External storage solutions have lots of uses in today’s home. With the huge amounts of digital content the average consumer uses today, we need a place to back that data up. Western Digital has announced a new My Book Studio external hard drive that has an e-label display built-in.

The cool part about the display is that it can show the volume label and how much space is left on the drive even when the drive is not plugged in. The device is designed for Mac users and has FireWire 800 interface and 256-bit hardware encryption.

It took them awhile, but drive makers are finally getting hip to the fact that we would like to see how much disk space is left without having to plug it in. About time. Western Digital’s My Book Elite and My Book Studio drives now feature labels on the outside displaying that always-on info.

That means even when it isn’t plugged in, you’ll get a 12 character label, and a second line that displays how much space is left on the disc. In both gigabytes and a graph no less. Simple solution huh? The USB 2TB My Book Elite is $280, and the 2TB My Book Studio with FireWire 800 and USB connectivity is $300.

In storage news WD has updated several of its external HDD storage devices for the media lover in you. The new My Book Essential comes in 1TB for $149, 2TB for $229.99 and 500GB capacities for $99.99. The My Book for Mac is available with 1TB for $149.99.

While the My Passport Essential comes in capacities of 500GB for $139 or 320GB for $99.99. My Passport for Mac is available in 500GB for $149.99 and 320GB for $119.99.

Western Digital has scaled things down with their latest TV Mini. It’s a mini version of their earlier media sharing device. The first thing this set-top box does is get rid of HDMI output to cut down on the size to just 3.6″ square and 0.8″ deep.

It’s capable of 1080i video playback and has RealVideo format support alongside MPEG-1/2/4, VOB and XviD formats. As far as connectivity, you get component output for HDTV, RCA and optical audio out for digital sound. It can be tucked away just about anywhere.

Western Digital now has an upgrade to its 2TB My Book Studio Edition II. They’ve doubled the storage space and it also sports a new exterior design. In its RAID 0 configuration, you’ll find a couple of drive bays available to hold two 2TB hard drives for a total of 4TB of storage space.

It’s compatible with both PC and Mac platforms and the Western Digital 4TB My Book Studio Edition II has a variety of connectivity options including eSATA, FireWire 800, FireWire 400 and USB 2.0. The external capacity gauge will give you important information with just a quick glance.

If you walk into a home or office where a computer is, present odds are you are going to find some sort of external storage solution. More often than not computer users resort to USB external hard drives to back up their data and to store files.

Western Digital has announced that its My Book line of external hard drives is now available with 2TB of storage in a single disk model. That means that big storage takes up less space on or under your desk. The new 2TB disk is available in the My Book Studio, Mac Edition, Home Edition, and Essential Edition models.

Western Digital has finally launched the industry’s first 2TB internal hard drive today in the US. It’s the highest capacity single HDD in the known universe, dubbed the 2TB Caviar Green. It’s available now for $299. The 3.5-inch platform drive includes 32MB of cache and is based on WD’s 500GB per platter technology with 400Gb/in2 areal density.

HotHardware had a sneak peek at the drive and has some benchmark results: The WD managed to hold its own against the Spinpoint F1 and Barracuda 7200.11.

Looks like Western Digital has entered the world of HD media streaming. The WD TV HD Media Player is said to “turn your USB drive into an HD media player, allowing you to watch your favorite HD movies on your TV.” So, basically it lets you plug in a USB hard drive and play multimedia clips up to 1080p on your HDTV via HDMI/composite outputs. Comes with a remote control and browsing software. The small 1.6- x 4.9- x 3.9-inch box is pretty portable and the $129.99 price doesn’t hurt too much.

Western Digital (WD) is adding a new storage size option for fans of its My Passport Portable USB Drives. The new storage size is 500GB and you’ll be able to purchase My Passport Elite and My Passport Essential portable drive models for around $220 and $200, respectively.

WD says these new drives weigh less than seven ounces and are somewhat durable. They are USB-bus powered, use synchronization software which lets users sync their changes and offer plug-and-play capability with gaming consoles so one can play music and view photos and video files on a TV.

Hard drives improve in two ways—they gain storage capacity and they get faster. Most hard drives spin at 7,200 RPM or 5,400 RPM, though there are faster drives out there. Western digital makes the fastest consumer hard drive on the market called the VelociRaptor that spins at 10,000 RPM.

Western Digital introduced the 300GB 10,000 RPM VelociRaptor in April. Today Western Digital announced a 2.5-inch enterprise version of the VelociRaptor that shares all the same features with the 3.5-inch consumer focused VelociRaptor.

Western Digital (WD) said today it was introducing a dual drive storage option to its popular My Book line of external hard drives. This new model is known as the WD My Book Mirror Edition and you find it pricing around $290 for 1TB or $550 for 2TB.

The WD My Book Mirror Edition is a dual drive system designed to automatically and continusously duplicate your data. It does RAID-based data protection to mirror your files twice. Included backup software also lets you do additional, more selective backups.

When it comes to your notebook computer everything is a compromise. The performance of everything from the CPU inside to the hard drives and video cards are a compromise of performance for battery life and vice versa. The trick is to get a good balance of performance while still getting good battery life.

Western Digital announced today that its line of Scorpio Black 2.5-inch SATA notebook HDDs are now available. This line of drives gives high performance with a 7200 RPM rotational speed, but adds some technology to help reduce the battery power needed and increase the runtime of the notebook.

Western Digital (WD) unveiled today what it is calling the world’s fastest SATA hard drive. It is known as the WD VelociRaptor and you can expect it to cost you around $300 when it hits retail.

The WD VelociRaptor hard drive is a 2.5-inch, 300 GB model which WD says is 35 percent faster then the previous fastest model. Technical features of this upgrade from the WD Raptor include 10,000 RPM, SATA 3 GB/s interface and a 16 MB cache.

I’m a more traditional geek and tend to not want any bright colors in my external storage products. I guess there are enough people out there that feel differently and Western Digital has felt the need to glam up the common USB drive with bright and often girly colors.

Western Digital announced today that it was now offering its popular My Passport drive in 11 different colors. The available colors include black, brilliant orange, super sunny yellow, raindrop blue, arctic white, deep viola, cherry red, ultra mint, real red, intense blue, and vibrant pink. The white drive might be just the thing for Mac heads, at least until the new MacBook’s hit with the aluminum skin.

Western Digital (WD) today kicked out some new portable USB hard drives which look good and are easy to carry. They are known as the My Passport Elite Portable USB Drives and are available in two sizes: 250 GB (around $170) and 320 GB (around $200).

WD’s My Passport Elite drives connect to a USB port to transfer data back and forth and are also USB-bus powered, so they don’t need their own power supply. They sport a soft-touch finish, weigh less than five ounces and come in multiple colors.