Although Western Digital seems to have the portable hard drive sector all wrapped up, LG's looking to snag a bit of that market share by introducing a new line of stylish alternatives. Each member of the XD1 family possesses a 2.5-inch HDD with a SATA II interface and a USB 2.0 port, and just in case black isn't your bag, you can expect a red wine colored version as well. For now, we'll have to live without a price or release date, but you can look forward to units arriving in 120GB, 160GB, 250GB and 320GB sizes sometime in the future.

Digital Foci didn't go out of its way to drastically redesign the original Photo Safe, but we 'spose that's alright in the grand scheme of things. Essentially, the Photo Safe II picks up where its predecessor left off by including a multicard reader (now with 100% more MS Duo and miniSD support) which automatically transfers photos from your flash card onto the built-in 80GB / 160GB hard drive. The integrated display tells you at a glance how much space is remaining and how much battery life is left, though it won't show your stored photos in slideshow (or any other) fashion. A touch steep at $139 (80GB) / $189 (160GB), but that's convenience for you.

[Via jkOnTheRun]

Father Time isn't slowing things down anytime soon, so it's good to see that Fujitsu is doing its best to keep up. Merely two months after taking the HandyDrive to 400GB, the firm has introduced an all new, totally marvelous 500GB iteration. Featuring the "world's highest capacity 2.5-inch external hard disk drive (likely the MHZ2 BT)," this bus-powered unit hasn't changed a bit in design, but it will hold a half-terabyte of information (in case you missed it the first go 'round). Grab it later this month in Europe, the Middle East and Africa for €229 ($364).

[Via Pocket-lint]

You know, we're not actually certain we want to trust 1.5TB of our precious precious NES ROMS invaluable work data to a single drive, but that doesn't mean Seagate's latest Barracuda isn't droolworthy regardless. The jump from 1TB to 1.5TB is the "largest capacity hard drive jump in the more than half-century history of hard drives," according to Seagate, and the perpendicular-recording drives should begin shipping in August. There are also a pair of Momentus 2.5-inch 500GB notebook drives coming in Q4 in 5400 and 7200RPM speeds, but like big brother, pricing is unavailable -- we've got a hunch you might want to start saving those pennies, though.

[Thanks, Dave]

Remember the day you drooled all over your keyboard when Hitachi introduced a 1TB internal hard drive? Yeah, like a year and a half ago? The outfit's most recent HDD announcement isn't likely to have nearly the same effect, but those who skipped the first-gen version in order to get a more refined product the second go 'round will surely be delighted. Today marks the debut of the 1TB Deskstar 7K1000.B, which goes down as "the world's most energy-efficient 7,200RPM one-terabyte hard drive." Said drive features a new three-disk design which improves idle power consumption up to 43% over its 1TB predecessor, but unfortunately, there's no telling how long you'll have to wait to actually buy this currently unpriced overlord of storage.

[Via PCLaunches]

For budding audio / video editors that can't stand to leave home without a RAID setup in tow, you should probably give Sonnet's incredibly mobile Fusion F2 a look. This portable SATA RAID solution now tops out at 1TB (a 640GB model is also available) and features an eSATA connector, fanless design and compatibility with Sonnet's Tempo SATA ExpressCard/34 card. Within the 1.22-pound, 5.9- x 6.2- x 0.72-inch enclosure, you'll find a pair of 2.5-inch 7,200RPM HDDs that are able to deliver 134MB/sec read and write rates. Word on the street places a $995 price tag on the 1TB edition, which is all set to ship "early this month."

[Via Macworld]

If you've managed to blink over the past few weeks, you may have missed it. Missed what, you ask? The war between no name HDD racks, that's what. After numerous evolutions of the HDD Stage Rack managed to capture the hearts of at least a few storage junkies out there, we've seen a barrage of competitors surface over at Brando. The latest is Unitek's SATA HDD Multi-Function Dock with One Touch Backup, which -- to be totally frank -- does a phenomenal job of explaining itself. For those a touch slow on the uptake, this unit enables any internal 2.5- / 3.5-inch SATA drive to be accessed externally, and furthermore, it packs a couple of USB 2.0 ports and supports a whole slew of memory cards. You could grab this one now for $53, but then again, you never know what will leapfrog it next week.

