Time Machine to backup their systems to CloudStor when at home.

Pricing and Availability

The Buffalo CloudStor is backed by a limited one-year warranty that includes toll-free 24/7 US based technical support. CloudStor is now available at an estimated street price of $149.99 for the 1 TB CloudStor (CS-WX1.0TL), $209.99 for the 2 TB CloudStor (CS-WX2.0TL) and $249.99 for the 2 TB CloudStor Pro (CS-WV2.0TL). Buffalo products can be purchased through distribution, online resellers and Buffalo’s ecommerce website. For more information about Buffalo Technology and its products, please visit the company’s web site at www.buffalotech.com

The DriveStation is available in 1TB or 2TB of storage with USB 2.0, they are $85.99 for 1TB and $107.89 for 2TB. The faster, USB 3.0 drives are $129.50 for 2TB and $94.56 for 3TB.

Prices are quoted from Amazon.com. And no product release is complete without a company quote, so here it is: “Product innovation and engineering excellence have always been at the heart of Buffalo’s core values,” said Paul Hudson, Sales Director Northern Europe at Buffalo Technology. “Continuing in this tradition, Buffalo is launching a new desktop and portable storage family, providing a balanced blend of reliability, performance and styling at accessible prices for today’s ever growing storage needs.”

Press release below, along with more photos:

Buffalo unveils sleek piano-black MiniStation and DriveStation
London UK, 22 March 2011 – Buffalo Technology, a global leader in the design, development and manufacturing of storage and wireless networking solutions, has announced a stylish design for its external storage range.

Available now, the glossy, piano-black MiniStation portable device and the DriveStation desktop hard drive, will allow users to add additional external storage to any computer or laptop simply using a USB port.

MiniStation
The smooth, lightweight and portable MiniStation is USB powered, meaning there is no additional power supply needed. Available in 500GB and 1.0TB, the MiniStation offers a compact, stylish solution that enables users to store, back up and transport digital images, music and other files without taking up additional storage space from your PC’s hard drive.

The black glossy DriveStation comes in both USB 2.0 for the price conscious consumer and USB 3.0 for users wanting faster transfer speeds and automatic backup. The easy to use, plug-and-play device is pre-formatted meaning it is available for immediate use. Not only is it silent, the auto installation and auto power on/off means you can quickly store, access, and transfer files, digital images, documents, and perform back-ups. This single drive device can be positioned vertically or horizontally, conveniently allowing for an efficient use of space. The DriveStation can be purchased in 1TB or 2TB for the USB 2.0 version and 1TB, 2TB and 3TB for the USB 3.0 version.

“Product innovation and engineering excellence have always been at the heart of Buffalo’s core values,” said Paul Hudson, Sales Director Northern Europe at Buffalo Technology. “Continuing in this tradition, Buffalo is launching a new desktop and portable storage family, providing a balanced blend of reliability, performance and styling at accessible prices for today’s ever growing storage needs.”

The Duo comes in 2TB, 4TB, and 6TB capacity and is a dual-bay RAID enabled external storage solution that supports RAID 0 and RAID 1. The quad offering is a four-bay device with four drives that has RAID 0, RAID 5, and RAID 10 capability.

The Quad solution has 4TB and 8TB offerings available with a 12TB version coming later in the year. All versions of the DriveStation Duo are available right now with the Quad version coming in March. Pricing for the Duo offering ranges from about $250 to over $600 for the 6TB version.

The Buffalo DriveStation Axis LED features a small range of LED lights on the front of the storage device. Based on the lights, you’ll be able to tell how well you’re doing on the space front, and find out with just a glance if you’ll be able to download the full Beatles discography. Luckily enough, the DriveStation starts at 1TB of space, for only $99. If you’re looking at 2TB, though, that will cost you $159. The DriveStation is unveiled, but it won’t be made available until January of 2011.

And then there’s the small MiniStation Stealth. A little black box, designed specifically just to sit on your desk and store your digital belongings, without drawing too much attention to itself. You’ll find just a single USB cable that acts as the power cable, as well as for data transfers. Price starts at $74.99 for 320GB, and ratchet up to $104 for 640GB. The MiniStation Stealth should be available any day now. Check out the full press release below for more information.

Press Release

Buffalo Launches Two New Easy-to-Use USB Storage Solutions

New Solutions Make Storing and Protecting Digital Content Simple and Affordable

AUSTIN, Texas, Nov. 16, 2010 /PRNewswire/ — Buffalo Technology, a global leader in the design, development and manufacturing of wired and wireless networking and network and direct attached storage solutions, today announced the MiniStation™ Stealth and DriveStation Axis™ LED, two external drive solutions designed to meet today’s storage consumer needs. The MiniStation Stealth is a high performance portable storage solution in a remarkably compact and lightweight contemporary form, while the new DriveStation Axis LED is a single drive storage solution combining a unique LED capacity meter display with easy to use features and reliable performance.

“Buffalo continues to offer robust yet design-conscious products that make protecting and managing digital content simple, affordable and fun,” said Ralph Spagnola, vice president of sales at Buffalo Technology. With the new MiniStation Stealth and DriveStation Axis LED, Buffalo has once again delivered powerful yet affordable storage solutions for today’s growing storage needs.”

The MiniStation Stealth is a compact portable hard drive that is USB powered so there are no additional cables to manage and no need for a separate power source. Simply plug the MiniStation Stealth into any available USB port on your PC or Mac® computer and instantly add capacity or store files to take on the road.

