I was told by Sony reps last fall that at NAB we'd be writing to the PDW-U1 XDCam drive.

I'm wanting to use it for backup/archival purposes.

I was also told it would support 1920 x 1080 files without down-converting them to 1440 x 1080.

Was there any work on this at NAB this year?

Yes, I would love to know as well.

Sony had an announcement about this at NAB. I don't remember the exact date but I believe it's in "3rd Quarter" July to September area.

They'll be making the unit full data back up capable so it won't be tied to codec. In other words you could even use it for P2 (perish the thought) or backing up projects files along with the media.

Think of it as like Blu-ray data disk with secure case for added longevity.