Hitachi's 320GB 2.5 inch 7200rpm hard drive

Hitachi has joined Fujitsu in promising a 320GB 7200rpm 2.5 inch laptop hard drive.

The Travelstar 7K320 is said to have all the benefits of a 7200rpm drive (speed) without most of the problems.

it's battery performance is 22% than previous drives sucking up 1.8 watts when reading/writing (the same as a 5400rpm drive) but it's idling power consumption is higher: 0.8 watts compared to 0.55 watts for a 5400rpm drive.

No price yet but Hitachi claims they will have the drives for sale later this month which means they could be out sooner than the Fujitsu drives which aren't expected to appear until June.

(via crave)

Buffalo Linkstation Mini reviewed

We told you about the buffalo linkstation mini 1TB NAS solution last month, and now Trusted Reviews has got their hands on one to review.

Here's what they thought:

"The LinkStation Mini may not be as fast as larger boxes sporting 3.5in hard disks (it took around one minute 30 seconds to write a 1GB file), and it may not offer quite as much RAID flexibility either. However, it does offer something that no other NAS appliance does - 1TB in a truly tiny chassis. It's also reasonably priced, considering the amount of storage on offer, and that Buffalo has used 7,200rpm SATA notebook drives.

Anyone who has been put off the idea of a NAS box for home, will welcome the diminutive dimensions of the LinkStation Mini, while the silent running means that you could house it in any room of your house without it annoying visually or audibly. If I could have got the web access working, the LinkStation Mini could have walked away with 10/10 and an Editor's Choice, but as it stands it still warrants a whole hearted Recommended."

(more at trustedreviews)

Datamore twin HDD enclosure

New from Savit Micro in Korea is this twin USB/eSATA hard disk drive enclosure.

It support 2 3.5" SATA hard drives, as well as RAID0/RAID1/NORMAL/JBOD/JBOD33/JBOD50, and it has a Silicon Image Sil5744 SteelVine RAID processor which supports hot-plugging.

(via akihibaranews)

Sony announces two new NAS solutions

Sony has announced two new network attached storage (NAS) solutions.

Both have an all-in-one memory card reader and am internal 1 or 1.5TB drive amd support a wide variety of file formats: MP3, WAV, ATTRAC, ATTRAC Advanced Lossless, AAC, WMA files and AVCHD, MPEG2, and HDV (MEPG2-TS) video files.

The 1.5TB version will sell for around $1500.

There's a video after the jump.

(via akihibaranews)

Continue reading "Sony announces two new NAS solutions"

Data recovered from shuttle Columbia hard drive

The Space Shuttle Columbia exploded during reentry on February 1, 2003, killing all seven crewmembers.

A hard drive was recovered from the wreckage, that hard drive was part of an experiment to study how xeon gas flows in microgravity.

Amazingly 99% of the data of the hard drive was able to be recovered and now, over 5 years after the explosion, the results of that experiment has been published in the journal Physics Review E.

RIP Colonel Rick Husband, Commander William McCool, Lt. Colonel Michael Anderson, Colonel Ilan Ramon, Kalpana Chawla, Captain David Brown, and Captain Laurel Clark.

(scientificamerican, via engadget)

Super Talent announces new solid state drives

Super talent has announced a new line of solid state drives (SSDs).

The MasterDrive series are designed as direct replacements for laptop 2.5" drives and connect over the SATA-II interface. They also feature Super Talent's patented wear leveling algorithms and bad bit management for extended lifespan.

The news drives come in 30GB, 60GB and 120GB capacities with 120/40 MB/sec read/write, consume 85% less power than a conventional hard drive, and retail for $299, $449, and $699.

(more at supertalent)

Netgear ReadyNAS Duo reviewed

Trusted Reviews has reviewed the $350 Netgear ReadyNAS Duo twin-bay network attached storage.

Here's what they thought:

"The ReadyNAS Duo takes everything that makes the NV+ a great NAS appliance and packs it into a pint-sized desktop unit. It's an affordable choice for home users, delivers good overall performance and offers a wealth of multimedia features into the bargain."

(more at trustedreviews)

Continue reading "Netgear ReadyNAS Duo reviewed"

Transcend Storejet 35 Ultra - HD enclosure with a fan

New from Transcend is the Storejet 35 Ultra hard drive enclosure for SATA drives, what made it different from most other enclosures is that to keep the hard drive healthy it comes with an extra quiet 80mm high flow fan.

