The drives are available in 4GB, 8GB and 16GB capacities for $US30, $US40 and $US60, respectively. The head comes off and you plug the body into any USB port. The downside is that the bodies are decently sized, so if you have two USB ports adjacent to each other, you won’t be able to use the other one.

Here’s a lone Storm Trooper before he suffers a fate unimaginable for all but Storm Troopers. Decapitation.

With his head gone, his body is free to be plugged into any USB port.

Here’s the view from behind.

Boba Fett and Vader are still in mint condition.

The set includes Yoda, but we only have the evil characters.

All three with their heads off.

Vader, engaged.

What would it look like if they switched helmets? This.

[Tyme Machines]

Datel maintains that Microsoft is “disabling or erecting technological barriers to Datel accessories” and thereby favouring its own products. For reference, Microsoft’s 512MB memory unit is about $US30, while a 2GB version from Datel is $US40. Sounds like it might be worth supporting the little guy in this one. [Techflash]

PC Perspective tested one of OCZ’s 256GB Colossus drives and found “read and write speeds are about as fast as SATA 3Gb/sec will go!” It’s nuts that our drives are finally catching up with the plentiful, SATA pipelines, even if OCZ has hacked speeds a bit by essentially building one giant drive out of four smaller SSDs.

Whatever works. Now to sell a spare kidney for the $US3300, 1TB configuration. Read the full testing results at: [PC Perspective]

[Drobo]

Imation argues that, by providing a one-to-one connection over the air, the Pro WX Wireless USB hard drive “limits the possibility of signal interception”. That’s a pretty vague claim to me. They also argue that it works like any other USB drive, although it only transfers data at 15 megabytes per second. But even while you don’t have to connect with a cable, you have to plug in a USB key. So why not just leave a regular drive on the desk and plug the cable for a better rate? And if you want wireless, why not get a drive that is Wi-Fi enabled?

The only good argument is simplicity: You don’t need to connect to a server using the network, the drive just pops up in your desktop. But then again, connecting to a networked drive is not that difficult. Certainly, not difficult enough to pay the $US500 that this 1.5TB drive costs. [Press Release]

These Intel Atom N280 1.66GHz Windows Home Servers can back up to 10 PCs and serve all the files you want. It has two 3.5-inch bays for up to 2 terabytes of storage space, with one Gigabit Ethernet port, and six USB 2.0 ports to add more storage or whatever you want. [Asus via Hot Hardware via Engadget]

Unfortunately, in addition to the expense, it can’t be used as a bootable drive quite yet, although Fusion-io claims that feature is coming. And we probably shouldn’t gloss over the expense — yeah, it’s a “consumer drive” and it’s cheap compared to similar drives, but it’s still $US900 for 80GB. But it’s a cool look at where storage could be headed, and if you’ve got enough money to snag one (available at Amazon), well, I hate you lots. [HotHardware via Engadget]

While the Mini NAS truly is small, it’s got plenty of features in that 0.45kg package. It supports both SMB (Server Message Block) and open-source Samba network protocols, provides FTP access for up to eight simultaneous users, and can be used as a Bittorrent downloading appliance or as an iTunes media server. Not bad for $US70. [Addonics]

[ActiveMP via jkOnTheRun]

Cranberry’s disks are supposed to be so durable and long-lasting because they “contain no dye layers, adhesive layers or reflective materials that could deteriorate.” Supposedly data is etched far more deeply into the disks than with traditional DVDs (using Cranberry’s special burners, of course). You can either buy one of those burners for five grand or upload your data to the company’s website and let them do the hard work for you. Either way, the longevity of these disks seems a little bit too good to be true. [Computer World via Slashdot]