[Via The Red Ferret Journal]

Thanks to an overzealous e-tailer, we already knew that Sammy's Spinpoint M6 was ready to be ordered en masse, but Samsung has finally put out some official verbiage to substantiate the obvious. The outfit's 500GB Spinpoint M6 ($299) and 250GB Spinpoint MP2 ($199) are both shipping as we speak, and that curious sound you hear over there is your current laptop begging for a storage upgrade. On a slightly related note, the company is also announcing that its 7200RPM Spinpoint F1 RAID-class (F1R; pictured) 3.5-inch SATA drive has hit mass production, meaning that you can bulk up your enterprise storage solution 1TB at a time for $299 each.

Read - Spinpoint MP2 / M6 hit mass production
Read - Spinpoint F1R hits mass production

That sound you hear is Western Digital grabbing hold of an udder and not letting go as it continues to milk the My Book brand for every penny it's worth. Today, the outfit is introducing a new line of dual-drive units that come ready to mirror whatever information you shove on 'em. The RAID-based Mirror Edition drives tout USB 2.0 connectivity, RAID 1/0 support, a fanless design, user serviceable enclosure, a capacity gauge and intelligent drive management features including automatic power-up and Safe Shutdown. The external HDDs arrive in RAID 1 (mirrored) mode -- which creates automatic duplicates of your files in case one drive fails -- but RAID 0 (striped) can be configured during setup. Stack your My Book collection even higher right now for $289.99 (1TB) / $549.99 (2TB).

LaCie introduced the Little Big Disk Quadra back in January, but the diminutive four-interface dual-drive enclosure is getting a new 1TB sibling today. Nothing new here apart from the capacity bump, but if you're into the aluminum RAID 0 scene, $700 is all you need to ride.

Yeah, we've let you folks toss out suggestions for a similar question back when a 1TB internal HDD was nothing more than a pipe dream, but it's about time we gave this one an update, don't you agree? Hear Ian out:

"I was wondering which portable hard drive was good enough to stand up to the life of a student. Something that can take a few bumps and not be harmed. It doesn't have to be huge in capacity, but I need one larger than 80GB. I'd obviously like FireWire and USB 2.0 if possible, but I'm not trying to spend a fortune here either."

Had any particularly good / bad experiences with battle-tested portable HDDs? We want to hear 'em all, so don't be shy, alright? To get your question up in the lights, send us a note at ask at engadget dawt com -- just don't forget to include the secret password.

Watch out, archive junkies. The 1TB internal HDD game just got one more player. Hailed by Western Digital as the "fastest 3.5-inch 7200RPM drive on the market," the Caviar Black SATA drive is available in both 750GB and 1TB flavors, with the latter obviously being the most appealing. On these beasts you'll find "twice" the processing power, 32MB of cache, StableTrac / NoTouch technologies and a respectable five-year warranty. Both units will be ready to grab next week, with the smaller of the two going for $199 and the kingpin $249.

For small and medium sized businesses, data redundancy is more than a novel concept, it's unquestionably critical. Unfortunately, tight budgets don't always allow for pricey off-site storage or fire / waterproof server rooms, which is where ioSafe comes in. Said outfit has just announced the ioSafe 3.5 series, which is hailed as the "industry's first internal hard drive with disaster protection." Put simply, the company has stuffed a 2.5-inch HDD into a 3.5-inch chassis, and it used the extra room to insert matter that protects platters from fire (up to 1,400 degrees Fahrenheit) and flood (full immersion in fresh or salt water). The family will include the Pilot line ($329 to $449) -- which arrives in 80/160/250/320GB sizes with an 8MB buffer, SATA I interface and 5400RPM rotational speed -- and the Squadron line ($359 to $459), which includes 7200RPM 80/160/200GB versions with a SATA II interface. Both lots have already started to ship.

[Via TGDaily]

Oh, brother -- here we go again. For the third time this year, the iconic HDD Stage Rack has evolved into something bigger, badder and more useful than the last edition. The latest version is dubbed the Double HDD Rack eSATA and USB, which predictably includes twice the slots for storing hard drives. You can shove a 2.5- and 3.5-inch SATA drive in just before enjoying the twin eSATA ports and single USB 2.0 jack, but unfortunately, you'll have to hand over a whopping $107.56 in order to do so.

[Via AkihabaraNews]

We're still torn on whether we'd have this or one of those always-evolving HDD Stage Racks at our desk, but really, you can't go wrong either way. Brando's 2.5-inch SATA HDD Enclosure with Multi-Function Dock pretty much explains itself, but if you struggle with piecing things together, we're here to help. The unit holds any 2.5-inch SATA drive you care to insert, and the base doubles as a 2-port USB hub and multicard reader. The whole thing is just $25 -- the tough part is choosing between red or black. Hmm.