No info yet on price but it measures 197.5mm by 127.5mm by 48mm and you can get it with or without a 500GB SATA drive pre-installed.

(via fareastgizmos)

Image Moments 8 photo frame

Earlier today we told you about the designer photo frame that only gives you 10mb storage and a 7" LCD for a whopping $500.

Now we have a much better value photo frame for you: the Image Moments 8 from Digital Foci gives you an 8" 800x600 pixel LCD screen with 500:1 contrast ratio, a card reader that supports all the usual card formats, a USB slot, speakers for mellow background music, and a much more impressive 450MB of storage.

The price: just $199.

(via engadget)

Continue reading "Image Moments 8 photo frame"

Silverstone treasure 2.5 inch enclosure reviewed

Trusted Reviews has reviewed the $50 Silverstone treasure TS01B 2.5" hard drive enclosure.

Here's what they thought:

"The security features of the TS01B may not appeal to everyone, and they're by no means flawless, but once configured it's a damn sight easier to use than a software solution. Even without that aspect though, you're still getting a good portable hard drive enclosure for a pretty good price."

I don't think I like the idea of RFID fob hardware encryption as RFID tags are too easy to fry (accidentally or deliberately) so tou could lose access to your data.

(full review at trustedreviews)

Designer photo frame

If you are one of those people who don't want just any old electronic photo frame from Target then you should take a look at the $500 "Parrot Digital Frame by Andrée Putman" available only at the Far nd Few concept store in London.

It's a 7-inch screen, with bluetooth and SD card slot, 10mb of memory, and a fancy designer name, for $500.

Are we excited? nope, not really.

Mvix MV-2500U HDD media player

Mvix have announced a new 2.5" hard drive based media player that provides up to 250GB of portable media storage in a 5" x 3" x 0.5" enclosure.

The MV-2500U doesn't have a screen of it's own so you need to connect it to a TV via component cables then use the remote control and on screen menus to access your media.

The MV-2500U supports MPEG1, MPEG2, MPEG4, AVI, DivX® 3.11, 4x, 5x, XviD, DVD(IFO, VOB), ISO video, AC3, MP2, MP3, DTS pass through, WMA, OGG, M3U audio, and JPG photos and outputs in 1080i or 720p resolution.

Cost for the basic unit is $149 without a drive or you can get one with a 80MB, 160MB or 250MB drive for between $99 and $199 more.

Continue reading "Mvix MV-2500U HDD media player"

Hard drive crusher

PC Magazine recently got sent a destroyed hard drive by eDR solutions to show off their hard drive crusher.

The hard drive crusher drills a hole through the spindle of the hard drive which according to eRD "creates ripples in the platters making it impossible to recover the data".

This 19" x 13.5" x 12" gadget runs off a standard AC outlet and can destroy 60 drives an hour with the actual crushing taking just 10 seconds.

The hard drive crusher costs $11,500 plus an extra $895 for a hand pump to use if the power is out. For that sort of money they seem to be targeting the military and embassies as customers.

I know how I destroy hard drives: I take them to the range and put about 20 7.65x51mm NATO rounds through them - it's fun and I know the military can use the same solution and spend $10 on ammo instead of $11,500 on a crusher.

(via gearlog)

Continue reading "Hard drive crusher"

Western Digital Velociraptor reviewed

Extreme tech has reviewed the 300GB Western Digital Velociraptor that is really a 2.5" drive wrapped in a massive heat sink and asked "Can a 2.5-inch drive really outperform a high density, 3.5-inch drive?".

Here's the answer:

"Overall performance is quite good, while write performance is particularly excellent--and likely to be better than most (but not all) solid state drives. However, even at $299, it's still vastly less expensive than solid state drives of much lower capacity. Given its substantial performance advantage over 7,200RPM drives, we'll no doubt see these arriving in most enthusiast-class systems and lower-end workstations. For those users, performance trumps capacity for the system drive. After all, you can always add a big 7,200RPM drive (or array) as a secondary drive, if you need capacity."

(more at extremetech)

Continue reading "Western Digital Velociraptor reviewed"

Verbatim 500gb 2.5" drive photos

Yesterday we told you about the world's first half-Terabyte 2.5" Portable Hard Disk Drive featuring an industry standard 9.5mm Z-height drive from Verbatim.

The drive will cost $300 and be available in Q2 2008.

Here are some photos, and I like the way it looks:

Continue reading "Verbatim 500gb 2.5" drive photos"

Verbatim announces first 500gb portable 2.5" HDD

Verbatim have announced the world's first half-Terabyte 2.5" Portable Hard Disk Drive (HDD) featuring an industry standard 9.5mm Z-height drive.

