Figuring out a way for consumers to easily move photos, music and movies to different devices in the home has plagued many of the technology industry's biggest names.

Now, however, storage companies like EMC Corp. (EMC) and Seagate Technologies Inc. (STX) believe they have the products, built around storing data on external hard drives, that are simple enough and, costing less than $200, priced attractively to convince consumers it's time to buy.

This week at the tech industry's largest gathering of the year, the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, EMC and Seagate joined rival hard disk-drive maker Western Digital Corp. (WDC) in the quest to link together the data on PCs, digital cameras, televisions and other electronics in a single storage hub.

The point of these devices is to allow, for example, the average digital camera owner to easily store pictures so he or she can display them on a living room television or let the average person move video between a desktop computer to a laptop or iPhone.

"By having a single storage archive, you can put all your digital data in it and you can share your digital data," said Joel Schwartz, president of EMC's consumer division.

While consumers pull back on spending due to the current recession, data in the form of digital pictures, music and video are piling up in user's hard drives. Research firm IDC estimates that the personal storage market dominated by USB attached external hard drives will grow from around 60 million units in 2008 to more than 120 million in 2012.

And as people turn to these external hard-drives to hold their excess data, storage makers believe a device that functions like an external drive and can also connect to many different electronics products, including the TV, will turn consumer's heads.

IDC estimates that the market for these networked storage devices could nearly double to 2.4 million units in 2009.

The key, they say, is simplicity. EMC's Iomega branded StorCenter connects to a router and is deployed on a home network where it can then interact with PCs, video game consoles, cell phones, digital cameras and other devices through Bluetooth or a USB port. It can also play video on a television through a gaming console like the Sony Corp. (SNE) PlayStation, Microsoft Corp.'s (MSFT) XBox or a Nintendo Co. (7974.OK) Wii.

Reviewers and storage experts have touted its ease of use, and Joel Schwartz, who manages EMC's consumer storage division, says users will be able to plug in and set up the device with only four mouse clicks. The single-drive model aimed at consumers costs $160.

Seagate's new FreeAgent Theater serves a similar function as EMC's StorCenter but focuses primarily on making it easy for users to move pictures, movies and music onto a TV. Seagate's device avoids the network altogether and plugs directly into a television. It comes with a remote control to organize and play music and images, and a hard drive can also be removed from the device and plugged directly into a PC. Without the drive, Seagate will sell the Theater for $129. With a drive, the price will likely rise to around $299.

"The whole thing is, can the average user manage to get their pictures up on their TV screen?" asks Jon Van Bronkhorst, a Seagate marketing director. "We went really simple on this, we took networking out."

Also, Seagate rival Western Digital has been selling its own networked storage device, the World Book, since 2007. It is currently selling online for as low as $95.

Granted, many technology giants have tried to inspire widespread adoption of devices for connecting TVs and other electronics with the Internet or the home network. Hewlett-Packard Co.'s (HPQ) MediaSmart is essentially a server connecting PCs, televisions and data storage in a home media hub. But most consumers weren't willing to shell out the money for the $500 product.

Meanwhile, devices like Apple Inc.'s (AAPL) AppleTV hook up to a home network and lets users play movies and music from the Internet or their computers, but often don't contain a place to store data or connect with cameras, phones or other electronics.

These and other earlier products didn't find wide adoption in part because of difficult set-ups and high prices.

And only recently is storage being seen as a necessary addition to computers and devices for the home.

That's why late last year Seagate began its first televised marketing campaign to show consumers that there are solutions to managing their growing mounds of data.

EMC's Schwartz also sees consumers growing comfortable with using networks as a sign the time is right for getting these products into homes.

"There are 130 million networks out there in homes, so people have figured it out," said Schwartz. He added that three or four years ago, "People were afraid relative to what they were getting themselves into. That's not going to be the case anymore."

-Jerry A. DiColo; Dow Jones Newswires; 201-938-5670; jerry.dicolo@dowjones.com

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