The DriveStation Axis LED is an easy to use external hard drive for the instant addition of external storage to any device using a USB port. Featuring an easy-to-read integrated capacity meter and a unique chassis, the sleek, attractive DriveStation Axis LED can be positioned vertically or horizontally, adapting to the location it is used in for efficient use of space and providing immediate feedback regarding storage capacity.

Included with both the MiniStation Stealth and the DriveStation Axis LED is Buffalo’s multi-purpose Buffalo Tools utility suite designed to enhance Windows® PC performance and user experience. It features TurboPC, a utility designed to enhance PC performance for up to 2X faster file transfers. Also included, Buffalo’s Backup Utility protects your important files and documents by backing up your PCs to your Buffalo external hard drive and it provides an easy-to-use data restore function. Store, back up and transport your content instantly with plug and play connectivity. The MiniStation Stealth and the DriveStation Axis LED are the perfect solutions for expanding storage or backing up your computer.

Pricing and Availability

The Buffalo MiniStation and DriveStation storage solutions are backed by a limited one-year warranty that includes toll-free 24/7 technical support.

The MiniStation Stealth will be available November in the US market at estimated street prices of $74.99 for the 320 GB (HD-PCT320U2/B), $89.99 for the 500 GB (HD-PCT500U2/B) and $104.99 for the 640 GB (HD-PCT640US/B).

The DriveStation Axis LED will be available in January 2011 at estimated street prices of $99.99 for the 1 TB (HD-LEM1.0TU2) and $159.99 for the 2 TB (HD-LEM2.0TU2)

Buffalo products can be purchased through distribution, online resellers and Buffalo’s ecommerce website. For more information about Buffalo Technology and its products, please visit the company’s web site at www.buffalotech.com.

About Buffalo Technology

Buffalo Technology (USA), Inc., based in Austin, Texas, is a leading provider of award-winning networking, storage, and multimedia solutions for the home and small business environments as well as for system builders and integrators. With almost three decades of networking and computer peripheral experience, Buffalo has proven its commitment to delivering innovative, best-of-breed solutions that have put the company at the forefront of infrastructure technology. For more information about Buffalo Technology and its products, please visit www.buffalotech.com.

Buffalo, Inc. trademark statements. Buffalo is a trademark of Buffalo, Inc. All other trademarks mentioned herein are the property of their respective owners.

SOURCE Buffalo Technology

In case you don’t have time to read a long press release, a few of the features you’ll find in the trio are 1.6 GHz processors in each, a free WebAccess iapp for your iTouch and iPhone and an iHD app for your iPad that allows you to pull up photos from these devices. Pretty cool right? The starting price for these is $189.99 and goes all the way up to $1039.99. Not so cool right? Well, they seem pretty amazing to us. Check it out their website for yourself and let us know your thoughts.

Buffalo Recharges the LinkStation Family with the LinkStation V-Series Line

New High Performance NAS Solutions Protect, Share and Manage Digital Assets

AUSTIN, Texas, Oct. 12 /PRNewswire/ — Buffalo Technology, a global leader in the design, development and manufacturing of wired and wireless networking and network and direct attached storage solutions, today announced a refresh on the highly popular LinkStation™ network storage family, representing the highest performing generation of Buffalo’s consumer orientated NAS solutions. The new high performance V-Series line consisting of LinkStation Pro, LinkStation Pro Duo and LinkStation Pro Quad, is based on industry-leading storage technologies, containing data management, remote access and content sharing features that make it the ideal NAS solution for the home or small business user.

“Protecting and managing digital content has always been a time consuming task for home and small business users,” said Ralph Spagnola, vice president of sales at Buffalo Technology. “With the new LinkStation V-Series family, users access and share their data twice as fast that they would with a standard NAS device.”

Each member of the new LinkStation V-Series family utilizes a 1.6 GHz processor, giving users unbeatable performance with network transfer speeds up to 76 MB/s, over twice the speed of competing network hard drives and significantly faster than USB 2.0 storage solutions. The dual drive LinkStation Pro Duo and the four drive LinkStation Pro Quad feature RAID redundancy for data protection and user removable quick swap hard drives for simple drive servicing without the need for tools. In addition, the LinkStation V-Series family can perform scheduled backups to an external USB hard drive or any other Buffalo NAS device, providing an exact copy of your data for an extra level of data protection or disaster recovery preparation.

Combined with the recently announced free WebAccess i app for Apple iPod touch® and iPhone® and WebAccess i HD app for iPad®, the new high performance LinkStation V-Series family revolutionizes how digital content is shared and consumed. These new apps provide iPhone and iPad users an easy and convenient way to access and stream digital content from a Buffalo NAS solution directly to their Apple mobile devices. With a simple setup and intuitive interface, Buffalo’s newly redesigned WebAccess feature allows users to easily stream digital content stored on any Buffalo network storage solution from anywhere in the world via a Web browser, iPhone, iPod touch or iPad.

The new Buffalo LinkStation V-Series family is DLNA CERTIFIED ™ for simple streaming to any DLNA compatible media device, including Sony PlayStation® 3 and Xbox 360®. Plus, the LinkStation family supports seamless integration with iTunes®, allowing the application to access to music and movie files stored on the server. The LinkStation V-Series family also supports Apple Time Machine® for easy backup and Apple Bonjour®, making it well suited for Mac® environments. For Windows® environments, the LinkStation V-Series family is equipped with NovaBACKUP® Business Essentials for a powerful, yet easy-to-use backup solution.