The drive will start shipping in Q2 2008 and the drive and it's case will weigh less than 6 ounces and measure 3.38" x 5.38" x 0.63". The drive will be available with a USB connection or a combination USB/Firewire connection and prices start at $300 for the USB only version.

Full press release follows.

Continue reading "Verbatim announces first 500gb portable 2.5" HDD"

No XP SP3 for you after all

Well despite months and months of testing Windows XP service pack 3 it appears that Microsoft screwed things up.

Service Pack 3 breaks a piece of Microsoft software called "Dymanics RMS" that is a retail chain management software solution for small and medium businesses. Because that is broken everyone has to wait.

I wonder if someone in Microsoft's QA team is looking for a new job tonight?

Are SSDs faster than regular hard drives?

Computerworld ran some tests to see if the speed difference between SSDs (solid state disks) and regular hard drives are worth the large price difference.

The disks compared were the 32GB Crucial Internal 2.5-in. SATA Solid State Drive, the 32GB Ridata 2.5-in. SATA SSD, the250GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 3.5-in. SATA hard drive, and the 200GB Seagate Momentus 7200.2 2.5-in. SATA hard drive.

The results were surprising with the SSD only slightly faster than the regular disks at most tasks.

(more at computerworld)

Netgear 6 bay ReadyNAS Pro

Netgear has announced some new ReadyNAS network attached storage servers.

The 6 bay servers have Intel Core 2 Duo processors, 1BG RAM, 128MG flash for the OS, gigabit ethernet, and RAID 0/1/5/6.

The ReadNAS pro comes in three sizes: 1.5TB, 3TB, and 6TB, and prices start at $2k.

(full press release after the jump)

Continue reading "Netgear 6 bay ReadyNAS Pro"

Planex DigiJuke NAS plays nicely with bittorrent

I expect the MPAA lawyers are already working on lawsuits to sneak some tracking code into this device.

The Planex DigiJuke network attached storage device cost $525 for a 1GB system with gigabit ethernet. It's big selling point is that it comes with a little browser for searching and tagging youtube videos and torrents for download directly to the DigiJuke.

(via engadget)

Continue reading "Planex DigiJuke NAS plays nicely with bittorrent"

Buffalo Linkstation Mini

We think Buffalo's Linkstations are the best network attached storage solutions out there for the home or small office user, so we are excited to hear they are coming out with a mini version that accepts up to 2 500GB 2.5" disks for a total storage capacity of a terabyte and supports RAID 1 mirroring and RAID 0 striping in a package measuring just 40mm x 82mm x 135mm (1.6" x 3.2" x 5.3") and weighing 1.1lb

No word yet on price, but the Linkstation Mini will be available in May.

(More at buffalo)

Continue reading "Buffalo Linkstation Mini"

Toshiba planning 512GB SSD for next year

Toshiba Semiconductor Company's President Shozo Saito is predicting massive growth in the SSD (solid state drive) market in the next year.

At an IDEMA (International Disk Drive Equipment and Materials Association) function in Japan he predicted that SSD will account for a quarter of all hard drive sales by 2011 and announced that Toshiba is planning to ship 512GB SSDs by next year (2009).

This growth in production will hopefully allow prices of SSDs to drop to a level that makes them more affordable: between 1.4 and 3.2 times the prices of regular laptop hard drives.

People still say that the limited number of writes to flash memory before it fails is a limiting factor for this technology but an average user should get at least 10 years out of a SSD, and I imagine in 10 years we will be using much bigger drives than 512GB and will have retired our SSDs (10 years ago the largest drives were 10GB now they are 1TB, at that growth rate we will be at 100TB in 10 years).

(via crave)

LaCie 500GB rugged hard drive

LaCie has announced a 500GB edition of its rugged hard drive, joining the existing 120/160/200/250/320GB versions.

The hard drives are protected by internal anti-shock rubber bumpers, an aluminum shell and a shock-resistant rubber sleeve. Unfortunately it only seems to come in orange which limits it's usefulness for military applications.

Connectivity is provide through firewire 800, firewire 400, and USB 2.0, and no separate power supply is needed when connection to a powered usb port.

Dimensions are 3.5" x 1" x 5.7", it weighs 8.8oz, has been tested being dropped from 35", and prices range from $130 for 120GB up to $400 for the new 500GB model.

