The hand in the picture might look like it is holding a simple engraved glass disc, but what it actually shows is a device able to store up to 360TB of "five dimensional" data.

Developed by University of Southampton researchers, 5D data is stored in 5 dimensions-- height, width, depth and two other dimensions produced by glass nanostructuring. Writing data on the glass requires a femtosecond laser able to emit incredibly short (280 femtoseconds, or 280 quadrillionths of a second) optical pulses. In turn the laser burns three layers of nanoscale dots on the glass.

Micron starts volume shipments of 3D NAND chips-- meaning SSD storage products from both Micron and Intel might soon get a boost in capacity, performance and energy efficiency.

Current Intel consumers SSDs offer maximum capacity of 4TB, but Micron 3D NAND should allow 2.5-inch storage devices to "more than 10TB." Meanwhile portable stick-style storage devices should also get a capacity boost, specifically up to 3.5TB.

In addition 3D NAND promises "significantly higher read/write bandwidth and I/O speeds, as well as improved random read performance," together with a sleep mode able to cut power to inactive NAND even when other chips in the same die are active.

Toshiba launches the OCZ Trion 150, an SSD series designed as an affordable mainstream notebook and desktop PC upgrade built using 15nm Triple-Level Cell (TLC) NAND flash technology.

The SSD series features sequential read speeds of up to 550MB/s, sequential write speeds of up to 530MB/s and random I/O performance reaching 91000 IOPS. Endurance clocks at 240TB total bytes written (TBW), and the range is covered with a 3-year ShieldPlus Warranty.

Further specifications include a built-in Toshiba NAND Controller, 1.5 million hours MTBF, and power consumption reach 830mW when idle and 4.8W when active.

Samsung announces the Portable SSD T3 at CES 2016-- a palm-size external SSD available with up to 2TB of storage while promising performance up to 4X faster than a standard external 500GB HDD.

The T3 features V-NAND and SSD TurboWrite technology paired with a USB 3.1 interface (with Type-C connector), a combination allowing for write speeds of up to 450MB/s. It is compatible with a wide range of USB-supported device and features AES 256-bit hardware encryption for security.

Users can also use a companion Android mobile device app to change passwords and check remaining capacity.

According to DRAMeXchange the Q4 2015 average contract price of mainstream PC-Client OEM SSDs is down by 10-11% Y-o-Y-- marking a 4th consecutive quarter of SSD price declines exceeding 10%.

Thus, the analyst predicts 256GB SSDs will be "close to price parity" with mainstream HDDs in 2016, bringing about an increase of over 30% (an industry first) in notebook SSD adoption.

Global notebook shipments total 43.3 million with 13% growth in Q3 2015-- initially impressive numbers until one points out the shorter Q2 2015 base period. Meanwhile channel distributors proved conservative in Q3 2015 restocking efforts due to expectations of lower NAND flash prices, bringing about just a slight increase in total retail SSD shipments and a notebook SSD adoption rate of 24-25%.

According to IDC global personal and entry-level storage (PELS) shipments total 16.7 million in Q3 2015-- a -13.4% Y-o-Y decline, if also a 10.3% Q-o-Q increase.

Revenues are down by -19.8% Y-o-Y to $1.3 billion.

"The personal and entry-level storage market was stagnant in 2014 and started to show signs of decline in 2015," the analyst says. "The adoption of cloud storage has been gaining traction in the consumer space with its easy data access and mobile device integration. One of the negative impacts of cloud storage deployment leads to shrinking demand within the PELS market."

TarDisk presents an SD card-based solution for customers wanting to double MacBook storage-- the Pear, a product the company says creates a hybrid drive working hand in hand with the built-in drive.

What makes the Pear different from other SD card products is software "merging" the SD card with the MacBook SSD, creating unified storage volume users can tap into like a regular built-in drive.

As TarDisk puts it, "unlike most external hard drives, where manual file allocation is necessary, this SD card creates a hybrid drive, combining the card and the internal hard drive into one. When installed, the hard drive is increased by up to 256GB and the product lies flush with the side wall of the laptop.”

QNAP Systems launches what it claims is the first NAS featuring Thunderbolt 2 Turbo vNAS connectivity-- the TVS-871T, a device combining the high transfer speeds of DAS with the NAS form factor.

According to QNAP connectivity speeds reach up to 20Gbps, and when combined with Thunderbolt-ready storage expansion enclosures (such as the TX-500P or TX-800P) the TVS-871T makes an ideal storage solution for prosumers and creative media professionals looking to streamline 4K video and design workflows.