Upgrade Notebook HDD or SSD Easier with SATA Wire

Topic:

There are a number of hard drive and SSD upgrade kits floating around for notebooks and netbooks. The catch is that many users simply don’t have the understanding needed to transfer all of their files over to the new drive. Apricorn has a new upgrade kit to make the transfer easier called the SATA Wire.

The SATA Wire sells for $19.99 and is a cable that plugs into your SATA SSD or HDD on one end and then plugs into the USB port of your notebook on the other to transfer data. The upgrade kit also includes cloning software that makes it easy to move all your data over. Read more

Posted on Thu, 19 Nov 2009 05:45:26 CST | by Shane McGlaun

Seagate Cheetah NS.2 And Cheetah 15K.7 HDD Review

Topic:

LanOC published a review of the Seagate Cheetah NS.2 and Cheetah 15K.7 hard-drives.
Quote from the review: "This spring I took a look at the 15k RPM Savvio drives from Seagate, a 2.5 inch high speed hard drives designed for server use. Read more

Posted on Sat, 31 Oct 2009 17:00:00 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

Hitachi Unveils Two Enterprise HDDs

Topic:

Hitachi has announced a pair of new hard drives for enterprise users today called the Ultrastar C15K147 and the Ultrastar 15K600. The C15K147 is Hitachi's first 15,000 RPM 2.5-inch 6Gb/s SCSI SAS HDD. The 15K600 is a 3.5-inch drive connectable via 6Gb/s SAS or 4Gb/s FCAL.

The 15K600 HDD spins at 15,000 RPM and has a 3.5-inch form factor for 33% more storage space compared to the previous generation drives. The drive is designed for high intensity environments and has a 64MB cache. The drive comes in 300GB, 450GB, and 600GB capacities. Read more

Posted on Tue, 13 Oct 2009 11:00:00 CDT | by Shane McGlaun

HDD Compared To SSD On Acer Aspire One D250 Netbook

Topic:

If you are still not convinced that an SSD upgrade is really beneficial in terms of overall performance like I am already, here is another comparison. I have upgraded an old but still sexy Thinkpad X40 with an SSD and the result is awesome. Also just recently I replaced the boot HDD on my Windows XP Desktop with an SSD and the resulting performance gains are dramatic.

iGadgetLive compared the overall performance of an Acer Aspire One D250 netbook between HDD and SSD.
Quote: "My Acer Aspire One D250 came with a standard mechanical hard drive, and recently I acquired another SSD drive so I figured why not swap the HDD out for the SSD as that seems the popular way to go these days. Now I knew the read and write speeds of the SSD would be much faster than the lowly 5400RPM hard drive, but I was curious as to how much of an actual affect it had on the system as a whole though. I wanted to know just how much an SSD affects everything in the system and not just the transfer rates or read/writes. Read more

Posted on Tue, 29 Sep 2009 01:46:09 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

Seagate Barracuda XT 2TB SATA III HDD With 6Gb/s Unveiled

Topic:

Seagate announced that it is first to ship a SATA III desktop hard-drive with the Seagate Barracuda XT 2TB SATA III HDD (ST32000641AS).
The Seagate Barracuda XT is a 7200RPM HDD featuring 2TB of storage capacity and the new blazing fast Serial ATA (SATA) 6Gb/second interface. Of course to leverage the new speeds you need a new motherboard with a SATA III interface like the recently announced Asus P7P55D Premium. Read more

Posted on Mon, 21 Sep 2009 13:05:29 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

Toshiba Unveils 500GB 2.5-inch HDD

Topic:

Toshiba has announced a new HDD called the MKXX56GSY that is available in 500GB capacity. The line now offers drives with 160GB, 250GB, and 320GB capacities as well. The 500GB drive has two platters and a maximum areal density of 395 Gb/in2.

The average seek time for the drive is 11ms and it spins at 7200 rpm. The interface is SATA 3Gb/s and the drive measures 69.85mm x 100mm x 9.5mm. 115g. The drive can withstand shocks of 325G while operating and 900G when not operating. Read more

Posted on Thu, 17 Sep 2009 11:00:00 CDT | by Shane McGlaun

Hitachi Unveils New CinemaStar HDDs

Topic:

Hitachi has announced new HDDs that are being added to its CinemaStar family. The new drives include 3.5-inch HDDs that use 500GB per platter technology and include the 1TB CinemaStar 7K1000.C and the 1TB CinemaStar 5K1000 CoolSpin drive.