Continue reading "LaCie 500GB rugged hard drive"

Anthology Solutions Yellow Machine Review

We firmly believe in the importance of keeping your important files backed up, and we also think you can never have too much storage space, so we were pleased to get our hands on the Yellow Machine from Anthology Solutions which boasts a massive 1000 Gigabytes (1 Terabyte) of storage space (and is also available in a 1.6 Terabyte version).

The Yellow Machine is more than just a network storage device though: it also can act as the entry point to your home or small office network with a built-in 8 port Ethernet hub, firewall and proxy server.

And did we mention that it looks nice?

Read on for the rest of the review......

Continue reading "Anthology Solutions Yellow Machine Review"

Ajump Terabyte NAS Server

There seem to be a lot of Network Attached Storage solutions coming out with a terabyte of storage, perfect for a home media server, and here's another one.

The Ajump Impression P104S is interesting because it is custom configured, built, and tested, and comes at a good price ($1438 with 1TB of storage).

This Ajump NAS server has a RISC processor, 4 Serial ATA bays, gigabit ethernet, 256MB RAM, and hardware RAID levels 0, 1, and 5.

Is it just me, or does it look like a radio from the 1940s?

Ajump configuration page

(via ehomeupgrade)

Pretec 8GB USB Flash Drive

Pretec has announced an 8GB USB flash drive.

The Pretec i-Disk II 8GB offers 16MB/sec read and 12MB/sec write speeds and comes with the usual array of encryption and security software.

Price not announced yet but expect it to be bank-busting now and pennies in a few years (at which time we will be going gaga over terabyte flash drives).

Press Release

LaCie 1.6 terabyte external USB/Firewire drive

While we are on the subject of external 1.6 terabyte USB/Firewire drives, here's the lowdown on the LaCie offering.

Available now from Amazon for $2,019 is the "LaCie 1.6TB Bigger disk Extreme FW400 and FW800 7,200rpm, 8MB d2 (300773)" drive, whose name was obviously thought up by an engineer not a marketer.

The LaCie drive isn't all nice and aluminum-ey like the IO Data drive, but it seems to be about a third the weight and almost $1000 less.

One thing though, for 2 grand they should at least have given it an Ethernet port.

IO Data 1.6 Terabyte External USB/Firewire Drive

Slashdot gets all excited about the new IO Data 1.6 Terabyte External USB/Firewire Drive, until more observant readers point out the existance of LaCie's (cheaper) 1.6 terabyte drive.

The IO Data 1.6 Terabyte External USB/Firewire Drive (aka "HDZ-UE1.6TS") has 4 Maxtor 400gb hard drives in a RAID array, is 5.4" x 10.5" x 5.3", and weighs just under 10 pounds.

The "HDZ-UE1.6TS" costs 294,000 yen, which equals around $2,900.

Techjapan via Slashdot

Seagate Shipping 400GB Hard Drive

If your homemade 1 terabyte storage server isn't big enough for you try getting 5 of these in a SATA RAID array, giving you 2 terabytes of storage. That is more than enough storage for every episode of Star Trek ever, in HDTV. (That's just a guess but if each episode is about 700MB then you could store almost 3000 episodes, and there can't be that much Trek, can there?)

Getting back on track.... Seagate has announced they are shipping their new 400GB 7200RPM hard drive in both SATA and regular ATA flavors.

The 400GB Barracude 7200.8 hard drive is the first to use 133GB disk platters, and 3 of those gives you the 400GB in this 3.5" drive.

Other features of the 400GB Barracude 7200.8 are an 8mb cache, 8ms seek time, and (on the SATA version) support for Native Command Queuing which is supposed to give performance similar to a 10000rpm drive.

(press release)

Niveus 1 Terabyte Storage Server

Our third 1 terabyte network storage server this week is the Niveus A/V Storage Server.

This is the most expensive ($2999) but also the quietest and best looking terabyte storage server, and in a surreal moment it has already been awarded the Best of Innovations award for next year's CES show.

The Niveus A/V Storage Server has a 1Ghz VIA fanless processor, 256MB RAM, a fanless case, and an ethernet port (apparently no wireless though).

We are going to have something similar to this in our new house... but as the storage server will be in the basement in a rack next to the distributed wiring control panel it is difficult to justify paying so much when the Buffalo Terastation can be had for a third the price.

Niveus A/V Storage Server

(via ehomeupgrade)

1 Terabyte in a Small Form Factor (SFF) Case

Check this out for a do it yourself alternative to the Buffalo 1 Terabyte Terastation we featured a few days ago.

