CES 2011: Lexar & Crucial Revamp Their Product Lines

During CES, I had the pleasure of meeting with the team at Lexar to get a rundown of new product offerings for 2011. Storage has come a long way. The capacity has gotten much bigger while the size of devices has gotten smaller.

Lexar has revamped their whole jump drive line with sleeker offerings, in a wide range of sizes and styles. I am sure that I’m not the only one who has misplaced jump drive covers. So, there are options with no cover to lose. There are drives with sliding USB connectors, colorful drives, large drives, small drives, encrypted drives, and more.

Also available is the new line of jump drives specifically created for backups. The Echo MX is a 128gb USB jump drive that includes backup software that automatically synchronizes your data as you change it.

The Echo ZX is a micro USB device designed to stay in your USB port. At 32gb it is big enough to backup important files that you don’t want to lose, but can stay in the drive so you don’t have to worry about it removing it when you pack away your laptop.

Highlights:

• Always ready, plug-and-stay backup solution
• High-speed performance—up to 28MB/s read, 15MB/s write*
• Securely encrypts files
• Convenient, reliable flash-based design
• Compatible with both PC and Mac® systems
• Two-year limited warranty

8GB (up to 28MB/s read, 10MB/s write) • 16GB (up to 28MB/s read, 15MB/s write) • 32GB (up to 28MB/s read, 15MB/s write)

The biggest excitement for me was checking out the new line of Lexar® Professional 133x SDXC™ cards available in 64gb and 128gb with a guaranteed MINIMUM transfer speed of 20 mb per second. This is great for photographers who use digital cameras whose photos produce large file sizes thanks to the high resolution. There is nothing worse than missing an important shot because the recycle time between photos is slow. I own a Canon T1i and watching that red light blink with “Busy…” on the screen is quite annoying. As stated, they guarantee AT LEAST 20mb, not up to 20mb like some others.

Another huge plus is that each card comes with lifetime 24 hour support. In addition, and this is a biggie: it includes a lifetime license of photo recovery software. This is a life saver for protecting important photos.

I did not realize until that day that Lexar and Crucial are now one and the same. I have ordered my desktop and laptop memory from Crucial for years for both home and work. It is very reliable. The prices are great. The support is outstanding. So, lastly, we heard about the new line of Crucial solid state drives. This includes a whopping 512gb solid state drive. It is the largest size solid state drive. The benefit of solid state drives is that the drive has no moving parts. This means the drives are quieter and more durable, so your data is safer.

I am looking forward to trying out some of these products and getting the reviews to you. Stay tuned!