Both of the drives are for use in video applications like DVRs and are intended for streaming video in HD formats with quiet operation and low temperatures. The 1TB drives can store nearly 250 hours of MPEG-4 video in HD resolution. Read more

Posted on Thu, 10 Sep 2009 06:15:46 CDT | by Shane McGlaun

Samsung Offers 640GB 2.5-inch HDD

Topic:

Samsung has unveiled its latest hard drive offering. The drive is the 2.5-inch 640GB SpinPoint M7. The drive is designed to be used inside of notebook computers and other devices with room for a 2.5-inch HDD.

The new HDD uses platters with 320GB of storage each offering 516-gigaibt per square inch of data. That is a 28% increase in density per platter compared to Samsung's previous 500GB HDD. The drive is also designed to survive bumps and shocks with the ability to withstand 400G while operating and 900G when power is off. Read more

Posted on Wed, 9 Sep 2009 12:00:00 CDT | by Shane McGlaun

Hitachi Ships First 2TB HDD

Topic:

Hitachi has announced that it is now shipping the industry's first 2TB HDD. The drive spins at 7200 rpm and uses low power along with eco features to receive the Energy-Star rating. The drive uses five platters to reach its 2TB capacity.

Other features of the drive include perpendicular magnetic recording technology, a 32MB cache, and the drive uses the 3Gb/s SATA interface. Hitachi says that the power saving features of the new 2TB drive allow it to offer 10% better power savings at idle that with previous designs. Read more

Posted on Thu, 6 Aug 2009 06:18:15 CDT | by Shane McGlaun

Toshiba Jumps into External HDDs

Topic:

Toshiba announced today that it was getting into the external storage market with a new 3.5-inch external HDD. The drive offers software features and 1TB of storage space. Connectivity options on the drive include USB and eSATA.

The included software allows users to select the specific files they want to backup and automates the process. The drive has a slim form factor designed to take up less desktop space and is compatible with both Mac and PC systems. Read more

Posted on Wed, 29 Jul 2009 09:00:00 CDT | by Shane McGlaun

Samsung Announces 500GB per Platter HDDs

Topic:

Samsung has announced a new line of HDDs for servers and desktop PCs that have 500GB of storage per platter. The drives are aimed at high-end computing environments and are called the Spinpoint F3. The drive spins at 7200rpm.

The first F3 drive will be a 1TB drive needing only two platters to reach that capacity. In addition to high capacity the drives also have high-performance and low power consumption. Read more

Posted on Wed, 29 Jul 2009 06:17:29 CDT | by Shane McGlaun

Verbatim Introduces SureFire External HDD

Topic:

Verbatim has announced its new line of portable hard drives called the Surefire line that offer FireWire 800 and USB connectivity. The new line of drives is available in multiple capacities including 250GB, 320GB, and 500GB.

The drives work with Windows and Mac computers and they have a single USB 2.0 port and a FireWire 800 port capable of data speeds up to 800MB/s. The USB connection option requires no AC adapter for power. Read more

Posted on Thu, 16 Jul 2009 09:00:00 CDT | by Shane McGlaun

Apricorn Unveils 240GB HDD Upgrade Kit

Topic:

Apricorn has unveiled its new upgrade kit for the 5th generation video iPod music players. The new upgrade kit allows owners to add 240GB of storage to their video iPod. The larger storage drive also needs less power than the original drive in the iPod.

That means that while you gain storage space you also get more battery life for your device. Overall improvement in energy efficiency compared to the original drive is 33%. Read more

Posted on Wed, 1 Jul 2009 09:00:00 CDT | by Shane McGlaun

Hot HD HDD Camcorder: Canon VIXIA HG20 Camcorder

Topic:

If you are not a Flip guy then you should check out the Canon VIXIA HG20 AVCHD 60 GB HDD Camcorder with 12x Optical Zoom.

The Canon VIXIA HG20 is a high definition AVCHD hard disk drive camcorder delivering optimal image quality, long shooting times along with the extraordinary ease and versatility when viewing video on television or a computer. With this, you can record up to 22 hours of High Definition video to a 60 GB Hard Disk Drive. It comes with a 3.3 megapixel full HD CMOS sensor (1920 x 1080) and a DIGIC DV II image processor. It features Canon's SuperRange optical image stabilizer and a genuine Canon 12x High Definition video lens. The HG20 features the latest HD technology and the excellence in Canon optics and engineering in a compact, sleek design that delivers the high level of performance. Read more

Posted on Sun, 28 Jun 2009 11:00:00 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

