Storage breakthroughs are exploding all over the place and TDK has now introduced the new 1TB or 1000GB optical disk at CEATEC. The new 1TB disc has the same diameter as a standard Blu-ray disc, but has 16 layers, storing 32GB per side of each layer (32 layers each storing 32GB = 1TB).

TDK had already created a 200GB disk in 2006, but sadly it never entered the mass market. One day soon maybe we will be able to store 5TB on these discs.

If you have important data on your notebook that you take with you so you can work on the go, you should be backing it up. The problem is that some data is so important you need to do more than just save it to an external HDD. This is why folks use RAID arrays in an office setting.

NewerTech has unveiled a new portable RAID storage solution that supports RAID 0 and RAID 1 with dual drives inside. The device is called the Guardian Maximus mini and it sports four different interfaces to allow it to work with Mac and PCs.

OCZ has been selling a couple versions of its Vertex SSDs for a while now. The last one we talked about was the Vertex 2 with up to 480GB of storage. Two more Vertex 2 drives have been added to the family including a Vertex 2 Pro and a Vertex 2 EX model.

The EX and the Pro have the same performance capability with write speed up to 285MB/sec and read speed up to 275MB/sec. However, on the inside the two use different types of NAND flash.

Patriot is a big name in the enthusiast world for computer memory. The company also has other hardware as well and has announced a new SSD called the Inferno that uses the SandForce controller.

The Inferno SSD will be offered in 100GB and 200GB capacities and uses specially screened MLC NAND flash for speed. The drive promises blazing fast read and write performance.

Toshiba has a new automotive HDD with 200GB of storage. I guess it’s time to start figuring out which music and movies you want in your next car’s dashboard. Anything to quiet the kids. Toshiba’s 4,200 RPM SATA MK2060GSC HDD has a small form factor, durability, and a great storage size that everyone will want in their dashboard.

Try not to get into an accident while watching your favorite racing movie. It might be better to focus the the music. Better yet, focus on the road.

Corsair has a full line of storage and memory products that it has been offering for a long time. The company has flash drives, enthusiast class RAM for PCs and makes lots of memory for notebooks too. Corsair also has several SSD offerings and its latest SSDs are now available.

The new SSDs are the Force series and promises read speeds up to 285MB/s and write speeds up to 275MB/s. The SSD line is offered in 100GB or 200GB capacities and both use Sandforce controllers.

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.

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.

Along with the picture above, Seagate has the following message “All These Planets Are Yours Except Europa, Attempt No Landing There.” And so Seagate has announced their first line of SSDs, named Pulsar. It’s a 2.5-inch drive in 50GB, 100GB and 200GB capacities.

The Pulsar drives are all 3Gb/s SATA compatible, with top read/write speeds of 240MB/s and 220MB/s. For comparison purposes, Intel’s X25-M hits 250MB/s read but only 100MB/s write, and the X25-M tops out at 160GB capacity.

Gaming notebooks are known for a few things—power, gaming performance and a high price. Your typical gaming notebook will often cost three times or more the amount that you can get a normal notebook for. Not all notebooks for gaming are hugely expensive though and Toshiba has introduced a new gaming machine that has a very reasonable price.

The new Toshiba Qosmio X305-Q701 is a Best Buy exclusive system that retails for $1,549.99. The machine has Toshiba’s slick looking fiery finish with Rouge design. Graphics for the notebook are via NVIDIA GeForce 9700M GTS discrete card and the CPU is an Intel Core 2 Duo P7350 processor.

A niche computer maker by the name of Vology is claiming today the mantle of the world’s fastest gaming laptop. While we have yet to verify that, you can at least learn a little more about the Vology Limited Edition Predator X-2 and its $4,600 price tag.

The Vology Limited Edition Predator X-2, according to Vology, is outfitted with “an Intel Core 2 Quad 2.66GHz, nVidia GeForce 8800M GTX 512MB DDR3, and 4GB of DDR2 SDRAM at 800MHz.” It includes as well a full size keyboard with personalized hot keys and a 17-inch monitor.

Dell today formally brought one “beast” of a laptop to the gaming community. The new Dell XPS M1730 has a starting price of around $3,000.

The Dell XPS M1730 is, according to Dell, the world’s first notebook to incorporate AGEIA PhysX Mobile Technology and Logitech’s GamePanel LCD. The PhysX processor reportedly delivers “realistic movement and environmental interaction at incredible speeds without degrading overall performance” and the Logitech LCD lets gamers ” view game stats, create new macros and track important system information without leaving the game.”

Sony has teamed up with New York graphic artist Maya Hayuk to create two visually spectacular limited edition VAIO notebooks. The VAIO Graphic Splash Editions come in two models, “Grow” (pictured above, which suggests plants and other green living things) and “Never Stop” (the space trippy one of the pair). Regardless of which laptop you wind up purchasing the VAIO will come with a certificate of authenticity signed by the artist and desktop wallpaper that matches the laptop’s cover artwork. As well $25 from the sale of each laptop will be donated to a charity called “Creativity Explored”, a nonprofit visual arts center where artists with developmental disabilities create, exhibit, and sell art.

Both models come with a Blu-ray player, 4 GB of RAM, a 200GB HDD, 2GHz Core 2 Duo T7300 chip set, Nvidia GeForce 8400m GT graphics card, and a 15.4″ widescreen LCD. The price for either unit is $2,499.99 and they are available beginning next week from Sony.

Samsung Electronics is marching on with its solid state drives (SSD) today by announcing 64GB models are now shipping. These are reportedly immediately available in Dell and Alienware consumer notebooks.

Samsung said “Alienware will provide a 128GB SSD configuration, by offering dual 64GB SSD drives in a RAID 0 array, as well as a single 64GB SSD combined with a large capacity 200GB 7200RPM drive, available on the powerful Area-51 m9750 gaming notebook. Dell is offering the SSD drive on its premium XPS M1330 ultra-portable notebook, and expects to make it available across additional XPS systems, as well as Latitude corporate notebooks and Dell Precision mobile workstations later this year.”

Today Alienware announced that they will start selling notebooks that utilize Solid State Drives (SSD) to improve performance through the drives faster read and write speeds. The SSD drives will be offered in the Area-51 m9750, Aurora m9700 and Area-51 m5550 notebooks.

In addition to getting your notebook with the fast flashed-based storage, two of the notebooks will also offer dual 64GB SSD drives in a RAID 0 configuration. The company is even offering a dual drive configuration that combines a 32GB SSD drive for faster booting and running applications along with a …