Mashie took a small form factor (SFF) case, an old motherboard, a Serial-ATA RAID controller, 5 200gb hard drives, and a few other bits and pieces, and created a tiny 1 terabyte network storage device.

"It is time for a new little project again. This time I need a small footprint file server with a big internal space. Right now the files are distributed all over the the network forcing a couple of computers to constantly be on wasting power and causing noise."

More from Mashie.org

(via digitalmediathoughts)

Buffalo Terastation

Buffalo Technology has announced (in Japan) a 1000GB networked hard drive, the TeraStation, that appears to be designed and priced for the consumer market.

The TeraStation contains 4 250GB hard drives and can operate in 4 modes: with 4 seperate logical partitions of 250GB storage, with 1 partition of 1000GB, with a Raid-1 array offering 2 250gb partitions (each mirrored to a seperate drive in case of failure), or a Raid-5 array of 750GB.

Personally I prefer the Raid-5 array as it gives 750GB of storage along with no data loss if one of the 4 drives fail.

Some people will say who will ever need 1000GB of storage, but the same was said when 1GB was first available, or when 20MB hard drives came along.... with a high resultion camera I can easily take 1GB of photos in a day, or if you want to record TV and stream to other rooms in your house you need a lot of storage space.

The TeraStation also offers fast connectivity with USB2.0 and (more importantly) Gibabit Ethernet. The question is, can I justify buying one of these to be the central filestore in my hew home network.

The TeraStation will be available in Japan in December 2004 for 106,300 Yen (about $1,000).

Press Release (japanese)

(via Gizmodo)

4 Digital Media Servers

ehomeupgrade has a roundup of 4 recently announced digital media servers:

AL Tech Mediagate MG-25: 25GB 2.5" hard drive, supports MPEG4, DivX, XviD, OGG, MP3, WMA, and JPEG, USB 2.0 connectivity, up to 1080i HDTV output.

DTS Infocom MODIX HD-3510: up to 400GB 3.5" hard drive, support for MPEG4, DivX, XviD, MP3, and JPEG, up to 1080i HDTV output.

Dvico TViX: up to 250GB 3.5" hard drive, supports VOB, DivX, XviD, AVI, MPG, DAT, PCM, MP3, OGG, WMA, AC3, and DTS, HDTV output.

FIA On3 Pro Digital Media Player and Library: up to 120GB 2.5" hard drive, supports MPEG4, DivX, XviD, MOV, AVI, MP3, OGG, WAV, and AC3, HDTV output.

(more from ehomeupgrade)

Flashpoint USB Drive

Here's an interesting use of the USB flash drives that are everywhere these days, the Flashpoint USB Drive lets you copy data to it from another drive without needing to be plugged into a PC.

Basically how it works is that the Flashpoint is a hermaphrodite, it has both a male and female connection. (Other USB drives have a male connector, and laptops/computers etc have a female connection.)

To use the Flashpoint USB Drive you just mate the male part of another USB drive to the female part of the Flashpoint and press it's button, all the data in a "share" directory on the male gets squirted over to the female.

It all sounds dirty and sordid to me!

(via engadget)

Leather USB Drive

Ah, now this is much nicer than the Sushi USB drives we mentioned yesterday.

This sexy little bundle of leather and zinc comes in sizes ranging fron 64mb to 2gb, and would make a prefect gift for a stylish friend or a leather clad S&M fiend.

Looks like they are currently available only in Japan and prices are surprisingly tame: $70 for 512mb and $180 for 1gb. I will have to look out for these next time I am passing through Tokyo airport (or I may just look for them in Hong Kong where you can get all the Japanese gadgets for less than they cost in Japan).

(via everythingusb)

Epson P2000 Multimedia Storage Viewer

Epson has announced a new photo viewer / storage box: the Epson P2000 Multimedia Storage Viewer.

The Epson P2000 Multimedia Storage Viewer features a 40gb hard drive, 640 x 480 pixel (VGA) 3.8" screen, Photo playback, Movie playback, Music playback, A/V out, CompactFlash and SD memory card slots, RAW data support as native (supports RAW from Nikon and Canon).

Connectivity on the Epson P2000 Multimedia Storage Viewer is USB 2.0 and it can connect direct to a photo printer for printing out pictures.

Battery life is said to be 3 hrs, it will be available in November, and it will cost £349 in the uk and around $500 in the US.

