Storage

LaCie 2TB Ethernet Big Disk network storage

By Gizmag Team

05:59 August 16, 2007 PDT

August 16, 2007 LaCie has boosted the capacity of its Ethernet Big Disk to a massive 2TB in a compact 2x7x11” solution. The 2TB LaCie is designed for centrally storing and sharing files over a network via Ethernet or as a personal hard drive off the network using USB. When connected to a home network, the Big Disk can stream multimedia content to compatible AV adapters and enables simultaneous music and movie playback on a networked theater system. Read More

1 terabyte portable storage solution

By Noel McKeegan

July 2, 2007 The advent of data hungry formats like digital video demand big, fast, practical storage solutions and this latest release from Newer Technology fits the bill. Designed for audio/video editing, digital photography, MP3 libraries and high-speed back up, the miniStack v3 is a quad interface storage device offering transfer rates of up to 150 Megabytes per second and a capacity of up to 1 terabyte (1000GB) – enough for 350,000 MP3 songs. Read More

Inflatable roof-rack installs in minutes

By Noel McKeegan

June 25, 2007 We’ve recently encountered the inflatable washing machine, inflatable home theater and even the inflatable conveyor belt, but the HandiRack inflatable roof rack takes all the points for sheer practicality and widespread appeal. Able to carry up to 80kg, the cleverly designed roof rack can be installed in minutes and stashed away in the boot when not in use to ensure that your car's aerodynamics (and appearance) remain intact. Read More

Blazing-fast HyperDrive4 solid state disk

By Tim Hanlon

June 4, 2007 Got a computing task so brutal that even a roaring Seagate Savvio 15K hard drive won't cut it? The HyperDrive4 is a 5.25" storage device which uses volatile DDR memory instead of a conventional mechanical hard drive. This might sound crazy, but with a variety of supported methods to seamlessly backup and restore the data, you'd be crazy to pass on performance boosts of up to 20,000% (depending on the application of course). Forget about buying additional hardware too - the HyperDrive4 plugs-and-plays with any machine that supports IDE or SATA (that's just about all of them). The catch? A limit of 16GB per HyperDrive4, and a hefty price tag. Read More

Plug-and-play RAID mirrored backup system - easy and affordable data protection

By Loz Blain

May 18, 2007 Data backup and uninterrupted data access becomes quicker, easier and more convenient every day. Now, RAID 1 level backup has become affordable and simple enough to attract the home or small business user. Newertech's latest release, the Guardian MAXimus, is a consumer-priced plug-and-play RAID 1 level backup system that can ensure uninterruped full data accessibility in the event of hard drive failures. Simple to use, it plugs into a FireWire 400, FireWire 800 or USB2 connection and "mirrors" vital data - updates are written simultaneously to the Guardian at the same time as they're written to the primary hard disk. Read More

Hitachi's One Terabyte Hard Drive

By Mike Hanlon

May 7, 2007 Hitachi’s Deskstar 7K1000, announced at CES 2007 as the world’s first one-terabyte hard drive has now been shipping for a month and inventories have reached critical mass. With a suggested retail price of US$400, the drive offers colossal storage capacity and is well-suited for high-performance, gaming and media center PCs and external storage devices. The drive uses perpendicular magnetic recording technology, allowing Hitachi to extend capacity beyond that available in current products. The hard drive features a 3.0Gb/s Serial-ATA (SATA) interface and large 32 MB data buffer to provide the performance required for high-end PC applications. Along with the Deskstar 7K1000 for the retail market, Hitachi has launched the CinemaStar version of the 1TB hard drive, which provides optimised capabilities specifically designed for digital video recording (DVR) applications. Read More

The extremely rugged Flash Survivor

By Mike Hanlon

May 2, 2007 Meet the Flash Survivor – no, it’s not another reality TV show, but one of the most rugged USB drives we’ve ever seen. The US$130 8GB Survivor is water-resistant to 200 metres (650 ft), encased in a CNC (Computer Numerical Control) milled aluminum (as found in aircraft part production) case, and being solid-state, it’s incredibly shock-proof anyway. Additional protection from shock and vibration is achieved through the use of rubber moulded collar shielding which absorbs the impact force to prevent damage to the inner drive and the USB connector, making it ideal to safely store information in the most demanding environments. Read More