Pricing and Availability

The Buffalo LinkStation V-Series family is backed by a limited one-year warranty that includes toll-free 24/7 technical support.

* The LinkStation Pro is available immediately at estimated street prices of $189.99 for the 1 TB (LS-V1.0TL) and $259.99 for the 2 TB (LS-V2.0TL).
* The LinkStation Pro Duo is available in late October at estimated street prices of $259.99 for the 2 TB (LS-WV2.0TL/R1) and $449.99 for the 4 TB (LS-WV4.0TL/R1).
* The LinkStation Pro Quad will be available in November at estimated street prices of $269.99 for the 2 TB (LS-QV2.0TL/R5), $579.99 for the 4 TB (LS-QV4.0TL/R5), $899.99 for the 6 TB (LS-QV6.0TL/R5) $1039.99 for the 8 TB and (LS-QV8.0TL/R5).

All three come with a copy of NovaBACKUP, and in various preconfigured sizes.  The The DriveStation Quad will arrive later this month, priced at $624.99 for the 4TB (HD-QL4TSU2R5) and $1134.99 for the 8TB (HD-QL8TSU2R5) models, while the DriveStation Duo will follow on in September priced at  $274.99 for the 2TB (HD-WL2TSU2R1) and $454.99 for the 4TB (HD-WL4TSU2R1).  Meanwhile the single-drive DriveStation Axis will also go on sale in September, at $104.99 for the 1TB (HD-LB1.0TU2), $124.99 for the 1.5TB (HD-LB1.5TU2) and $169.99 for the 4TB (HD-LB2.0TU2).

Press Release:

Buffalo Refreshes Its DriveStation Family

New External Hard Drive Solutions Offer High Capacity and High Performance
AUSTIN, Texas, Aug. 23 /PRNewswire/ — Buffalo Technology, a global leader in the design, development and manufacturing of wired and wireless networking and network and direct attached storage solutions, today announced a refresh of the highly popular DriveStation Duo™ and DriveStation Quad™, formerly DriveStation Quattro™, representing the latest generation of high-performance direct attached storage solutions. Combining performance and reliability, these new multi-drive external hard drives, equipped with NovaBACKUP® Business Essentials, are ideal for small servers, creative professionals, offices and consumers requiring redundant and high-performance external storage. Also announced today is the new DriveStation Axis™, a single drive storage solution combining unique features and simplicity with Buffalo’s distinguished reliability for an exceptional value.
“Consumers and businesses alike have become quite savvy when it comes to protecting mission-critical or personal data such as file backups, work documents, music, photos and videos,” said Ralph Spagnola, vice president of sales at Buffalo Technology. “Buffalo has always recognized this need and has once again put forth best-in-class storage solutions providing a perfect blend of reliability, performance and flexible features at affordable prices.”
The DriveStation Quad is a 4-drive, RAID enabled storage solution for small servers, creative professionals, offices and consumers requiring large, redundant and high-performance external storage. Equipped with four hard drives, DriveStation Quad supports RAID 0, 5, 10 and Normal modes, but ships configured in RAID 5, for a prime balance between data redundancy and available storage capacity. Additionally, DriveStation Quad supports USB 2.0 for compatibility with almost any computer and eSATA 3.0 for high-performance data transfer rates of up to 235 MB/s. A heavy-duty cooling system allows the unit to efficiently run cool and quiet while the snap-off front plate allows for quick and easy drive replacements with no tools required. Available in capacities up to 8 TB, the DriveStation Quad delivers unmatched performance at a great value.
The DriveStation Duo dual-drive storage solution features USB 2.0 support for universal compatibility and enhanced performance speeds up to 225 MB/s with eSATA 3.0, providing the necessary horsepower for even the most performance critical applications. Equipped with two quick swap hard drives, the DriveStation Duo supports RAID 0 and 1 offering data redundancy or the capacity required for demanding professional and server applications, along with simple user maintenance and tool-free drive replacements.
For value-minded consumers, Buffalo’s new single drive DriveStation Axis is an easy-to-use external hard drive for the simple addition of external storage to any device via a USB port. DriveStation Axis features a sleek, attractive chassis that can be positioned vertically or horizontally, adapting to the location it is used in for efficient use of space. Equipped with the Buffalo Backup Utility, a component of Buffalo Tools, a feature-rich software suite designed to enhance computer performance and the day-to-day digital life of Windows® PC consumers, the Buffalo DriveStation Axis is the perfect solution for expanding storage or backing up any home or home office computer.
Pricing and Availability
The Buffalo DriveStation family is backed by a limited one-year warranty that includes toll-free 24/7 technical support.
The DriveStation Quad is available in late August at estimated street prices of $624.99 for the 4 TB (HD-QL4TSU2R5) and $1134.99 for the 8 TB (HD-QL8TSU2R5)
The DriveStation Duo is available in September at estimated street prices of $274.99 for the 2 TB (HD-WL2TSU2R1) and $454.99 for the 4 TB (HD-WL4TSU2R1)
The DriveStation Axis is available in September at estimated street prices of $104.99 for the 1 TB (HD-LB1.0TU2), $124.99 for the 1.5 TB (HD-LB1.5TU2) and $169.99 for the 4 TB (HD-LB2.0TU2)

Buffalo products can be purchased through distributors, online resellers and Buffalo’s web site. For more information about Buffalo Technology and its products, please visit the company’s web site at www.buffalotech.com.
About Buffalo Technology
Buffalo Technology (USA), Inc., based in Austin, Texas, is a leading provider of award-winning networking, storage, and multimedia solutions for the home and small business environments as well as for system builders and integrators. With almost three decades of networking and computer peripheral experience, Buffalo has proven its commitment to delivering innovative, best-of-breed solutions that have put the company at the forefront of infrastructure technology. For more information about Buffalo Technology and its products, please visit www.buffalotech.com.

