Hard drives. We all know what they are, they're necessary, but wow they're quite dull a lot of the time, aren't they?

Well Buffalo has recently launched a new hard drive called the MiniStation Extreme, which puts all of the others to shame as it's officially up to US Military Standard due to its super robust exterior. The outside casing of the product is shock resistant and made of rubberised elements, which means it's passed a free-fall drop test from 2.3 metres. It's great that the product is so strong, but we can't think why it's really necessary other than if you're VERY clumsy or you're some kind of spy with an active lifestyle and a hard drive full of secrets.

The MiniStation Extreme isn't just tough, it's also really fast and allows you to transfer 5Gbps from its built-in USB cable, which also means it's ideal for those who travel a lot and haven't got much space to spare.

The MiniStation Extreme is available in 500GB and 1TB sizes from Amazon (and plenty of other online retailers) for £69.80 in black, silver and red, but opt for classic black if you're a spy. It's much more inconspicuous.

I've always been entranced by shredders: reducing piles of documents into wood pulp. But, as few people use paper these days things have moved on in the shredding world.

Shredding company Shred Easy have moved into the more lucrative and up-to-date market of hard drive shredding. Despite a business strapline which reads: "Paper Shredding is the secure and most effective solution" - it's launching a hard drive-shredding business and just landed contracts with four BT data centres. Clearly BT have some hard disks they want broken into tiny pieces. Can you imagine? Silicon everywhere.

We imagine it looks a bit like this:

Buffalo have introduced a new NAS device to their storage line-up, and it boasts some pretty impressive specs. For those unfamiliar with the term NAS, it stands for Network Attached Storage, and is basically a file server that is attached to a network. It lets you stream movies, upload data, and store files, and everyone on the network can access it. Their new line-up is great for households who use a large quantity of media (or download a lot) as it stores a significant amount. I like the fact that the units are also upgradeable, which means they'll be cost effective in the long term, and the Quad is a rather unassuming box, so won't mess up your décor.

Hard drives don't have to be boring, they should be fun. The creators of the plug & play Lacie Brick had the same thoughts exactly. Much like the LEGO radiator, the hard drive isn't actually LEGO but it's practically a copycat design so that means you can still go around bragging about your LEGO hard drive without anyone calling it an impostor. Lacie Brick might not like the idea of that, but that's irrelevant, you bought it right?

The bricks are available in red, white or blue, in capacities ranging from 160GB to 500GB. Its most excellent feature is the hard drives are stackable - not in a kids pastime kind of way, but in a stackable storage kind of way. Cool, yes? Imagine this, you've just bought a 160GB hard drive, but make the late realisation that's not enough to house all your porn and American sitcoms, so what do you do?

Etsy seller NesBox has been a busy little retro hard drive maker. Their genius Super Mario 3 hard drive must have proved *so* popular, they felt inclined to make more using old skool gaming favourites including Mario 1 and 2, Zelda II and old skool classic Tetris. So if you weren't quick enough to snag the Nes Box (we told you to be quick), don't fret, there's still one up for grabs and chances are you'll be able to get your hands on one of the other funky little Nintendo cartridge hard drives (Zelda would be my second choice) too.

Don't you just love it when someone takes technology into their own hands and creates something downright jaw-drop amazing?

The Nes Box was born as a result of a very disappointed hard drive customer, who wanted a hard drive that looked and felt exactly right, and didn't feel like a waste of money. So they got their creative hat on and dismantled an old Nes cartridge, sized it up against the newly bought disappointing drive and placed it into its new home.

With all the hoo-ha surrounding house buying, the credit crunch etc (bla bla bla), you'd be forgiven for thinking this post bears some relevance to the housing market. Well it doesn't. This is about Sony and their solution to storage. The Sony Home Share provides a simple to use mahooosive repository where you can store your music, video and pictures on a whopping 1 terabyte (2 x 500GB) drive array. Transferring data is easy too. It features a multi-card reader slot and USB ports, so all you need to do is slot in your card or connect via USB, press the designated One Touch Copy Button and the rest is done automatically, which essentially means you don't have to do very much.

As far as hard drives go, Toshiba's 400GB palm sized external hard drive is one attractive bit of eye candy. It may be heavy on memory, but it's low on weight. At only 155g, it's got great portability potential and won't make a permanent imprint in your bag. So what could you fit onto a 400GB hard drive? 114,000 photos, 105,000 MP3 files or 177 hours of films perhaps? You hard drive usage probably won't follow this exactly, that was just an example of the kind of scope you can expect from a hard drive of this size.

Oh Seagate FreeAgent Go, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways...

1. You've got twinkly blue lights, that 'breathe' when the drive is sleeping. Aah.
2. You can be clipped into a dock, rather than teetering terrifyingly on top of my computer tower. Terrific.
3. From 250GB to 500GB I know we'll grow together.
4. You come in black, grey, blue and red, which are four of the colours in My Top Seventeen Colours List.
5. You can get even more info here.

I'm on the look out for a hard drive at the moment, as well as being constantly on the look out for things that are the same size as a credit card (what can I say? It's a hobby). The tiny Trekstor Microdrive has a capacity of 120GB, meaning you can probably fit your music, your videos and your excel spreadsheets on it without worrying about the trauma of having to delete stuff. Which, lets face it, is both one of the most boring jobs in the world, and one of the most heart wrenching. Who knows if I'll want to listen to The Salmon Dance ever again - don't make me chooooooooose.

£99 from Amazon here.

