At CES, a large number of companies were introducing their Thunderbolt devices. As with previous innovative interface technology that Apple pioneered, the equipment was a bit slow to appear, but 2012 seems to be the year of Thunderbolt.

Elgato is announcing the Elgato Thunderbolt SSD, a portable high-speed storage solution. The Elgato Thunderbolt SSD combines a fast and reliable solid-state drive with Thunderbolt technology. Housed in a nicely designed metal enclosure, the high-speed drive draws its power directly through the Thunderbolt port without needing a separate power supply. The device will be available in February.

This is anecdotal, so your experience might actually be far better, but to be honest: I seriously doubt it. I have a RAID 5 device on my table. It holds all my data. RAID 5 is great: if one disk breaks, you’ll still have all your data on the other disks. Just hot-swap the defect disk and you’re set to go. One of my RAID 5 disks went to Seagate heaven. The good news was it was still under guarantee. I thought this would be a zero budget operation, but was I wrong.

Kingston Digital, the Flash memory affiliate of Kingston Technology Company, Inc., announced it is shipping the SSDNow KC100, the company’s first SATA Rev. 3.0 (6Gb/s) business-equipped SSD. KC100 utilizes the latest SandForce controller.

The Linear Tape-Open (LTO) Program Technology Provider Companies HP, IBM and Quantum announced the availability of licenses for the LTO Ultrium Generation 6 format.

Imation launched the Imation RDX A8 Hard Disk Storage Library, a scalable networked storage device that holds up to eight RDX cartridges of interchangeable capacities. The multi-function device helps small- and medium-size businesses (SMBs) conduct high-performance backup, data protection, archiving, restoration and cloud-enabling applications.

Verbatim launched a new range of 2,5″ SATA II SSDs (Solid State Drive), competing with other vendors in this market. SSD drives can be built into iMacs and Mac Pros, and VErbatim’s offering is the first on the European continent not to cost an arm and a leg.

The new Store ‘n’ Go Executive HDD from Verbatim offers USB 3.0, a storage capacity of 750GB and 256bit AES Hardware Encryption for highest data security. The Executive has a sleek, sophisticated design and is available in three finishes: Graphite Grey, Silver and Glossy Black.

The market of optical media — writable CDs, DVDs and Blu-Ray discs — may see a decline, but that doesn’t mean these media will be history any time soon. They are invaluable for archiving multimedia content, and medical and administrative data. Cloud storage is fine, but there are problems with ownership, copyright, and for how long the data remains stored. These issues are irrelevant to users of optical media. They worry more about longevity.