(via dpreview)

Pioneer DVR-108 16x DVD Burner Review

The Pioneer DVR-108 is the OEM version of the first 16x DVD Writer that also supports 4x dual-layer write speeds.

The main differences between this and the retail box version (DVR-A08) are that the DVR-108 comes with a plain faceplate and no software or cables.

We got a Pioneer DVR-108 to test from Directron. Keep reading to find out what we thought of it.

Continue reading "Pioneer DVR-108 16x DVD Burner Review"

Hard Drive in an SD Card

SorobanGeek is attending the CEATAC show and came across a Toshiba prototype of a 0.85" hard drive connecting with a Pocket PC via a SD card interface.

I'm not sure of the practical applications of this:

When 0.85" hard drives are released the maximum capacity is likely to be 1GB or at most 2GB, and like any hard drive it is more fragile than a flash memory solution. Also a 0.85" hard drive is too big to fit in an SD card so a solution would have to stick out the top of your Pocket PC (or be enclosed in a device specific accessory that maybe goes around the back of the Pocket PC).

So why not just use a 1GB SD card or CF card?

(via pdalive)

0.85" Hard Drives from Hitachi and Samsung

Toshiba have announced they will be volume producing 0.85" hard drives by the end of the year. These drives are likely to have a capacity of 2 or 3 GB.

Samsung are also in the R&D stage of producing a 0.85" hard drive.

Once these drives are being produced we will probably start seeing them appear in cell phones and future Pocket PC models.

(samsung story : hitachi story : via engadget)

Sandisk 8gb CompactFlash

Sandisk have announced the availability of an 8gb Ultra II (60x speed) CompactFlash card.

The 8gb Ultra II CompactFlash card will be available in November and will retail for $959.99.

As camera megapixel resolutions keep going up, with typical consumer cameras needing 1 or 2 MB per shot, basic SLR digital cameras needing 3 to 8 MB per shot, and professional digital cameras needing 9+ MB per shot, it is good to see storage card technology keeping up so we can still have 200+ highest quality photos on one card.

(press release)

Sandisk Extreme III Memory Cards

Rob Galbraith got the scoop from Sandisk on their new line of CompactFlash and Secure Digital cards.

The Extreme III series, like the Panasonic cards announced today, are capable of 20MB per second data transfer speeds.

The official announcement of the Extreme III series will come tomorrow, with 1GB and 2GB Extreme III CompactFlash cards shipping in October, and 1GB Extreme III SD cards shipping in November.

There will also be new card readers shipping on December, as well as 4GB CF and 2GB SD Extreme III cards announced but with no ship date.

The scoop from Rob Galbraith

Panasonic Pro SD Memory Cards

Panasonic has announced 2 new SecureDigital (SD) memory cards that use a fancy new LSI architecture to achieve read/write speeds of 20MB per second (or 133x speed for comparison to CD writers and CompactFlash cards).

The Panasonic Pro High Speed series of cards comes in 1GB and 512MB versions, and the cards will be available in October.

Price is not yet known.

full press release.
(via dpreview)

Maxtor Onetouch II 300GB External Drive

Maxtor has announced 2 new Onetouch II external hard drives based upon their DiamondMax 10 series of hard drives with 16mb of cache.

The Maxtor Onetouch II has Firewire and USB 2.0 connectivity (but no network connectivity), a onetouch backup button, and a drivelock feature for security.

The Maxtor Onetouch II drives come in 250gb and 300gb versions and are available for preorder at a price of $330 for 250gb and $380 for 300gb.

No ship date is given.

Continue reading "Maxtor Onetouch II 300GB External Drive"

1GB Compact Flash $82

Storage card prices keep going lower and lower, it used to be that a good price was 1gb of Compact Flash memory was $150 after sending in for a rebate, but now you can get 1gb of brand name Compact Flash (from Sandisk) for $82 from buy.com with free shipping!.

I take a lot of photos and it is great to not have to worry about swapping compact flash cards around, especially with a high mega-pixel digital camera. 1gb is 64 times the storage capacity of the compact flash card typically included when you buy a digital camera.

Click here for the $82 1gb Compact Flash

Apricorn EZ Bus Mini 20GB Review

The Apricorn Ez Bus Mini 20GB is the Mini-Me of USB 2.0 external hard drives.

The EZ Bus Mini comes in two sizes 20gb and 40gb for around $200 and $280 respectively, quite a bit more than larger USB external hard drives (both physically and in terms of storage capacity).

Is it worth the extra cost? keep reading to find out.......