There are also two USB 2.0 ports, one up front and one on the back, which can be used to hook up external storage for local playback.  As well as MPEG-1/2/4, Xvid, WMV9, RealVideo and FLV files, the LT-V100 can handle various audio and image files (including Ogg Vorbis and FLAC), though not copy-protected content.

No word on whether the Buffalo LinkTheater LT-V100 will make it outside of Japan, nor if there’ll be a wireless version, but considering the company has a WiFi-equipped version of their previous LinkTheater model that seems probable.  It’ll hit Japan at the end of this month, priced at 12,075 yen ($136).

[via AVWatch]

The main difference, then, is the design, with the HD-AV500U2/SC intended to sit horizontally and having a piano black finish and front-panel LED capacity indicator, while the HD-CL500U2/SC is more sober in its matte black finish, lacks the LEDs and is intended to stand upright.  Both hook up to the PS3 via USB 2.0 and can also be used to backup core console content, store multimedia and other files.

The Buffalo HD-AV500U2/SC will be priced at 14,800 yen ($164) and the HD-CL500U2/SC at 11,800 yen ($130); they’ll both arrive in Japan come March 2010.  No word, however, on why you’d specifically pick up these drives as opposed to any other USB 2.0 hard-drive, which already play nicely with the PS3.

[via StrategyInformer]

The external HDD itself looks like a PS3 to me and will be offered in 1TB and 1.5TB capacities. The drives will be the HD-HU3 series and will be the world’s first USB 3.0 HDDs to ship. If you are wondering exactly how you will be able to take advantage of that extra USB 3.0 speed since computers with USB 3.0 aren’t available yet, Buffalo will also be offering a USB 3.0 controller.

The controller is a PCI E add-in card that from the pics looks like it hits the x1 slot. It’s nice to see that slot get some more action. The IFC-PCIE2U3 controller will sell for about $60 and add two USB 3.0 ports to the computer. The 1TB drive itself will sell for about $225 and the 1.5TB will sell for $284. A larger 2TB version is reported to be coming alter for around $523. There is no word at this point on availability for the products outside of Japan.

Various companies have partnered with Marvell to offer Plug Computers in multiple form-factors.  These range from Axentra, who have a new touch*mediacenter mini designed to store and share digital content, Eyecon Technologies, who are positioning their version as a multi-source UPnP/DLNA aggregator, and CodeLathe, whose TonidoPlug is a home server offering local and remote access to documents, apps and media.  Ionics have taken a more general approach, positioning their Plug Computer as a tiny Linux PC, while ProSyst have integrated OSGI and Java to their version, to enable developers to more easily port existing apps and create new software.  Finally, WebTView have loaded their own software to discover and play internet TV.

The various form-factors include a simple box that closely resembles the original SheevaPlug prototype, together with more streamlined and even circular designs.  Of course, as well as the development device from Marvell themselves, the first retail device based on the reference design is already available, in the shape of the PogoPlug.

According to Marvell, a Plug Computer uses less than one tenth of the power of a regular home server PC.  It supports multiple Linux 2.6 kernel distributions, and is available to developers now for $99.

Press Release:

Marvell Introduces Plug Computing to Europe

SheevaPlug Now Available to Developers in Europe; Ecosystem Partners Commit to Retail Products for Consumers

Santa Clara, CA (June 24, 2009) —Marvell (NASDAQ: MRVL), a leader in storage, communications, and consumer silicon solutions, today announced that developers in Europe can now purchase SheevaPlugTM development kits, outfitted for regional electrical specifications, through www.plugcomputer.org from Ionics EMS, Inc. and Globalscale Technologies. In addition to broadening the outreach to application developers, Marvell is growing the plug computing ecosystem by working with retail vendors such as BUFFALO INC., D-Link, LaCie and Seagate, who plan to launch retail versions of the plug computer for the consumer market.

“The Plug Computer is one of the more amazing technologies that have come out this decade and it has the potential to change the world,” said Rob Enderle Principal Analyst for the Enderle Group. “The open plug platform gives European developers the opportunity to create applications, services, and solutions that are only limited by their imaginations.”

Marvell introduced the Plug Computing initiative to make high-performance, always on, always connected, and environmentally friendly computing readily available for developers and end-users. A Plug Computer is small enough to plug directly into a wall socket and is designed to draw so little power that it can be left on all of the time. Unlike other embedded devices in the home, it contains a gigahertz class processor that is designed to offer PC class performance.

