That’s what the Buffalo CloudStation promises — a personal cloud storage that you can access anywhere you have internet via your smartphone, tablet or computer.

This variant looks basically liked an enclosed 1TB HDD with a Gigabit LAN port you need to connect to your home or office router. The innards though will reveal an embedded chip that makes this storage way smarter than a regular NAS.

To start using, all you need to do is plug the NAS to your router, visit cloudstation.pogoplug.com and register/activate your device. PogoPlug also provides you with it own cloud service worth 5GB when you sign up so your account includes

You can gain access to your personal files via the web panel or you can just download the corresponding app to your smartphone (available for both iOS and Android).

While the PogoPlug web panel is pretty easy and straightforward to use, the smartphone apps need a little of of configuration before you are able to use them.

As a bonus, you are also able to download Bittorent files directly into the CloudStation. I guess that’s one of the biggest advantage for you to maximize the build-in storage of the Buffalo CloudStation.

If your PC or smartphone is also on the same local network as the CloudStation, you can access the administration panel via the local IP and do the backups and file transfers much faster with the Gigabit LAN (just make sure that your router has Gigabit LAN support and, if on WiFi, has a much faster local bandwidth).

The Buffalo CloudStation is primarily targeted to SOHO users or individuals who need very large cloud storage solution. These could be people who are using DropBox or Box.net but want way larger storage. This variant comes in 1TB or 2TB options.

The Buffalo CloudStation 1TB has a suggested retail price of around Php9,000 in stores. Not a bad price if you are looking for the kind of personal cloud storage solution beyond the 1TB range.

Disclosure: Buffalo is being distributed in the Philippines by MSI-ECS. The Buffalo CloudStation was given to us by MSI-ECS for free.

The device pretty much works like a low-power network storage, it even comes with a 1.2Ghz processor in it.

Synology 4-Bay NAS server (DS411j)
1.2GHz processor
128MB DDR2 RAM
12TB maximum capacity (4x3TB)
2 x USB 2.0 ports
Gigabit LAN
30.8w power consumption

Each of the four (4) drive bays can accomodate 2.5″ or 3.5″ SATA drives with capacities of 3TB for a total of 12TB on network storage. I didn’t have four 3TB drives but was able to combine the 3TB from WD and my two other 1TB drives. They just all add up to 5TB in the network.

It plugs to the router via a 1,000Mbps LAN cable for faster network transfer. This model (DS411j) has a number of features:

Download Station: Supports Bittorrent, FTP, HTTP, eMule, and NZB.’

DLNA Compliant Media Sever: Stream multimedia files to your TV, as well as Sony PS3 and Microsoft Xbox360.

It also works as an iTunes Server so you can share all itunes content over the network to all PCs, laptops and Apple TV at home.

It’s capable of running backups for your PC over the network and if you are using a Mac, use Apple Time Machine to run regular backups to the NAS.

If you are a developer, the Synology NAS can work as a PHP+MySQL engine so you can run PHP scripts and mySQL database to run over the network.

You must be a serious media freak to consider using this one. It’s for home or small business use but the only reason I think I’d be getting one for myself is downloading 1080p movies directly into the NAS. You have to invest in terabytes of drive space for that as well.

Will post update on the price list once I get them.

This means more space for faster storage on our laptops.

Specifications of their current SSD line-up are as follows.

2.5” SATAII SSD Product Features:
High speed transmission and faster startup
Shock and vibration resistance
No audible noise
High reliability
Global wear leveling increases product life and optimize performance
Strongly wear leveling algorithm to enhance lifetime
Strongly ECC algorithm to correct data

KingMax 2.5” SATAII SSD Specifications:
Capacity: 32GB/64GB/128GB/256GB/512GB/1TB
Dimension: 100.5mm(L)x69.85mm(W)x7.0mm(T)
Weight: 73 g
Interface: SATA II 3Gb/s
Global wear leveling supported
NCQ/Trim command supported
ECC supported
High Performance:
32GB Read: Up to 150MB/s Write: Up to 40MB/s
64GB Read: Up to 150MB/s Write: Up to 70MB/s
128GB Read: Up to 260MB/s Write: Up to 150MB/s
256GB Read: Up to 260MB/s Write: Up to 210MB/s
512GB Read: Up to 260MB/s Write: Up to 210MB/s
1TB Read: Up to 260MB/s Write: Up to 210MB/s
3 years warranty

No word yet on the pricing for the 1TB SSD but we reckon it is going to be super-expensive.

This is 33% more than the previous Studio Edition from the storage company (used to be 4TB).