TrekStor’s 3-in-1 hard disk

By Mike Hanlon

March 13, 2007 TrekStor will be presenting an interesting new external hard disk at CeBIT 2007 in Hanover later this week. Best known as a manufacturer hard disks, USB sticks and the world’s most expensive MP3 player, it’s latest creation is a 3.5 inch hard disk with integrated 9 format card reader compatible with anything from SD to compact flash memory cards plus dual USB 2.0 hub. Indeed, the DataStation maxi t.uch can automatically back up of its own data. Read More

Adtron introduces 160 GB Solid State Flash Disk

By Mike Hanlon

February 23, 2007 It was just a month ago that we were reporting on the sudden jump in Solid State Disk (SSD) capacity with a 32 GB disk appearing nine months ago, then a 64 GB and a 128 GB drive being shown at CES behind closed doors. With the price of NAND flash dropping quickly, SSDs are continuing their rise with the news that Adtron is offering immediate availability of its latest and most advanced generation of the Adtron Flashpak Family of products, including the IDE and Serial ATA (SATA) flash disk models, the I25FB and A25FB, respectively. The products include the industry’s highest capacity 2.5” SLC NAND flash disk drives at 160 GBytes. Read More

Seagate Savvio - the world's fastest hard drive spins at 15,000 rpm

By Mike Hanlon

January 18, 2007 Yesterday we wrote about the coming of the Solid State Drive and today we’re reporting that Seagate has further pushed the limits of current drive technology with the introduction of the world's fastest hard drive - the Savvio 15K drive is a new addition to the Savvio family of 2.5-inch Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) enterprise drives and it’s aptly named because it spins at 15,000 rpm. The drive's unique combination of features include its 70 percent smaller size, lower power consumption, industry's fastest seek time and the industry's highest reliability. Read More

Solid State Disks gather momentum - 32 GB, 64 GB and now 128GB

By Mike Hanlon

January 17, 2007 With flash storage technology catching up to traditional disc platter storage devices and the price of NAND flash dropping quickly, Solid State Disks (SSD) look set to finally make their mark in 2007. It’s only eight months since we reported on Samsung’s World first PC with NAND flash-based solid state disk – a 32 GB affair. Then, at CES last week, Sandisk announced a 32GB 1.8-inch SSD and now Taiwanese manufacturer PQI has announced a 64GB 2.5-inch SSD which will be available before the end of 2007. A-DATA showed a 128GB 2.5-inch SSD behind closed doors at CES according to the Enquirer. Read More

Iomega’s 560GB desktop storage solution

By Mike Hanlon

November 17, 2006 Iomega’s Second Generation Desktop REV Loader 560 is shipping and as you can see from the piccie, it really looks the goods. The autoloader provides access to 560GB of native storage (or 1.12TB of compressed capacity) by managing up to eight removable 70GB REV disks in a compact desktop form factor. The new REV Loader 560 is 18cm tall and 13cm wide and offers a total backup and archive solution for small businesses by bundling with each REV Loader 560 a license for CA BrightStor ARCserve Backup for Windows, including support for disaster recovery. It hence offers an automated backup device at a street price of around US$1,600 with 70GB disks at US$69 each or in four-packs for US$250. Importantly, it offers an alternative to tape backup products that rely on very slow linear-access technology, delivering up to 30MB/sec data transfer rates with random access capability, which is up to 10 times faster than many tape alternatives such as DAT-72. Read More

New removable disk-based storage device

By Mike Hanlon

October 11, 2006 The new RDX QuikStor looks like it’s worth a look for the power users amongst us as it has a 30 MB/sec transfer rate and can hence back up 80 GB of native data in less than an hour. It’s a disk-based storage device with removable cartridges and combines all the advantages of tape with the instant random access of a hard disk, and is claimed to come in at a lower cost than competing low-end tape solutions. Cartridges come in 40 GB, 80 GB and 120 GB capacities and are fully forward and backward compatible without limitation, meaning that future cartridges with ever-increasing capacities and faster data rates will work in legacy systems. The drive costs US$354 and MSRP for the cartridges starts at $139. Read More