“The wide range of applications created from the open-developer SheevaPlug platform serves both retail product partners and service providers,” said Dr. Simon Milner, Vice President and General Manager of the Enterprise Business Unit, Consumer and Communications Business Group at Marvell Semiconductor.  “We are thrilled to introduce SheevaPlug to the European developer community and look forward to seeing many new applications and new consumer product ideas developed and brought to market.  Moreover, Marvell is delighted to collaborate with retail partners such as BUFFALO INC., D-Link, LaCie and Seagate on delivering new levels of user experience to consumers”

The plug computing ecosystem is rapidly expanding to include a full value chain of product partners, application developers and educational institutions. A full list of ecosystem partners is available at www.marvell.com
About the SheevaPlug Development Platform

The SheevaPlug development platform uses a Marvell KirkwoodTM processor based on an embedded 1.2GHz Sheeva™ CPU equipped with 512 Mbytes of FLASH and 512 Mbytes of DRAM. Connection to the home network is via Gigabit Ethernet. Peripherals such as direct attached storage can be connected using a USB 2.0 port. Multiple standard Linux 2.6 kernel distributions are supported on the SheevaPlug development platform enabling rapid application development. The enclosure is designed to plug directly into a standard wall socket and is designed to draw less than one tenth of the power of a typical PC being used as a home server.

About Marvell

Marvell (NASDAQ: MRVL) is a leader in the development of storage, communications, and consumer silicon solutions. The company’s diverse product portfolio includes switching, transceiver, communications controller, wireless, and storage solutions that power the entire communications infrastructure including enterprise, metro, home, and storage networking. As used in this release, the terms “company” and “Marvell” refer to Marvell Technology Group Ltd. and its subsidiaries. For more information, visit http://www.marvell.com.

That means you can image the drive prior to dropping it into whatever gadget is getting an SSD speed boost, or alternatively should your computer suffer a hardware failure it’s straightforward to salvage data from it. Buffalo claim a 30-percent speed boost over a standard HDD.

Three versions of the Buffalo SHD-NSUM will be on offer, ranging from the 32GB SHD-NSUM32G, through the 64GB SHD-NSUM64G, to the 128GB SHD-NSUM128G. They’ll be priced at 12,000 yen ($124), 21,000 yen ($217) and 38,000 yen ($392) respectively when they launch in Japan in March 2009.

[via Akhibara]

The FTD-W71 runs at 800 x 480 resolution and up to six of them can be attached to a PC at any one time.  Since it rotates on the included stand, you can use it in landscape or portrait orientation; there’s no word on whether the picture automatically flips or if, like the Nanovision displays, you have to set it manually.  You can also remove the stand altogether: there’s a standard tripod screw fitting there.

Brightness is a respectable 300cd/m2 and contrast 500:1; Buffalo claim viewing angles of 120-degrees vertical and 140-degrees horizontal.  The FTD-W71 will go on sale in Japan in late January, price not yet announced.

[via PC Launches]

The new memory kit comes in capacity of 2GB with two sticks of 1GB memory modular rated for 9-9-9-24 timings at 2.1 voltage. As part of its Extreme performance FireStik line-up, the FSI2200D3K-K2G features finned aluminum heat spreaders to maximize thermal conductivity; speed and durability are said to have capitalized as well.

Mum’s the word on pricing. Gaming enthusiasts in Japan may get their hands on the World’s fastest DDR3 sticks in early next year, no announcement for US market or others part of the world yet.

Buffalo has released a new RUF2-KL USB flash drive that holds 16GB of storage space despite just measured at 8mm thick. The thumb drive is only weights about 10g and is available in plain black or white finish. It’s slated to release this month in Japan for 5980 yen ($65).

But thin isn’t exactly the new tech in flash-based drive devices; many could have gone much slender if weren’t for the interface, of course, I never longed for a stylish flash drive, physical strength and durability is much important to me when it comes to storage.

The LS-WSS240GL/R1 SSD Linkstation is said to have processed similar speed and power consumption no better than Linkstation mini. The noise, however, has greatly reduced from 17-19db to 0.4db at idle and 2.3db at drive access.

Though having similar hardware component, the company makes no guarantee the existing mini Linkstation workstation will work with a user-replaced SSD drive. A SSD kit upgrade has not been announced but future releases may get much-promising units with better power usage, likely cut into half comparing to current model.

The networked enabled LinkStation Mini comes equipped with a USB port for the direct connection of digital media devices like your digital cameras or storage devices. Web based-apps is provided to cope with data access and management. Multimedia files streaming are permitted thanks to its DLNA-certified network capability; music or videos files on DLNA-certified players such as PS3 or Xbox 360 are accessible from the Linkstation via wired or wireless LAN connectivity.

Conservative users bet for safety than speed can configure the NAS drive in Raid 1 mirroring, but doing so will split the effective storage space into half. The LS-WSS240GL/R1 is slated to launch later this month with price at 106,000 yen ($1,150)

The announcement follows Buffalo’s similar kits for the ASUS Eee PC, although in that case 32GB and 64GB was on offer.  The 32GB Buffalo Eee PC card was priced at around $156 at launch. 

Dell themselves recently began offering a 32GB SSD option on the Inspiron Mini 9, as a $100 upgrade during system ordering.  Buffalo’s aftermarket kits will be available in December, priced at 5,300 yen ($57) for the 16GB version and 9,400 yen ($101) for the 32GB.

[via Akihabara]

This new hard drive has a 500GB capacity. It has a 5,400rpm and is a 2.5-inch SATA hard drive. In case you’re looking to purchase one yourself, the model number is HD-NH500S/M.

This would definitely provide a comprehensive storage solution for so many nowadays that like to watch videos online, download music, rip videos and save large photo albums. For those that really need their computer to act as a large storage device, this HDD is probably one of your better bets. You will, however, need to pony up about $211 in Japan for one.