There's a whole section for hard drives here! I know! We can barely believe it either!

Since I'm a sucker for anything that comes in "several vibrant colours and easily fits into a laptop bag or travel case", it was only a matter of time before I brought you news of Memorex's range of 320GB portable hard drives. The Essential TravelDrive works with Macs and PCs, draws it power from the USB connection and - most importantly - comes with a "blue, flashing LED", which tirelessly and repeatedly lets you know when data is being transferred. As you'd expect from any self-respecting tech company, the colours have been given their own special names: Spring Blossom, Tropic Green, Caribbean Blue, Sunset Red, Glacier White, and Cool Silver. It's £78 for the 320GB model

Press release

Oh my god it's a hard drive shaped like a powder compact! Surely that means all women now have the sudden urge to rush out and grab this piece of equipment that could be deemed as male discrimination? Or rather patronising to the female species? The product shot even involves the 2.5-inch external hard drive surrounded by other cosmetics - because we absolutely *love* make-up that much that we'll buy anything that mildly resembles the stuff?

If it's not pink, it's some kind of make-up oriented gadget aimed explicitly at women. When will manufacturers learn - we don't give a toss about our gadgets resembling all the things that stereotypically epitomise being female! I'm not disputing that some women like this kind of thing, but do they have to make it so freakin' obvious?

Well that's what its manufacturer Freecom is claiming (so take it with a pinch of salt). They also claim this teeny weenie 2.5-inch external hard drive is 27 percent smaller than its closest competitor (again - pinch, salt). Connect the hand-sized Mobile Drive XXS (ok, we get it - it's small) to your computer via the USB cable provided and start filling it with your best tunes, favourite Lost episodes, porn and whatever else you need stored in this tiny technological residence. Design-wise, the drive is covered in a "form-fitting rubber sleeve for optimal grip" and is so small its measurements are given in millimetres rather than centimetres.

Despite first impressions, there is nothing alcohol related when it comes to iomega's eGo Leather Hard Drive (other than looking like an old man's whisky flask). You do realise that if you decide to purchase the iomega hip flask storage, there's a strong possibility you're going to have to ward-off constant alcohol related comments... probably until you upgrade to a new hard drive. Alternatively, if you're worried about coming across as a geek in front of your mates (so worried you can't sleep at night), get on down to the first techy shop you can find and buy yourself this cleverly disguised hard drive - that'll throw them off the scent.

The disgo Media Bank from Clever Stuff is a plug and play personal video player (PVR) and mass storage device. Unlike other digital media storage devices, which are aimed more at the elite and enthusiastic tech user, this one has simple plug-n-play functionality, and therefore has no complicated installation. It is because of this why this PVR is being marketed as an easy to use, everyday PVR.

Store up to 500GB of media with this unit, including photos, music and video files or recordings from your set top box or TV simple. You can potentially record up to 200 hours of DVD quality video. Just think of all the great programming you could store and re-watch over and over again. Why not create your own digital movie library and instantly play back what you've recorded?

As ever, Steve started with the more dull announcements. That Leopard has sold over 5 million copies in three months and seen 20% of pre-Leopard OSX users upgrade is probably more exciting to business analysts, but those using the handy new Time Machine backup feature will probably like the announcement that went with those stats.

Time Capsule is a new storage device that's a full Aiport Extreme (that's WiFi, PC fans) base station with a "server grade" internal hard drive. 500GB and 1TB versions are in the offing, for $299 and $499 respectively. UK prices start at £199.

OK, it's a seasonal gadget but let's cut to the chase shall we? This is a USB drive, it stores files and pics and no matter how you dress it up it's not going to be particularly festive, is it? On the plus side, should you need a new USB stick and you get this gift wrapped and hanging on your Xmas tree you will be chuffed.. as long as it's not your main present!

From IMC [ via 7 Gadgets/]

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It's difficult to make external hard drives sexy, as most people are more bothered with GB capacity than flouncy frills (and rightly so), but this miniature hard drive boasts huge specs and a stylish exterior. First off it pack a whopping 160 GB into 167grams, and is compatible with both Macs and PC's, and has a sleek silver finish. The protection doesn't end there though, as it uses USB 2.0 to transfer data quickly and has Maxtor SafetyDrill which protects you computer int he event of a hard drive crash or spyware attack, by scheduling regular update, so file restoration doesn't need to be a worry. Your personal date is also protected as Maxtor DrivePass is also included, and this includes encryption software and firewalls against hackers. I'm impressed by how light it is, and how it's so simple to use and customizable to your preferences. Safety never looked so sexy.

From Seagate

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You might have come across mass storage device with SATA or eSATA computer bus cables. And yet USB is your port of choice. What to do? Well, you can turn to USB-everything merchants Brando, because they have created an adapter which will solve your troubles.

This is, I must admit, only exciting news for the more techie among you, but mobile technicians or those who spend a lot of time moving information around might just find it useful. No drivers are required so long as you have a post Windows 98SE PC (which for your sake I really hope you do), Mac OSX or Linux. $15 (£7) or $25 (£12) with a regional power supply.

SATA to USB adapter from Brando

LG is adding to its growing range of peripherals with the GSA-E60N/L, an external 20x Super Multi Drive DVD rewriter. It's the first of its kind for LG, and is equipped with "SecurDisc" content protection. You have the option to buy a version with Lightscribe technology, too, for beautifully burned labels.

It comes in Black and Silver, is Windows Vista compatible and is available now on the UK high street.

LG DVD Rewriters

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