Synology’s freshly announced DS409Slim NAS keeps things nice, simple and compact. Small? Yes, but you’ll still get four bays for 2.5-inch drives of your choice (up to 2TB total). The company says that using 2.5″ drives increases tolerance for physical shocks, reduces power consumption and results in a smaller footprint. Lower power consumption also allows the cooling fan to stay off “under normal operating conditions” with even four drives installed.

Specs include a 1.2GHz Marvell processor, 128MB of RAM, two USB ports, and one eSATA port. It also features DLNA certification and support for UPnP and other features. It will start shipping this month for about $400.

Niveus Media is rolling out a new storage device for custom home theater installers based upon the Microsoft Windows Home Server platform. It is called the Niveus Storage Server – Cargo Edition.

The Cargo is scalable to hold up to 16TB of data in one server, with the ability to add more to a home network as necessary. It is housed in a custom-designed, 3U rack-mountable chassis, measuring 18.5″ in depth, marking what Niveus says is “the most compact storage server in the custom electronics industry.”

There are media servers and then THERE ARE MEDIA SERVERS. Like the new Vidabox Rack24, for example. 22TB (!) of storage for all your home media needs at a yet as undisclosed price. This, as far as we can tell, does one up on the 15TB Intest NAS device.

What would you do with 22TB of media storage? I have no idea myself. The Vidabox Rack24 though can pack it in, including over 3,350 DVDs or a reported 880 Blu-ray movies. 24 hard drive bays provide the space necessary for this massive amount of storage and the Rack24 can come preloaded and pre-configured with Microsoft’s Vista Home Premium software when configured as a hybrid server/AV stream provider.

MediaGate said today it is releasing for public consumption its latest wireless media server for home entertainment and networking. It is called the MG-450HD and pricing is set at around $230.

The MediaGate MG-450HD is designed to let you bring video, music and photos directly to your home entertainment system from a network PC in, here’s that buzzword, HD. It can operate across 802.11g wireless networks and supports attached USB devices like digital cameras.

A company by the name of Nuvo Technologies is offering up a new music server for those who want to store large amounts of their digital music for easy access via a home entertainment system. This server is known as the NV-M3-500 and you’ll find it costing you around $3,000.

The Nuvo NV-M3-500 offers up 500GB of music storage in its hard drive. Nuvo says this can turn out to be around 830 CDs in uncompressed WAV, though it also supports WMA and MP3. It is Windows DRM compliant, has three source outputs and uses Windows Media Player for file management.

Mvix has begun making available a new wireless media center HD enclosure through Web sites like ThinkGeek. This particular model is known as the MX-780HD and pricing is at around $300.

The Mvix MX-780HD, like we said, has not hard drive enclosed, though it should support any size 3.5-inch IDE or SATA drive you can get your grubby hands on. With this media player you can connect to your home network via Ethernet or wireless or access internal or external hard drive files for the purpose of bridging them into your home entertainment setup. You also get HD quality video output from the HDMI and component connections.

Alienware is making available to consumers through professional installers a new home media server. It is called simply enough the Alienware High Definition Media Server - no specific pricing was mentioned.

The Alienware High Definition Media Server targets high end consumers seeking a high quality media server for their home entertainment needs. It offers up 4TB(!) of storage space to provide you with “alifetime’s worth of digital movies, music, photos and more.” It can be used to delivery this content wirelessly or via a home network to any computer, while also being able to connect to a home entertainment system through a variety of audio and video outputs.

A company by the name of Ziova has unveiled what it is calling a new high definition network media player which can sport an internal hard drive. The ClearStream CS615 is expected to price at around $330.

The ClearStream CS615 from Ziova is powered by the Sigma Designs 8634 chipset. It is a home networked media player which brings your media files to your home theater system. You can get entertainment via the 10/100 Ethernet wired networking, an internal hard drive and a USB 2.0 hard drive connection. Video output options include HDMI and component video.

Escient, a developer of networked media products, is planning to ship early next year a new line of media management devices which will let one “play and import all their movies, videos, music, and photos using the front-panel drive and home network.” This new Vision line of products is set to price between $2,000 and $8,000.

The Escient Vision line consists of seven products, including two versions of an all-in-one server/player, Models VS-100 and VS-200, as well as the VC-1 networked audio/video zone player and the large-capacity VX-600 media server. All of these devices will sport a new high definition user interface and also allow one to access streaming music through Rhapsody.

Olive, a maker of high end audiophile products, is getting stylish with a new artistic version of its Opus No5 digital media player. The new players, designed by Karim Rashid, are priced at around $4,000.

The four unique styles of this Opus No5 players are technologically focused as much as they look good. They have high end audio components built in for producing a sound which Olive feels is equal to the player’s price tag. These devices offer up to 750GB of hard drive storage so you can load and keep your favorite music files and associated information available for more easy enjoyment.

Do you take way too many family pictures? Do you have photos in old shoe boxes and look at them far more then you should? Well, stop living in the past, flipping through that old bulky photo album. Now you have a big black box to imprison all of those cherished memories in, so they can survive for all eternity.

Officially making photo albums a thing of the past, and practically laughing at their out-datedness, Sony’s HDMS-S1D let’s you store and relive those memories. Thanks to Sony’s x-Pict Story HD(with face recognition), you can even add a soundtrack or have strange dream sequence fades between images. It will organize all of your images and let you share photos with slideshow and scrapbook-style displays.

Take an advanced music management system. Throw it into a traditional jukebox design. What do you get? The new Qsonix QJB110 Nostalgic Digital Jukebox, which at this point seems not to have any pricing or release information available, though we have to imagine it’s going to be pricey.

The Qsonix QJB110 takes the form of a 1940s-era jukebox handcrafted with solid walnut and a die cast metal authentic exterior. It is capable of storing upwards of 9,000 CDs and can operate as a stand-alone music system with a built-in 360W amp, speakers and subwoofer. It is also designed to act in a multi-zone capacity for those wishing to hear music throughout the home. It includes iPod transfer, CD burning, web browsing and automatic Internet updates as well.

Another big Sony announcement today came in the form of a stylish, standalone home media server. The new HES-V1000 is priced at around $3,500 and should be available next month.

The HES-V1000 comes ready to party, containing both a 1080p 200-disc Blu-ray Disc/DVD/CD changer and a 500GB hard drive. This server will let you also burn content onto Blu-ray Discs as well as standard DVDs. It can connect to the Internet to collect metadata, wirelessly stream music throughout the home with a router to other devices and offers what Sony says is a easy navigation system.