Two USB ports allow for external hard-drives to be connected, should 6TB not quite be enough for you, and there’s an LCD display to show hard-drive and network status.  Despite all that’s going on inside, the TeraStation is said to be surprisingly quiet thanks to a special near-silent fan and ducted cooling design.

The Buffalo TeraStation TS-H6.0TGL/R5 supports Active Directories, and has a built-in FTP server.  It’s available in Japan now, with worldwide release likely following shortly after, priced at around €1,580 ($2,114).

[via Akihabara]

Buffalo are claiming up to 35MB/s data transfer speeds with TurboUSB, along with the usual benefits of SSDs: low power demands and high resistance to shocks and vibration.  In fact the company goes one better, with the outer casing of the MicroStation SSD being shock-resistant itself.

Backup software from Memeo is included, as well as Secure Lock Ware for encrypting the drive’s contents.  No pricing for the three drives has been given.

[via iTechNews]

It’s uncertain what effect adding the SSD will have on the Eee’s warranty. Buffalo appear to be working with ASUS and offering their own warranty on the storage at least.

Buffalo are suggesting the board will be released in Japan this September, though there’s no word on if or when it will spread outside of there.  It’s priced at around $156 for the SHD-EP9M32G 32GB model and $316 for the SHD-EP9M64G 64GB model.

[via jkOnTheRun]

Next up, a new guy and/or company landed on the scene, the name, Van Der Led. So far we’ve heard about the new Asus Eee look alike from the company called Jisus, and then later this past week we wrote about a new cell phone watch from the same name, it’s all kind of fishy, but we’ll see. Speaking of Asus Eee-like computers, we first saw some reviews of the new HP Mini-Note coming from various sites, then later this past week we discovered that they’d gone on sale on HP’s site with an advertised ship date of April 15th. Lastly, in line with budget PC’s, Everex pushed out a new one, their MyMiniPC small form factor desktop PC that had a new version of gOS Space with the whole package being customized for MySpace users the world over.

Still on the topic of Notebooks, Toshiba released several new models including the A300, M300, P300, and U400 series’ of notebooks and extended the X205 SLI line by two new models. Toshiba also pushed out some new REGZA television sets ranging from 52-32-inches in size with most of them packing hard drives and built in DVRs as well as a ton of ports including 3 Ethernet NICs making these TV’s more connected than my computer. In other TV news Mitsubishi announced the name of its line of upcoming laser TV’s, thusly dubbed LaserVue.

In other news, Buffalo expanded their LinkStation line to include one of the first remotely portable models, it uses two 500GB laptop hard drives, a quite, small, fan-less case design, it offers up all of the lovable features of their LS line including the 1TB of storage space in a package small enough to fit in your hand. RedPost has upgraded their product lineup from the RedPost/Kit to the new RedPost SignBeta. Also, the BBC’s newest iPlayer has been expanded from the computer, to the iPhone/iPod Touch, and now to the Wii and is causing considerable network strain over in the UK leaving Internet providers looking to the BBC to cough up all or part of the estimated 831 million pounds needed to upgrade the network.

In Mobile news, we got an invite to go to an event being hosted by HTC in London on May 6th where we believe they’ll be unveiling their first Android Phone, rumored to be called the HTC Dream. Speaking of Android, we spotted a Nokia N810 that was running Android, and I must say it looked pretty amazing; hopefully they finish up the coding on the project so more N810 users can adopt the new Android OS.

Lastly in gaming news, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed got a release date of September 17th, World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King has entered alpha testing. Microsoft is rumored to be working on a Wiimote-like controller for their Xbox 360 system which would be great for games much like the upcoming Star Wars title. There was also lots of news regarding Grand Theft Auto IV; the most interesting is that a shortage of the game is expected in the UK, who would have thought they’d enjoy frolicking around killing anyone and everyone in some random city.

It even offers up the spare USB port which you can use to add more storage such as a flash drive or another external hard drive. Sadly though they didn’t have the foresight to make it so you can connect this drive directly to a computer, its still only over a network, so a drive that’s easy to take with you is almost a moot point, except you could directly connect the drive via a patch cable.

You can configure the two 5400RPM drives in RAID 0/1, although since they are already fairly slow, I’d recommend RAID 0. This 1TB LinkStation Mini will cost you $700, but they are supposedly working on a single drive version that will obviously be 500GB.

[via gadgetell]

So, if you were hoping to get your hands on one of those very affordable, very fast, Type-R flash drives that Buffalo was soon to be bringing to the states, no deal. They’ve been forced to halt sales of all of their flash devices due to possible patent infringement in the controllers for the flash devices.

SanDisk is also hitting Kingston, PNY, Corsair, Edge, and A-Data, but, chances are, Buffalo will be hit first and hardest again because if they constantly attack the small guy and they win, it allows them to set a precedent in the courts making winning all the subsequent cases much, much easier. Buffalo has released a statement basically saying they will either prove the patents aren’t valid, they aren’t enforceable, or they aren’t infringed, whatever the case may be, but in order to keep things amicable they went ahead and ceased importing the drives.

[via everythingUSB]

If you want the most versatile external drive, then you need a Quad Interface like the recently announced Buffalo offering the whole she-bang with a USB 2.0, 2x FW 800, 1xFW400 and a Esata. Buffalo is selling them at $285 to $654 for 320GB to 1TB version but you can probably get a better deal buying the case and hdd separately from vendor like G-Drive or OWC.

