As we become more dependent on multimedia -- such as audio, high-resolution photographs and video -- for our home and business PCs, disk space and speed become more important. Video, in particular, uses up huge chunks of space. A typical half-hour TV program, for instance, could use 1.7 Gigabytes to 2 Gigabytes of disk.

Maxtor, soon to be part of Seagate, has introduced several unique disk storage solutions that make life a bit easier as they provide more disk space -- the Shared Storage Plus and the OneTouch III Turbo Edition.

The Shared Storage Plus gives you 200 to 500 GB of storage in a compact external package. But instead of connecting directly to a computer, it connects to your network so it can be shared by any number of PCs. That makes it a good solution for small workgroups, where you need to share files or have a common backup drive.

One of the unique features of the Shared Storage Plus is that it also can be used as a print-server, allowing you to share two printers with any number of computers on your network by plugging the printers into USB ports in the back of the drive.

The OneTouch III Turbo Edition is a high-end storage solution that gives you up to 1,000 Gbytes of storage (that's 1 Terabyte).

Just as important as the amount of data that it can store, it also can use RAID technology. RAID, which stands for redundant array of independent disks, makes a set of disks more reliable and/or faster, depending on how it is set up. That means the user is less likely to lose data to a disk failure, and will see faster performance when using applications that are slowed by the time it takes to get the data to and from the disk.

RAID is often used by companies that operate servers for many users, and could make a big difference in performance for interactive games and high resolution video.

The OneTouch III Turbo Edition lists from $549 through $899 depending on disk size, while the list price of the Shared Storage Drives range from $279 through $499 at maxtor.com.