Continue reading "Apricorn EZ Bus Mini 20GB Review"

Sony's Big Stick

Sony have announced a new range of Memory Stick Pro memory cards with a write speed of 15Mbps.

Cards with capacities of up to 2GB will be available in November and the 2GB card will retail for around $700.

All Sony needs to do now is persuade other manufacturers to use memory stick instead of CompactFlash or SD.

Excuse me.... I think I just saw a flying pig.

I/O Magic GigaBank 2.2 USB Drive

The GigaBank 2.2 from I/O Magic is a 2.2 gigabyte 4200rpm hard drive based USB 2.0 portable storage device.

Dimensions of the GigaBank 2.2 are 2.5" x 2.0" x 0.5", it doesn't need a power supply (getting power through USB), and it has a USB 2 adapter built-in that folds out when needed.

The GigaBank 2.2 will be available in September and will cost $190.

(via designtechnica)
I/O Magic Product Page

Micro Solutions Lockbox 80GB Review

The Micro Solutions Lockbox is a USB 2.0 external hard drive protected by a biometric fingerprint sensor system.

The Lockbox comes in 3 sizes: 80gb ($199), 120gb ($249), and 200gb ($299) and works with Windows 98 or later PCs.

As of 8/23 you could get the 80gb Lockbox for $191.99 from Buy.com with Free Shipping.

We got hold of an 80gb lockbox to review, keep reading to find out what we thought of it......

Continue reading "Micro Solutions Lockbox 80GB Review"

Sandisk Wi-Fi and 256mb SD Card

Most Pocket PCs these days come with either built in Wi-Fi (802.11b) or a SDIO card slot. For those without built-in Wi-Fi here is a good solution that will get you wireless without giving up your storage options.

Sandisk offers a SD card that has both the standard 802.11b wireless and 256mb of storage (currently $129 at Amazon.com).

Our Dell Axim X30 has built-in wireless but our older iPAQ 2215 just has an SDIO slot so I think we will get one of these and try it out.

(thanks TheTechZone)

Blu-Ray Getting Closer

Blu-ray is one of the two competing formats for next generation optical disks that use blue lasers (= DVD disks on steroids). Today they announced that had reached agreement on a standard for the read-only version of the disks that will store 2 hours of HD-TV (27GB) on one single-sided disk.

This means that the 13 members of the Blu-ray group (such as Dell, HP, Hitachi, Sharp, Sony) can begin building Blu-ray players.

Expect to see them in the stores in 2005.

New kind of memory card - μcard

A new kind of memory card is going to be revealed in early October at a trade show in Taiwan, and mass produced in 2005.

The specifications seem amazing, so I have to wonder if it will be so expensive that no-one can afford it:

2 Terabytes storage capacity (2048 gigabytes)
120 megabits/second transfer rate (10x that of SD, 8x that of CompactFlash)
Lower power consumption than CompactFlash

I have to wonder why they chose a name that can't be typed on a regular English keyboard: that will severely hinder their marketing efforts.

Note also that the 2 terabytes storage is the maximum technically possible, CompactFlash has a possible maximum of 128GB, but only 1GB CF cards are affordable and the highest currently available is 8GB (for about $4500).

Personally I would expect to see μcard starting out in the 256mb - 2GB range, at over $100 for the cheapest 256mb card.

DigiTimes.com news story

(thanks engadget)

Bigger Laptop Hard Drives

Laptops/notebooks typically have hard drives a lot smaller than desktop pcs which can be a pain if you are traveling on business and also want to watch movies and listen to music on your laptop.

A typical laptop with a 30gb hard drive doesn't have a lot of space left after installing XP, office and a host of other business applications.

This situation should be improving soon as Fujitsu have just started shipping a 100gb 2.5 inch 4200rpm hard drive for laptops/notebooks.

Expect to see these appearing in high-end hard-drives by the end of the month and for cheaper prices to allow more 40gb and 60gb drives in lower priced laptops.

press release

Storage Card Abuse

Digital Camera Shopper magazine tested 6 storage cards (CompactFlash, Secure Digital, xD, Memory Stick and Smartmedia) to the extreme:

"They were dipped into cola, put through a washing machine, dunked in coffee, trampled by a skateboard, run over by a child's toy car and given to a six-year-old boy to destroy."

Surprisingly they all survived those tests... but failed these two: "being smashed by a sledgehammer and being nailed to a tree"

This is good news... cameras can be replaced but photos you haven't downloaded yet are irreplacible.

