The CompactFlash Association has announced a new 5.0 standard that will increase the addressing from 28 bits to 48, resulting in an explosive amount of storage gained. It means that the new format can hit 144-petabytes once flash technology catches up.

Also, photographers and videographers will be able take advantage of some new safeguards that guarantee a minimum level of performance while preventing dropped frames, especially in HD.

I guess there is a big market for novelty flash drives. There are so many flash drives out there that have strange designs, someone must be buying them. The latest strange flash drives to turn up are from Active Media Products.

The drives are in the Endangered Species USB flash drive line and come in penguin, polar bear, and panda bear styles. Each drive is 2.2-inches long and support Mac and PC systems. The drives are made from silicone and are PVC, lead, and mercury free.

The SSD is at some point going to replace the traditional HDD in many instances. Before that can happen though the SSD has to get more storage capacity and come down in price significantly. The performance benefits of a SSD compared to a HDD are already there. OCZ has added a new SSD to its Vertex line called the Vertex Limited Edition.

The LE SSD has more performance than the standard Vertex lien of drives. The SSD offers TRIM support for Windows 7 and uses MLC NAND for storage. The drive can resist shock up to 1500G and supports RAID configurations.

Sure this isn’t the most attractive or exciting device ever, but in terms of practicality, it’s pretty cool. Aleratec’s 1:1 HDD PortaCruiser Lightweight and Portable Hard Disk Drive Duplicator lets you easily clone 2.5″ and 3.5″ hard drives for backing up your data.

It also functions as a Dual Disk RAID Controller so you can attach two hard drives to it, connect it to a USB 2.0 port and use it as external storage. The 2-line LCD display makes things even easier. And it weighs only 8 ounces, so you can carry it with you.

Lots of people out there like to keep a flash drive on them at all times. This allows them to be able to share files and move files to and from a computer or between home and the office without having to dig for floppy discs or burn a CD or DVD.

Active media Products has unveiled a new flash drive called the MotKey that is designed to look like a car key. The point of the device is that the MotKey will blend in with the keys already on your key ring. The MotKey is offered in 4GB or 8GB capacities.

Here’s a good looking hard drive enclosure. Thermaltake has introduced their new Silver River II hard drive enclosure, which is made from aluminum. That’s what gives it the stunning good looks. The ST0016 and ST0017 are designed to house 3.5-inch hard drives and come with a removable base allowing you to use the enclosure in a variety of ways.

A smaller model is also available that measures 79mm x 17mm x 136mm. The ultra-compact Thermaltake ST0018 model is designed for 2.5-inch hard drives. All three models come bundled with all the data cables as well and a screwdriver.

When I was shopping for my DSRL camera, I shied away from those that needed a CF card for storage. The CF card is faster and you can get them in very high capacities, but they cost more than comparable SD card. Not to mention I have a hoard of SD cards already.

If you are the CF type, Silicon Power has unveiled the world’s first 128GB 400x CompactFlash card. The card can write at up to 90MB/sec. It supports PIO Mode-6 and Multi-word DMA 4 transfer modes.

If your computer is vital to your business or pleasure, you may want to seriously consider something a bit more substantial than just backing up your data. Even if you have a recent back up, getting the OS installed and the software back on a new HDD can take hours.

What you need is a HDD clone device like the new 1:1 HDD Copy Cruiser Mini from Alereatec. The device makes an exact clone of your HDD down to the MBR and all partitions. That means in the event of a failure you just change the drive and keep working.

myDitto from Dane-Elec allows users to remotely access their home or office Servers using nothing more than a USB flash drive. myDitto will allow you to remotely access your home or business myDitto Servers through a direct peer-to-peer connection. It’s as simple as inserting a lightweight USB key into your PC. Just connect the myDitto Server to a router, create and authenticate up to 30 personalized myDitto Keys for all users, and insert it for instant access to your files, music, videos etc.

Using an app, smart phone users can also have access to their myDitto Servers. You can also easily transfer digital files to the myDitto Server from wired and wireless devices (including PCs, laptops, PDAs and smart phones).

NAS devices used to be pretty much exclusive to the office and enterprise settings to allow for central data backups. With many consumers now producing and using tons of digital content the NAS is also finding its way into homes.

Thecus has unveiled its latest NAS product called the N4200. The device has smart bays that will work with SATA drives of 2.5-inches and 3.5-inches. The device has a built-in battery back up to preserve settings and unwritten data in the event of a blackout.

Another day, another new flash drive. These things are being announced by the droves close to CES. A company called Team has announced a new flash drive that features dual connectivity and faster speeds than the typical USB 2.0 drive.

The drive is called the X092 from Team and it requires no power adapter to operate. Presumably, it can get power from the USB port to run in eSATA mode when needed. The drive will come in 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB capacities.

We are only days away from the kick off of CES 2010 and one of the big product categories that will be featured at the show in 2010 is USB 3.0. USB 3.0 is going to go mainstream in a big way in 2010 and lots of flash drives and external storage solutions will be on hand at the big show.

Symwave and Super Talent will be showing off the Super Talent USB 3.0 RAIDDrive. The drive uses the Symwave SW6318 device offering performance of 300MB/s on reads. Super Talent claims that the drive is the fastest USB 3.0 drive on the market.

There are lots of people out there who take tons of digital photos and video. That means that you either need lots of expensive memory cards or you need a way to get the content off your memory card when it’s full while out of the house.

You could take a notebook with you and download the content that way or you could take the smaller and less bulky NEXTO eXtreme portable hard drive to do the same job. The eXtreme is a portable hard drive with a built-in memory card reader and USB port.

If you are one of the masses who takes gobs of digital movies and photos and wants a place to store them where they will be safe, but you don’t like having to bother with difficult upload processes I have a deal for you. Google Picasa and Eye-Fi have teamed up for a special deal for new customers.

Picasa is offering anyone who signs up for a plan with 200GB of storage at $50 annually a free Eye-Fi Home memory card. This card can send movies and pictures automatically to the web when they are taken.

Check out the latest addition to Verbatim’s 1.8-inch portable hard drive line-up, looking all sleek and thin. The Pocket Drive weighs just 85 grams, manages to be compact and stylish and has 250GB of storage space.

Some other features include a USB 2.0 interface and it comes bundled with Dmailer Backup Software and Verbatim Sync Software. The drive will play nice with Windows 7, Vista and Windows XP operating systems. The Verbatim Pocket Drive is available now in Europe for 125 Euros or $189.