Digital Trends
Storage vendor Verbatim is continuing to show it’s serious about the hard drive business, today announcing its new SureFire line of external hard disk drives in 250, 320, and 500 GB capacities. The drives pack not only a USB 2.0 port but also a high-performance FireWire 800 port for transfer rates of up to 800 MB/s…something sure to appeal to MacBook Pro owners tired of poking along at USB 2.0 or FireWire 400 bandwidths.
Notebook users looking for tiny portable drives that pack both capacity and performance have one more option today thanks to Other World Computing: the first 2.5-inch 320GB drive that spins at a desktop-like 7200RPM.
OWC used a TravelStar drive from Hitachi and added a slick transparent enclosure to turn it into a portable storehouse in its Mercury On-the-Go line. The bus-powered (either USB 2.0 or FireWire) design also eliminates the need for an AC adapter, so you can quite literally drop it in your pocket and go.
Iomega isn’t the only company trotting out Mac-friendly storage products at this week’s Apple Expo in Paris: competitors LaCie and WD also want Apple fans to check out their new storage products: a two-disk RAID array and a Mac-formatted My Book Studio Edition, respectively.
Storage and peripheral vendor Iomega is looking to make a big splash at this year’s Apple Expo in Paris, announcing a bevy of new Mac-specific storage products aimed at users of all levels. In addition to featuring designs that look like they could have come right out of Cupertino’s labs, the drives all come pre-formatted with Apple’s HFS+ file system, saving Mac users the annoying hassle of having to reformat drives vendors “helpfully” prep for Windows systems. Each of these drives also ships with EMC’s highly-regarded Retrospect backup software.
Newer Technology yesterday unveiled a new FireWire and USB 2.0 external RAID 1 storage solution for consumers and professional users alike. The Guardian Maximus is priced at around $320 starting for storage configurations ranging from 250GB to 1TB.
The Guardian Maximus is designed to offer a back up solution for one’s data through FireWire 400, FireWire 800 or USB 2.0. It provides "live activity" backup/data redundancy via RAID 1 hardware mirroring by writing the same information in real-time to two separate drives for a "mirrored" copy. Front panel LEDs display drive access and status information.
Newer Technology earlier this week announced the release of a 750GB version of its miniStack V2 FireWire and USB 2.0 combo storage solution designed to be paired with a Mac mini. This latest external hard drive size is priced at $599.99.
The 750GB version, said Newer Technology, is an external FireWire 400/USB 2.0 single-drive solution that also integrates port expanding USB 2.0 and FireWire powered hubs. It has a profile of 6.5
Other World Computing, a maker of Mac related products, earlier this week announced a new 750GB version of its flagship Mercury Elite-AL Pro FireWire 800/400+USB2 external storage solution. This largest size to date is priced at $599.99 and should be available now.
The 750GB version, said OWC, makes use of the latest in perpendicular hard drive technology. Features of thisproduct include a profile size of 9
IEEE 1394, also known as FireWire and Sony’s i.LINK interface, isn’t just for PC’s anymore. According to In-Stat, IEEE 1394 is working its way into more CE products, like your television, DVD player, and set-top boxes. The older 1394a spec which provides 400 Megabits/second of bandwidth, is the interface often being used for new CE products, while the newer, higher bandwidth 1394b which supports 800 Megabit/second of data, is starting to make its way onto PC motherboards.
“Recent member surveys indicate that all the leading CE manufacturers are taking advantage of 1394 as they develop new generations of HDTVs, set top boxes, digital video recorders, and other innovative new products,” says James Snider, executive director of the 1394 Trade Association.
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