Seagate sets new magnetic recording density record of 421 Gbits Per Square Inch

By Mike Hanlon

September 19, 2006 Seagate Technology has claimed a world magnetic recording density record of 421 Gbits per square inch (421 Gbit/in2) using perpendicular recording heads and media created with currently available production equipment. Dr. Mark Kryder of Seagate unveiled the findings during his keynote presentation at the IDEMA DISKCON show in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the hard drive. We are very fortunate to be able to include Dr. Kryder’s entire slide presentation in our image library – some remarkable information and insights into the past, present and future of the hard disk drive – including forecasts that by 2014 we’ll have 200GB one inch drives and 12 terabyte 3.5 inch drives. Read More

The Hard Disk Drive turns 50

By Mike Hanlon

September 14, 2006 Awww shucks – we missed another birthday. Yesterday was the big FIVE OH of the hard disk drive, as on September 13, 1956, IBM shipped the 305 RAMAC. The 305 was the first magnetic hard disk for data storage, and RAMAC (Random Access Method of Accounting and Control) technology became the industry standard in short order. The storage capacity of the 305's 50 two-foot diameter disks was 5 megabytes of data, cost tens of thousands of dollars a year to lease and weighed in at more than a ton (that's it pictured with the girl on top). Just to put it all in perspective, the modern computer is 60 (born February 14, 1946), the colour television is also 50 (born July, 1954), the digital camera is 30 (born October 7, 1975), the Apple II that became the first successful mass-produced PC is 29 (born April 17, 1977), the Sony Walkman (arguably the first identifiable forefather of the MP3 player) is 27 (born July 1, 1979), the IBM PC that started the whole IBM PC-compatible boom is 25 (born August 12, 1981), the computer virus is 20 (first known occurrence January, 1986), the MP3 is just 11 (born July 14, 1995) and the banner advert is 11 (born October 25, 1994). The first computer? Try 184 years old, for Charles Babbage’s programmable, steam-powered, “difference engine” and the world’s first computer programmer (Babbage's assistant and daughter of English poet Lord Byron, Augusta Ada King, the Countess of Lovelace) would be 191. Some excellent piccies in the image library with this story. Read More

Ultra-compact, 12GB USB drive for US$169

By Mike Hanlon

September 14, 2006 We’re not sure what Freud would say about our fascination with small things, but PNY Technologies new MaxFile Attache has really got us excited. Just how much data can you fit into something so small it'd be easy to lose? The tiny USB 2.0 hard drive offers 12GB of storage space and it’s so small that three of them will sit on a standard-sized business card and still only rise 1cm above the desk. That’s 2.4 x 1.25 x 0.4 inches or 6.1 x 3.1 x 1.00 cm and that really is small. Clearly designed to offer portability to all that must-have data at all times, the Attache includes backup and synchronization software so users can sync everything from their e-mail, documents, favorites and settings wherever they go. PNY's MaxFile Attache goes on sale tomorrow with an MSRP of US$169. Read More

TrekStor introduces 8GB USB Stick

By Mike Hanlon

August 18, 2006 German storage manufacturer TrekStor has introduced a USB stick with eight gigabytes of storage. Measuring about twice the width of current USB sticks, though thinner and shorter, the new TrekStor Model CS-D stick is available in six (US$140) and eight (US$180) gigabyte models. The CS-D is 1.25 inches wide, 0.375 inches thick, and 2.5 inches long including the cover but does NOT use flash memory, employing a miniature shock-mounted one-inch hard drive. The CS-D weighs less than an ounce and is intended for same daily use as flash-technology memory products. Read More

Bite-sized Micro Vault USB Drive

By Mike Hanlon

July 17, 2006 Personal storage devices continue to get smaller as can be seen from this picture of Sony’s "byte-sized" Micro Vault Tiny drive family. We’re fascinated by the continued evolution of the personal solid state drive in its many forms and wonder where it might lead given a few years. About the thickness of a quarter, Micro Vault Tiny differs from its peers on several fronts, the most obvious being its tiny size, and five color-coded capacities -- 256MB (orange), 512MB (violet), 1GB (blue), 2GB (green) and 4GB (purple). Measuring roughly 1/2 inch wide and just over one inch long, the unit comes packaged in a clip-on carry case that can be worn as an accessory, attaching to a cell phone case, purse strap, key chain, or clipped onto a notebook cover. Read More