[via akihabaranews]

The BR-416U2 is an external BD-R with USB 2.0 interface while BR-416FBS-WH and BR-416FBS-BK are OEMed by Panasonic with SATA-interface. They support media with speed of 4X BD-R, 4x BD-Rom single player, 2X BD-ROM dual layer, 16X DVD ± R, 5-speed DVD-RAM and 8X DVD ± R DL, 6x DVD-RW, 8X DVD + RW, 40X CD-R and 24X CD-RW.

The Trio supports Windows OS including Vista, and bundled with PowerProducer4, PowerDirector6 and PowerDVD 7.0 with the price of 55,650 yen ($515 USD) for external and 50,925 yen ($470 USD) for internal.

[via impress]

The first thing that hit me when I took it out of the package was that there didn’t seem to be enough, for lack of a better word, crap, in the box, but there was. This thing has such simple setup that other than the unit itself all there was inside was the power cord, Ethernet cable, software disc, and then a quick start guide and some warranty information. The power cord was like the outlet half of a laptop power cord, no brick as the power supply was built into the unit along with a cooling fan.

One other thing that surprised me was the size of this thing. It measures in at 3.9×6.4×8.7 inches, which is about the same size as any other dual drive external hard drive, but this thing has some heft with a weight of 6.8 pounds! So, even if you could connect to it directly via USB, it still wouldn’t be all that portable of a solution.

So, I plugged it in, attached the Ethernet cable to the device and then the other end to my router and then I went and installed the software. The software installed NAS Navigator which allows you to change some setting for the drive from that interface and also links you to the web interface for the drive as well where all the other settings can be accessed and changed. The software also had to courtesy to, on my Windows machine, automatically map the device as a network drive.

Inside the box there are 2 500GB hard drives, you have your choice of running those as one giant 1TB drive in RAID 0 or as a mirrored 500GB volume for data redundancy in RAID 1. I chose to run it as a large 1TB drive because I don’t have anything sensitive enough to need data redundancy, and I thought I could come close to filling up 1TB with all the junk I have on my computer, but alas I cannot, that’s a lot of data.

Actual performance of the drive was pretty amazing once I got all the data I wanted on it, I wanted to see how fast the data transfer was, so I transferred as much as I could to the drive, I had to separate transfers going at the same time with a total of 216GB of data being transferred, it took a few hours, but one finished before the other, so the first transfer sped up a lot after that, so multiple transfers apparently slows things down, and I only have a 100MB network, but the drive has a gigabit Ethernet port. So the multiple transfers plus the fact that the drives are just 7200RPM SATA drives, plus the fact that I was transferring 216GB of data, and I can see why it took a few hours.

But, once the data was on the drive, accessing it from the web interface on another machine and downloading something was blazing fast, my other desktop hit a little over 5 megabits per second when downloading a file from the drive. Obviously a download from a computer not on the local network, via the Web Access interface is going to be determined by your ISP and your max upload speed. Also, one nifty thing they did have was that you could play music from the drive within the web interface using the QuickTime browser plug-in, or you could download it and play it.

On the back, it has a power port, the RJ-45 jack, a USB port, a power button, and a power switch. The USB port is the same type as is on your computer and is for connecting a flash drive or another external hard drive, not for connecting to your computer. The power button is what turns the device on or off; the power switch is for manual or auto modes. When you first set up the device, it must be in manual mode, but after you have it set up, you can switch it to auto and it will shut off whenever the PC its connected to is shut down, I left it on manual because I wanted to be able to access it when I wasn’t home, and I didn’t feel like leaving my computer on to do so.

This particular drive supports TCP/IP, SMB, FTP, HTTP, NTP protocols; it also supports Active Directory as a client and can be accessed from anywhere using the Web Access interface. Here’s how the Web Access interface works, you set up the device for Web Access by assigning it a name (it has to be one that hasn’t already been taken) and then regardless of whether you have a static or dynamic public IP address it will resolve all of that for you, all you have to do is go to BuffaloNAS.com/yourNASname and you are in.

Now, that sounds easy, but for business users there are tons of features to help keep things secure at the same time. First off, you can set up multiple shares on the drives and set up separate user accounts for everyone (or you can assign those permissions in AD) and then set which shares they have access to, this would allow only users with the proper rights access to the drive both internally or externally. Or you can set access to the drive to anyone, and then anyone who has the name of your NAS can go to the Buffalo NAS site and get on your NAS and download stuff. On the NAS’ web interface there are tons of other management and security features making this the ultimate in convenience and security.

One last cool feature of the drive is that it also comes with Memeo backup software for one click backups of your system which is nice. I didn’t have much of a use for it as I never do backups anyways, but I am sure there is a large audience out there for such a feature.