Amex HD Media Player and NAS Venice-V38HD with 2TB HDD unveiled

Topic:

Amex Digital unveiled the HD Media Player Venice-V38HD featuring a 2TB HDD.
The Venice V38HD is a funky little box combining media player and backup solution.
Features of the Amex HD Media Player Venice-V38HD include DVD drive, 2TB HDD, HDMI out, LCD display and remote control, DVD Backup, CD-RIP, Line-in Record, H.264, MPEG1/2/4, XVID WMV9 and more video formats supported.
On the network side the box supports NAS, NFC, Upnp and FTP. Read more

Posted on Fri, 29 May 2009 01:57:59 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

Iomega Announces New eGo Portable HDDs

Topic:

Iomega makes a full line of storage products ranging from network-attached storage to flash drives and external hard drives. The company has announced the availability of its new generation of eGo portable hard drives with a new look and a bundled protection suite.

The new drives are USB powered requiring no external power supply and are available in four colors with capacities of up to 500GB. The protection suite features McAfee VirusScan Plus to protect PCs from virus infections that could compromise data. Read more

Posted on Tue, 19 May 2009 10:00:00 CDT | by Shane McGlaun

Toshiba and Fujitsu Agree on HDD Business Transfer

Topic:

Toshiba and Fujitsu have announced an agreement today that will have Fujitsu transferring its HDD operations businesses to Toshiba. The agreement comes after the signing of an agreement on February 17, 2009.

The two companies plan to have the transfer finished by July 1, 2009. The Fujitsu operations will be transferred to a new Toshiba company called Toshiba Storage Device Corporation. The assets and multiple storage companies held by Fujitsu will all become part of the new company. Read more

Posted on Thu, 30 Apr 2009 06:30:54 CDT | by Shane McGlaun

New Samsung Spinpoint M7 500GB 2.5 inch rugged HDD unveiled

Topic:

Samsung unveiled a new high capacity Spinpoint M7 HDD for laptops. The new 500GB 2.5-inch hard disk drive features a shock operation tolerance of 400G/2ms.
The Samsung Spinpoint M7 500GB 2.5-inch hard drive with 250GB per platter also features a rugged base and cover design, offering better data protection for road warriors and other mobile laptop users. Read more

Posted on Tue, 21 Apr 2009 02:00:00 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

Hitachi Unveils Power Efficient Enterprise HDD

Topic:

Hitachi has announced a new enterprise class hard drive called the Ultrastar C10K300 that is intended for use in servers where power efficiency is necessary. The new drive comes in capacities from 147GB to 300GB and spins at 10,000 rpm for high performance.

The new drive has a 2.5-inch form factor and takes up 75% less space than 3.5-inch drives while consuming 65% less power. Advanced power management features allow the drive to operate on 3.4 watts at idle and 6.1 watts in active mode. Read more

Posted on Tue, 24 Mar 2009 06:24:21 CDT | by Shane McGlaun

Freecom Unveils Tough External HDD

Topic:

Freecom has announced what it claims to be the toughest external hard drive yet. The drive is called the ToughDrive Sport and it is a durable, shock-resistant 2.5-inch external HDD. The drive has a loop on one corner to make it easy to attach to a belt or backpack.

The drive promises to stand up to drops from up to two meters and is protected against weather conditions for outdoors types. Exactly why you would take your hard drive, hiking is beyond me. The drive requires no external power adapter needing only a single USB connection. Read more

Posted on Thu, 19 Mar 2009 09:00:00 CDT | by Shane McGlaun

JVC Everio G GZ-MG670 HDD Review

Topic:

Our review partner Digital Trends published a review of the JVC Everio G GZ-MG670 hard-drive camcorder.
Quote from the review: "The first of the new 2009 camcorders are finally hitting stores. Unlike the onslaught of low-priced (sub $200) video capture devices like the entry-level Flip Mino, models such as the GZ-MG670 have critical things like zoom lenses, better picture quality, bigger LCD screens and tons of others creature comforts that make them at least twice as expensive - but still much better deals in our view. Take the just released MG670 for example: It has a 35x optical zoom, a 2.7-inch widescreen LCD and 80GB storage (19 hours at best 720 x 480 pixel quality). Compare this to a Flip Mino with no zoom, a poor 1.5-inch screen and 640 x 480 clip quality. Basically, there is no comparison. However, the Flip and its brethren are extremely compact, and made for video sharing on YouTube. Both are features millions want and use every day. Read more

Posted on Wed, 25 Feb 2009 16:00:00 CST | by Luigi Lugmayr