Vanadium Redox Energy Storage System

By Mike Hanlon

April 20, 2006 In a significant development, Magnetek and VRB have announced a significant new multi-purpose 5kW energy storage as an alternative to traditional lead-acid battery backup systems. Housed in a ZONE-4 certified NEMA 3R type enclosure, Magnetek's 5kW Vanadium Redox Battery Energy Storage System (VRB-ESS) backup power system is comprised of a storage tank containing a vanadium-based electrolyte, flow-cell stacks, and pump system and provides cost effective, reliable and environmentally friendly backup power. Virtually maintenance-free, it affords substantially lower cost of ownership than lead-acid battery-based systems and provides unprecedented security-of-supply to meet the energy needs of a variety of applications. Read More

Holographic storage demonstrates 515 Gigabits Per Square Inch Data Density

By Mike Hanlon

April 16, 2006 Holographic data storage pioneer InPhase Technologies, has announced that it has demonstrated the highest data density of any commercial technology by recording 515 gigabits of data per square inch. Holographic storage is a departure from existing recording methods because it takes advantage of volumetric efficiencies rather than only recording on the surface of the material and the industry’s first holographic drive will reach market later this year. The first generation drive will have a capacity of 300 gigabytes on a single disk with a 20 megabyte per second transfer rate. The first product will be followed by a family ranging from 800GB to 1.6 TB capacity. Read More

The ezVue Storage System

By Mike Hanlon

March 31, 2006 The ezVue is a storage system designed to capitalise on limited space by creating multiple shelves within a single drawer – it’s a bit hard to exp-lain without seeing it, but we hope these diagrams make it clear – it’s actually a very clever and effective storage and organisation product with great potential for the office products market. The clever bit is the patented hinge system and the inventor is currently seeking investors or potential licensees to deliver the product to market. Read More

New flash drive with scrollable display of stored files plus SD Card Reader/Writer

By Mike Hanlon

March 28, 2006 More innovative thought is being focussed on the flash drive than we thought possible, because every week or so, we seem to run another story about an important new design feature incorporated into a flash drive. This week it’s a USB 2.0 Flash/Jump drive with a scrollable window display enabling consumers to view stored file names without a computer connection. The Royal EZVue Vista Drive will be available in of 256MB (US$50), 512MB (US$80) and 1GB (US$100) memory sizes plus there’s what we think will be a killer app – a US$30 SD Card Reader/Writer with the same scrolling display, offering a wide-range of really useful applications including digital photography and music storage. On-the-go consumers can now easily find the files they want in a muddle of SD cards. Read More

World’s largest flash drive – 16GB

By Mike Hanlon

March 11, 2006 Iocell Korea released the world’s largest flash drive at CeBIT this week – a 16GB version of the company’s Celldisk. The drive is the same size as other flash drives, though the drive is USB 2.0 compliant. There’s no indication of the availability or price just yet. Read More

Developments in convenient personal storage continue

By Mike Hanlon

February 27, 2006 Just how many different form factors can personal storage take? We’re often amazed at the ingenuity of storage manufacturers in striving for bigger, faster, more convenient and simply devilishly clever new form factors, and we saw a few of them at this weekend’s PMA show in sunny Florida. Not new (but bigger) is the US$134.99 SanDisk 2 GB Ultra II SD Plus card, that looks and functions like a typical SD card but folds in half to reveal a high-speed USB 2.0 connector. Going one better was Pretec, which offered the first look at the both the world’s fastest CF Card and a flash drive with built-in card reader. The Pretec 133X CF Card is capable of running at up to 20MB/sec and 14MB/sec of access speed in read & write. The Pretec e-Disk II+ is an expandable USB flash drive with an embedded 512MB flash memory (default) which can be expanded to 4.5GB by simply inserting an optional SD/MMC card Read More

Infrant Technologies Releases new ReadyNAS NV Network Attached Storage Product.

By Mike Hanlon

February 6, 2006 Infrant Technologies has just released an new addition to their already excellent ReadyNAS line of small NAS servers, the ReadyNAS NV. As digital life requires ever more personal digital storage, maybe it’s time to look at one of the new Network Attached Storage (NAS) devices now available – think of these as personal and small business equivalents to the large files servers that corporations use. Of the devices that we've seen, Infrant Technologies' ReadyNAS 600/X6, and their new ReadyNAS NV have impressed us the most. Dave Weinstein had the chance to test the new NV device and found it was smaller than its predecessor with hot swappable drives and a faster processor. Infrant even supports UPNP-AV (universal plug-and-play audio visual extensions), so when you store all your music on your ReadyNAS, you'll be able to access it from your media PC or media center extender or any other device compatible with the standard. Read More