(bbc news story)

$106 1GB Compactflash

Tomorrow (6/30) is the last day to get a 1 gigabyte viking compactflash card for $106 as that is when the $45 rebate expires.

If you want one pick it up now by following this Amazon link.

Compactflash Deals (1gb for $106!)

New rebates at Amazon.com for Compactflash (rebates expire 6/30):

Viking 1GB: $106 (after $45 rebate)
Viking 512mb: $55 (after $25 rebate)
Viking 256mb: $21 (after $15 rebate)

All come with free shipping.

Sandisk 512MB SD $70

If you are looking for a secure digital card for your new Dell Axim X30i (or any other pocket pc, MP3 player, laptop or pc that supports SD cards) here is a great deal for you:

Newegg.com has a 512mb Sandisk secure digital card for $70 with free shipping after $30 mail-in rebate (expires 6/4).

Product Link
Rebate Link

Better Compactflash Deals

New rebates at Amazon.com for Compactflash (rebates expire 5/31):

Viking 256mb: $25.84 (after $15 rebate)
Viking 1GB: $132.54 (after $45 rebate)
Viking 512mb: $78.94 (after $25 rebate)

All come with free shipping.

Compactflash Deals

Here are the latest low prices at Amazon.com for Compactflash, the Sandisk 512mb and Viking 256mb are particularly good prices:

Sandisk 512mb: $63.99 (after $20 rebate)
Sandisk 256mb: $41.99
Sandisk 1GB: $166.99
Viking 512mb: $85.99 (after $25 rebate)
Viking 256mb: $35.99 (after $15 rebate)
Viking 1GB: $165.99 (after $45 rebate)
All come with free shipping.

512MB CF $65

One day deal only: Buy.com's deal of the day is a Viking 512MB Compact Flash card for $65 (after $25 mail-in rebate).

New Compactflash Deals

A new set of rebates on Viking Compact Flash cards have shown up. Here are the current best prices at amazon.com:

256mb Viking Compact Flash for $30.84 after $15.00 mail-in rebate.
512mb Viking Compact Flash for $89.49 after $25 mail-in rebate.
1gb Viking Compact Flash for $163.64 after $45 mail-in rebate.
If you're looking for a faster card try the SanDisk Ultra II 256 MB Compact Flash Memory Card for $42.94 after $15 mail-in rebate. (9mb/sec transfer rate)

Swiss Army Memory Stick

Coming May... but does the Swiss Army really need a USB memory stick built into a penknife (with light and pen)???, also don't put anything confidential into it as it will be confiscated the first time you try taking it through airport security in your carry-on bag.

Smallest 512mb USB Flash Drive

Pretec have just announced the world's smallest 512mb USB flash drive, just 18mm by 40mm by 9mm (0.72 by 1.6 by 0.36 inches).

Pretec drives arent the cheapest around but they have some great gadgets on their web site including an 8gb compact flash drive, a 80x speed compact flash drive, and a 1gb MMC card!

(thanks engadget)

Current Compact Flash Deals

The rebates we told you about last month expired but a new set have shown up. Her are the current best prices at amazon.com:

256mb Viking Compact Flash for $40.94 after $15.00 mail-in rebate.
512mb Viking Compact Flash for $114.49 (I recommend waiting for a new rebate on this one).
1gb Viking Compact Flash for $218.14 (I recommend waiting for a new rebate on this one).
If you're looking for a faster card try the SanDisk Ultra II 256 MB Compact Flash Memory Card for $57.94. (9mb/sec transfer rate)

Continue reading "Current Compact Flash Deals"

1GB Compact Flash $152

I take a lot of photos and it is great to not have to worry about swapping card around, especially with a high mega-pixel digital camera.

1gb is 64 times the storage capacity of the card typically included when you buy a digital camera: Amazon has just lowered their price to the lowest I've ever seen: $152.04 (after $45 rebate exp 3/31).

Rebate Form Link

Continue reading "1GB Compact Flash $152"

256MB Jumpdrive

Keep your personal files on this little gadget and transfer easily between home and work or college pcs or just keep your files safe if you share a computer with someone else.

Best price I've seen this year: $44.99 at amazon.com (no rebate needed).

512 MB Compact Flash

To go with your S400 Digital Elph you will need a good sized memory card, best deal at the moment is also at Amazon.com: Viking 512MB Compact Flash Card for $70 (after $30 rebate: rebate link).

Update: Currently the #1 seller in electronics on Amazon, backordered 1-2 weeks