The WD Studio Edition 2 can be connected to your PC via eSATA, Firewire 800, Firewire 400 and USB 2.0. The device has a suggested retail price of Php20,753 and comes with a 5-year limited warranty.

Turns out the portable drive uses a proprietary port from Seagate and there’s a separate attachment that acts as an adapter for the regular USB 2.0 port.

The two other cables have the native ports attached to it so all you have to do when you want to switch to Firewire or USB 3.0 is to remove the adapter and plug the other cable in.

The set-up seems nice because it allows you to maximize the faster transfer rates afforded by USB 3.0 and Firewire. This is beneficial when you are transferring large amounts of date from a PC or laptop and into the portable HDD. The transfer time is cut down several folds shorter.

The disadvantage is that when you misplace the cables or the adapter, you’re done and you can’t use the usual mini-USB cables most other portable drives do.

The Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex 500GB retails for around Php2,900 in stores but does not include the Firewire and USB 3.0 adapters which you buy separately.

Most of the netbooks and laptops currently being sold have between 250GB to 500GB. An upgrade to 750GB is just 50% to 200% more so it really depends on your needs if this drive is right for you.

Suggested retail price of this Western Digital Scorpio Black 750GB HDD is Php6,495 but you should be able to get it a little lower than this in some stores.

“SanDisk has a long history of developing fast, highly reliable cards for photography enthusiasts and professionals,” said Susan Park, director, retail product marketing, SanDisk. “Our new SanDisk Extreme Pro SDHC card lets consumers take their skills to the next level by capturing high-resolution still images, fast-moving action shots and HD videos of the highest quality.”

Designed for the latest cameras

As DSLRs offer increasingly sophisticated features such as high megapixel continuous burst shooting and high-definition (HD) video capture, photographers need advanced memory cards capable of unlocking their cameras’ full potential. The card achieves high performance and efficient power consumption in UHS-enabled cameras such as the Nikon D7000.

Performance

The SanDisk Extreme Pro SDHC card’s write speed of up to 45 MB/sec delivers improved shot to shot performance of RAW images using continuous burst mode. The card also adheres to the new UHS Speed Class 1 video class rating, offering 10MB/sec* minimum sustained write speed capable of recording HD 1080p videos or even 3D content**. In addition, the card’s fast read speeds of up to 45 MB/sec let users avoid lengthy wait times when transferring content from the card to a computer.

SanDisk develops its flash controllers and memory chips together, allowing the company to perfectly match and fine-tune the two technologies throughout the testing process. The SanDisk Extreme Pro SDHC card uses an intelligent Power Core controller to achieve its speed. The controller’s data prediction and binary caching features allow for improved overall performance.

Reliability

Featuring an automatic error-code correction (ECC) engine, the SanDisk Extreme Pro SDHC card offers long-term reliability that comes from the brand trusted by professional photographers. Advanced wear leveling extends card endurance by distributing data evenly throughout the card. For added protection, the card includes one year of RescuePRO^® media recovery software, which lets photographers recover their images in case of accidental deletion.

Durability

Designed to withstand the most extreme conditions, the new card offers photographers peace of mind knowing that their photos are stored on one of the most rugged cards in the world. Able to withstand punishment, the SanDisk Extreme Pro SDHC card is water proof, temperature proof, shock and vibration proof, x-ray and magnet proof. The card is backed by a lifetime limited warranty.

That goes without saying that the solutions Symantec is offering in the storage segment are targeted to SMEs and enterprise clients.

(I asked if in the future, when storage capacity becomes bigger, will this same solution be available commercially to individuals. I don’t think that will happen unless you have your own personal data center at home. Maybe if you run your own web hosting from home.)

Four key strategies were discussed in length:

Identify & Reclaim Unused Capacity – most of the time, there’s enough physical storage available; they just don’t know it’s there and how to reclaim that.

Implement Thin Provisioning – more often, allocation for storage exceeds the actual usage so space is wasted if they’re not really used.

Reduce Duplicate Backup Data – a lot of data that are stored in a backup could be duplicates (examples: email attachments, photos, documents, etc.). By eliminating the duplicates, you free up space, thereby saving cost for more storage.

Archive for Optimization – there are cheap backup drives and there are cheaper backup drives. By archiving to the cheaper backups, you optimize and save on cost.

The most common term mention during our discussion was data deduplication. In general, data deduplication refers to eliminating duplicate or redundant information (and ultimately saving time, effort, resources and overall cost). In computer data storage data deduplication is also known as capacity optimization or single-instance storage.

The full transcript of the 57-minute interview (unedited version) can be played below:

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