Overall, I love this drive, and although I’d like to keep it, I sadly must send it back, but I am definitely going to check out a few other NAS units and if I don’t like any of those more, I’m buying one of these, it really is quite amazing. But alas, I must give the downsides as well as the upsides, but don’t worry, there aren’t many. The first is that although this drive is aimed at businesses where there will likely be someone who knows what they are doing, if a home user were to buy one and didn’t know what they were doing, setting up the web access could be a pain with all the port forwarding, setting up the share, and all that, but they have tried to make it as easy as possible, and if your router supports UPnP you could be up and running in as little as a few clicks, but if not, manually forwarding the port could be a bit of a daunting task, but its not impossible. The second complaint I have is that when it mapped the drive as a network drive, it mapped it, in Windows, to the next drive letter which meant that every time I connected something via USB, such as a flash drive or my other external hard drive, to my computer the new device wouldn’t show up, because it was also assigned the same drive letter, it took me a while to figure this out, and from then on I’ve had to change everything I plugged in’s drive letter manually, I am sure there might be an easier, more permanent fix, but I don’t know what it is. My last complaint is that in the Web Access interface, you can only download a single file at a time, you can’t download the entire contents of a folder all at once, something to fix this would be great. Overall, I give this gadget 4 out of 5 gears, its really cool and if you are a business user definitely warrants the three to four hundred dollar price tag (depends on where you buy it).

[rating:4/5]

The one black mark against the Buffalo Mediastation is the fact that while it can write to Blu-Ray, DVD and CD, it can only read HD-DVDs.  However, with the state of play in the high-definition media market at the moment, you might thing that’s not too insurmountable an omission.

Price and availability date is yet to be announced.

Buffalo

Solid state drives are still quite expensive, however it has many advantages such as lower operating power consumption and generates less heat. Now, 2.5-inch SSD is nice but for an external storage, the smaller the better; so Buffalo made the SHD-UHRS external SSD with smaller dimensions in mind. The external USB 2.0 drive is almost the same size as a credit card and comes with 100GB of drive space. This 60 grams external SSD drive will cost you a hefty 100.000 Yen or around $885.

Put 100GB of SSD in your pocket! [via akihabaranews]

Unlike Kanguru, the 32GB Buffalo USB stick, modeled SHD-U32GS doesn’t cost arms and legs. Japan is expected to get the goodies (like always) in next few days at an equivalent price of $286. That’s about 5 times cheaper than the Kanguru at first launch! I can’t wait to try ‘friend of mine’ huge collection of achieved HD-DVD with this tiny little jumpdrive, it would be slash-cool.

SHD-U32GS, a new 32GB TurboUSB memory Card [via akihabara]

Apparently Buffalo has noticed a trend in people hacking their routers with this firmware, so they’ve decided to offer the first commercial router with DD-WRT preinstalled. I must commend Buffalo on this decision, as the DD-WRT firmware isn’t just good for making a cheap wireless card for your 360 (or any other device with an ethernet port) but it also is a bit more secure than what you’ll find installed on many routers.

Unfortunately, you won’t want to purchase this as a cheap alternative to the 360′s expensive wireless card, as it’s going to set you back around $85. However, those looking for the extra features and security of DD-WRT, but don’t want to hassle with trying to install it on your router, the WHR-HP-G54DD s a great buy.

NEW BUFFALO ROUTER BRINGS ENTERPRISE PERFORMANCE TO THE SMB MARKET [via hexus]

Buffalo has announced that they will be launching a drive that can play both Blu-ray and HD DVD discs. What’s great is that it also burns Blu-ray discs, though it won’t burn HD DVDs.

The biggest concern with these types of drives is cost. The price is set to be about 47,000 Yen which translates to just over $400. That’s not too shabby at all. Now we just have to convince them to launch it over here in the US.

Buffalo Japan to Sell USB Blu-ray and HD DVD Combo Drive [via everythingusb]

Buffalo recently showed off the latest iteration of their DriveStation external drives. They’ve got a nice Turbo button that will increase data throughput by between 30 and 60 percent. This of course begs the question, why would you ever not use the button?

The drives will be available at the beginning of next month in 320GB, 500GB, 750GB and 1TB flavors. The smaller 320GB version will run you about $130 with prices going up to $500 for the 1TB drive.

Buffalo hits the turbo button on its hard drives [via crave]

Buffalo has introduced their HU-MU2 series of external hard drives for the Mac. You can get them in flavors of 320GB, 500GB and a whopping 1TB. One of the features that they are boasting is Turbo USB. Apparently when this is enabled it can increase transfer speeds by up to 33%.

Here’s an interesting fact, it’s only going to be available in Japan when it launches later this month, with no US release currently slated. I was under the impression that Apple was doing poorly in the Japanese market, so it’s interesting that Buffalo would only release this product in that region.

Buffalo HD-MU2 – 1TB Hard-Drive for the Macs [via gadgetizer]

Now Buffalo has introduced it’s new Web Access feature for their LinkStation Live NAS devices. This allows you to connect to your NAS from anywhere in the world over the internet. The entire process is set up using a basic web browser interface, so it’s a piece of cake to set up. You can even allow other users access to your data with little effort.

If you currently have one of their LinkStation Live NAS devices, a simple firmware download will enable this feature for you. If you have one of their other NAS devices, don’t worry, they plan on supporting the rest of their NAS line.

You can purchase a LinkStation Live for around $229 for a 250GB up to $649 for a 750GB.

[via press release]

That’s where Buffalo Technology’s new Wireless-G High Gain USB 2.0 adapters come into play. The first one, the WLI-U2-SG54HG has an omni-directional antenna that will attach itself to the back of your laptop (or desktop if you prefer) with suction cups. The other WLI-U2-G54HG is a unit that sits next to your notebook that is lightweight and has a signal strength indicator built-in.

The best part of all is that according to Buffalo, you can get wireless signals from up to 1600 feet away. You’ll be able to pick these up sometime in May for only $49 each.

New Buffalo Hi Gain USB WiFi Antenna with 1600 ft Range [via everythingusb]