SSDs are much faster than traditional HDDs and allow users to boot their computers faster and access applications more quickly. The SSD is always being improved with prices going down and performance increasing.

A-DATA announced today what it claims to be the industry’s fastest SSD called the S596. The SSD is a 2.5-inch device with sequential read speeds of 250MB/sec and sequential write speeds of 180 MB/sec/ the drive also has a SDRAM cache for more performance.

For a long time upgrading your computer to an SSD was a very expensive proposition. Thankfully, the cost of SSDs has come down significantly in the last few months. Kingston just unveiled a new SSD boot drive upgrade package that sells for $84.99 after rebates.

Before those rebates the SSDNow V Series 40GB Boot Drive kit sells for $115. The drive kit includes the 40GB SSD, drive cloning software, power, and data extension cables, and adapters to make the 2.5-inch drive fit a 3.5-inch bay.

Around the world, untold amounts of power are wasted each day by gadgets and electronic devices that are left running when they are not in use. Many countries are trying to legislate changes to laws to reduce this wasted energy. Samsung has announced that its STORY Station line of external HDDs is being updated to meet new European rules for lower power consumption at rest.

The line of Samsung external HDDs is getting a new circuit design that allows it to be turned off when the power supple is plugged in and the USB cable is not connected to the computer. This will allow Samsung to cut power needs from 2.5W of the current version to 0.09W with the new version of the drive.

Super Talent announced a crazy fast SSD that doesn’t use the SATA interface that most SSDs use. That old and tired SATA interface is just too slow for Super Talent’s needs, the RAIDDrive slips into a vacant PCIe slot on the mainboard.

The PCIe slot allows the RAIDDrive to support sequential read speeds of up to 1.4GB/sec and sequential write speeds of up to 1.2GB/sec. Inside the RAIDDRive are four separate SSDs that use the SATA interface and higher capacity RAIDDrives cram eight SSDs into the RAIDDrive SSD.

Right now when we think of enterprise storage and speed, the product that jumps to mind for many of us is an SSD. These expensive and fast storage devices are very beneficial in the enterprise environment. A company called Pliant has unveiled a new line of storage products called Enterprise Flash Drives that may be even better than the SSD.

The EFD is a storage device that integrates advanced software and a proprietary ASIC controller to improve performance dramatically. The EFD also has minimal energy and space requirements. The drives come in 3.5-inch and 2.5-inch form factors.

Olive has unveiled a new line of stereos today in the form of the Opus. And it has some serious storage capacity and a unique design. It’s official name is the Opus No. 4. This stereo will conveniently save imported CDs in lossless FLAC format and has a touchscreen menu.

It will let you make playlists, listen to online radio stations and more. There’s also wireless playback. The Opus is available in several models to suit your needs. There’s a 500GB model, a 1TB model and an extreme 2TB model.

How many of you have started using micro SD cards? If you have, what is your experience? If you haven’t, why not? I recently started using the micro SD cards from Sandisk after avoiding them forever. I just figured, they’re so damn tiny, they had to be annoying. But after using them, I’ve found them pretty darn useful and even though they are obscenely tiny, I’m sold.

They are especially useful for moving songs betweens between your MP3 player and phone. (Assuming you have the micro SD slot). Say you have an 8 GB MP3 player. An 8 GB card doubles your storage. That’s a no brainer. But the fact that you can take the card out and use it on your phone or other device is where they are handy.

I am still not ready to start looking at upgrading any of my notebook or desktop computer to SSDs. At this point, the SSD is still too expensive for the slight benefit a consumer will get from the SSD upgrade. I will hold out until prices drop significantly for SSDs and capacities are more in line with what you can get on a traditional HDD.

Those who want to upgrade to an SSD for their notebook or desktop now can get new SSDs and upgrade kits from Imation. The company has announced that it is shipping its S-class and M-class SSDs along with all-in-one upgrade kits.

There’s a lot to be paranoid about these days. UFOs are abducting humans and cows at an alarming rate. The near collapse of our nation’s banking system. Bigfoot. Shadow governments. The Illuminati. E-coli. North Korea. Bird flu. Grocery store muzak. Falling satellites. Nuclear weapons. Just to name a few.

I don’t have to tell you what it all means. It means that it’s time to start shoving stuff under your mattress. Money. Guns. Medicine. Powdered food rations. Maybe a back-up gaming console. Everyone knows that under the mattress is the most secure place for all your stuff. You sleep there don’t you? You’ll be safe as long as you have your stash of important stuff.

At long last Nintendo is finally doing something about storage. Finally. You can back up titles to SD and now games can be played straight from the cards. The SD Card Menu can be accessed from the Wii System Menu 4.0. That’s the new update that we are getting right now.

It lets the Wii work with memory cards larger than 2GB, maxing out at 32GB. Nintendo is also launching the new Virtual Console Arcade, that gives you all the old arcade titles on the Wii.

External storage is particularly important in the business world where the loss of data can mean the loss of significant money or important records that can’t be replaced. For that reason businesses often spend lots of money on external storage solutions. Seagate has announced new NAS devices that are more affordable than the average solution.

The new products are in the BlackArmor line and include the NAS 440 and NAS 420 storage servers, which can support up to 8TB each. Both of the devices are four bay, hot swappable units that offer a centralized way to backup and secure data in a business or home. The NAS 420 ships with two drives installed with 2TB of total capacity. The NAS 440 comes with four drives installed and capacities up to 8TB.

Remember those key-like USB keys we showed you from LaCie earlier this month? The ones that were all like, hey I’m a key, put me on your key ring. The drives are now priced and available for shipment.

Designed by 5.5 Designers, the itsaKey, iamaKey and PassKey USB drives are now available for order and ready to be lost along with your car keys. The first two sport up to 8GB of internal capacity and the PassKey boasts a built-in microSD card slot.

Buffalo has released a new external 2.5 HDD It’s available in Ruby Red, Crystal Black, and Pearl White. The Buffalo HD-PEU2-RD 2.5 Inch external hard disk drive comes with a capacity ranging from 250GB to 500GB.

It was specially designed for women with its sleek design and colors, though presumably a man can use it too without being laughed at and branded a sissy. The Buffalo HD-PEU2-RD external HDD is compatible with both PC and Mac. It’s just like all the others, but in a nicer body.

Fusion-io is famous for producing the world’s fastest and most expensive SSD solution. Now it has another blazing fast innovation that should have you drooling in no time. The ioDrive Duo is hailed as the fastest and most innovative SSD on the planet thus far.

The server-based PCI Express SSD is aimed at enterprises who can and will pay more for vast quantities of lightning fast storage space. So, what’s the speed? 1.5GB sustained read speeds and 1.4GB sustained write speeds. Say it with me. Wow!

External data storage and data backups are a very important part of any computer user’s data recovery and safety plan. You may not have any important documents on your computer, but odds are you have a slew of digital photos that if lost would be gone forever.

The Acer Alto storage appliance was seen at CeBIT 2009 by the geeks at Engadget and it looks slick. The machine has an Intel Atom N230 CPU inside to control the show and packs in four hot swappable drive bays as well.