Archiving information presents a rather unique problem in the digital age. Sure, everyday consumers not have the capability to store terabytes of information, photos, home movies, and much more in the comfort of their homes—but how do you save that data for posterity? If you’re thinking “burn it to DVD,” you might be out of luck: the National Archives and the Library of Congress say folks should expect home-burned DVDs to remain viable for only two to five years.
Tag Archive: storage
Toshiba Cranks 2.5-inch HDDs to 7,200 RPM and 500 GB
Folks like gamers and serious power users who try to wring every last bit of performance from notebooks know that hard disk drives are often a week link in the chain; since they have to sip less power and take up far less space then their high-performance desktop cousins, they’re often slower, less responsive, and less capacious than high-end users might like—and that makes whole systems start to feel sluggish and unresponsive.
Toshiba Packs 160 GB into Single-Platter 1.8-inch Hard Drives
If there’s one thing digital media consumers are supposed to want, it’s more storage capacity in ever-smaller packages—and Toshiba’s Storage Device Division is willing to comply, today announcing a new series of 1.8-inch hard drives that manage to cram 160 GB of storage onto a single platter. The 1.8-inch form factor is commonly used in devices like portable media players and camcorders that need a large amount of storage in a compact, power-sipping form factor. Although flash-based storage is becoming de rigueur on mobile phones and many media players—and flash-based SSD drives are becoming more common in notebook computers—small hard disk drives still hold the edge in the cost-and-capatcity argument.
LaCie Adds High Definition Its LaCinema Rugged HD
Storage and peripheral maker LaCie continues to push into the digital media space and finding new ways to differentiate its hard drive and storage offerings from the competition. One example of that is the LaCie LaCinema series, which aim to function as media vaults rather than merely conventional storage: users plop their digital video onto the drive, then connect the drives directly to a television or other video output device for playback—no computer or convoluted media management required. LaCie’s new LaCinema Rugged HD adds to the appeal by offering high-definition output: now users can hook up the tiny portable hard drive to any HDTV with an HDMI input and watch high-def content.
Western Digital Pushes My Book World Edition II to 4 TB
For some folks, the storage capacity now available in mainstream and even low-cost computer is more than they will ever need…but for other folks, there’s no such thing as too much storage, whether for movies, video, and music, high-resolution photos, media projects—or even just backup. (You have backed up your computer today, right?) Western Digital is looking to satisfy the storage hungry with a new dual-drive 4TB version of its MyBook World Edition II external hard drive.
Samsung Starts Shipping 32 GB moviNAND Flash
South Korean electronics giant Samsung has announced it is now shipping its 32 GB moviNAND flash storage products, doubling the capacity of its previously high-density 16 GB moviNAND products. The new 32 GB memory is built using a 30 nm process rather than the 40 nm technology used in Samsung’s previous moviNAND products; the upshot is that OEMs now have an option for packing twice as much flash storage in the same area—and that means more music, videos, and data storage for everyone.
LaCie Hops on the Time Machines with New NAS Offerings
Storage and peripheral maker LaCie is no stranger the network-attached storage (NAS) market, and the company has just introduced two new systems intended to offer professional-class reliability and ease of use without breaking budgets…or forcing users to become rocket scientists to get the devices up and running. The new d2 Network and Big Disk Network NAS devices offer streaming media support for UPnP devices, quiet operation with an aluminum heat sink design, and compatibility with Apple’s Time Machine software, built into Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard.
LaCie Gets into Cloud Storage with Wuala
Storage and peripheral vendor LaCie has entered into a deal to merge with the small Swiss cloud storage outfit Wuala, with an eye towards integrating easy-to-use online storage capabilities into LaCie products. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but LaCie will absorb nine Wuala employees.
Wuala bills itself as a social online storage service, enabling users to asily backup and store files online from any location with Internet access, and easily share those items with family, friends, and colleagues. Users have generally responded positively to Wuala’s services; one key feature is that Wuala encrypts all data on the user’s end before it is transfered to online storage, ensuring the data is safe not only once it is up in the “cloud” but also during transit. Users can grant access permissions for each individual folder stored on Wuala, and even let non-Wuala users access files.
LaCie Mints Its Own CurrenKey
Storage and peripheral maker LaCie has rolled out another of its storage solutions with a high-concept design. This time, the idea comes from 5.5 Designers, and transforms the plain, small, simple, boring USB flash drive into…coinage. Users just twist the coin’s edge and out pops a USB connector. The bronze CurrenKeys offer 4 GB of storage, while the silver version can hold up to 8 GB of data.
According to LaCie, the CurrenKeys are designed to be shock-proof, and offer a die-cast metal shell for protection and safety. As well as being stylish and eye-catching, the drives mingle easily in everyday coin purses and pockets, hopefully eliminating the need for lanyards, hooks, clips, or other elaborate mechanisms to hang on to a USB drive.
Hitachi, Intel Partner on High-End SSDs
Storage giant Hitachi and chipmaker Intel have announced plans to develop enterprise-class solid-state drives for use in servers and workstations, using high-performance Serial-Attached SCSI and Fiber Channel interfaces. The companies expect to ship their first products in early 2010…and, if nothing else, the announcement signals both that SSDs are getting closer to the mainstream in storage technology, and hint at what may be coming down the pike for consumer-oriented systems in a year or two.
"The new solid-state drives for the enterprise include a number of architectural breakthroughs and improve performance and energy usage models that will change enterprise computing," said Intel NAND Solutions Group president and general manager Randy Wilhelm, in a statement.
