One Stop Data Storage

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If you’ve ever had your hard drive crash, you know that losing you data is devastating! Currently, we’re limited to cloud storage or saving on an external hard drive to back up. However, there seems to be a great disconnect between the two. “Y” is an external SSD hard drive that is here to streamline your digital world by giving you the ability to access, save, edit, and erase from any connected device.

This expandable, customizable hard drive stores your irreplaceable in a secure, convenient, user-friendly way. The drive opens easily and can be unlocked by sliding your finger around the LED display in the center or directly from the downloaded iPhone app. In seconds, Y gives you the ability to insert or remove up to six SSD drives, customizing the size of your external drive.

Y offers the fastest data transfer speeds possible via USB-C or Bluetooth. It also features a fast save option for SD cards for when you are in a hurry and your card is already full. It will quickly save these files in a folder of which you may choose the location. Capable of being mounted on a wall or placed at the center of a communal desk, Y is also extremely convenient in the workplace, allowing colleagues to simultaneously access, edit, and save important data or designs. Save locally, in the cloud, or both!

Designer: Adrian Berr

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Seagate Drive Hub for Xbox One Review: Flawless Performance for Gamers

We’ve had an Xbox One in my house since the console launched a few years back, and as most penny pinchers do, we bought the console with the smallest amount of storage space available. At the time, downloading games wasn’t very high on our radar and we figured we would never fill up the internal storage. Famous last words.

Fast forward a few months and the internal drive was full and my son was feasting on season passes and downloaded games and griping all the while that he was having to delete stuff for each new game we added. This led to a long hunt for external hard drive that would perform well with the console.

Again, being a cheapskate and assuming that any old USB drive would work, I learned a hard lesson. Yes, any USB drive I plugged into the console “worked” as in it would let me store stuff and most often access that stuff. The myriad of external desktop drives that I tried would connect when we started the console in the morning, and then not connect in the afternoon after turning it off for a few hours. We were constantly rebooting the console and unplugging and plugging the external hard drive. Then Seagate reached out and offered me a review unit of the new 8TB Game Drive Hub for Xbox.

I’ll tell you straight away I’d have looked right past this drive at $239.99 being the Mr. Krabs type. This is another of those life lessons in that you most certainly get what you pay for. I’ve had this drive for months now and my son spends many hours each week playing the console and we have had not one single issue with connectivity. The drive came in for review way back in July, I promptly plugged it in and it was so trouble free I absolutely forgot I had it installed (sorry Seagate!).

This is a huge deal, as we went from nearly daily reboots and fits over the old hard drive not connecting, to five months of trouble-free perfection with the Seagate Drive Hub. I can’t tell you how big a deal that is for a family that is constantly downloading games, movies, and other content on the Xbox One. We previously worried with each use of the console that it would be a half hour fight with our old external hard drive to get things going.

Installing the 8TB drive is as easy as you think it will be, plug in the AC power, plug in the included USB 3.0 cable and you are good to go. The drive was immediately recognized and worked perfectly from the minute it was connected. This is an officially licensed Xbox One storage drive and gives you a pair of USB 3.0 ports on the front, so you don’t lose any connectivity either.

Speaking of connectivity, I can’t tell in the least when a game is running off the Game Drive Hub or the internal HDD of the console. The best accolade that I can muster for the Seagate Drive Hub for Xbox One is that it works so well, you will forget you even have it. The 8TB of space means no having to delete stuff when you want to add new games and content. The 8TB Seagate Drive Hub for Xbox is money very well spent.

Hard Drive Starship Enterprise: Disk Space, The Final Frontier

Between its circular bridge and oblong warp nacelles, the Starship Enterprise is one of the most iconic spaceships in the history of science fiction. Whether you love the NCC-1701 in its original or its many other variants, they all share these common elements. But if you ask me, the NCC-1701-A is my favorite, since it honored the design from The Original Series best, while still updating its look. Fans of this version will dig this cool handmade model of the USS Enterprise, crafted from old computer parts.

Artist shankalonian makes a variety of neat desktop sculptures by recycling disused bits of computers and other electronic devices. In this case, the Enterprise was built using a hard drive platter for its primary hull and main bridge, and a pair of PCI card slots as its warp nacelles.

The model will set you back $100 over on shakalonian’s Etsy shop, where you can also find such wonderful things as recycled computer part models of an X-Wing Fighter, a B-52 bomber, and an awesomely teensy motorcycle.

The Floppotron Plays “Eye of the Tiger”

Survivor’s Eye of the Tiger will always be associated with Rocky III. After all, it was the theme song for 1982 boxing flick, in which Sly throws down with Mr. T. Given its era, it only make sense that the track would sound pretty darned good played on old computer equipment.

Paweł Zadrożniak’s computerized band is known as The Floppotron, and it’s known for playing many hits, using its array of old floppy drives, hard drives, scanners, and other bits of vintage electronic gear. The scanners make for an especially effective lead vocal and guitar track, while the floppies provide harmonies, and the hard drives thrash around as the rhythm section. Check it out:

Be sure to check out Paweł’s YouTube channel for lots of other Floppotron covers. My personal favorites are Europe’s The Final Countdown and Gorillaz’ Feel Good, Inc.

Long live the floppy!

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The Floppy is an iconic symbol of data storage and always will be. However the fact that it’s now rendered obsolete tends to hurt its image. The 1Tb Diskette was designed to keep the idea of a floppy up and running for the years to come. Designed to be a regular data storage device (solid state drive, I assume) but to visually resemble the Floppy Disk, the 1Tb Diskette is sure to give every pre-millenial nerd a ride on the feels express!

Designer: Jinwoo Han

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Deal: Save 20% on the Dubbler Dock Pro 2-Bay Hard Drive Cloning Dock

Need to transfer data between two hard drives in a snap? The Dyconn Dubbler Dock Pro has got you covered. This dock lets you connect a pair of SATA SSD or hard drives for easy data transfer and more.

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Not only can you do standalone 1:1 clones between drives, but you can use it to securely wipe drives with NSA/DoD level security. The dock also lets you connect drives to your computer for everyday storage. The included software also lets you shrink partitions and copy data to smaller size drives if needed.

Normally, the Dubbler Dock Pro sells for $100, but we’ve got it on sale in the Technabob Shop now for just $79.99.

Deal: Save 49% on Drive Genius 4 Mac Disk Repair & Optimization Software

Mac users, get your hard drive in order with Drive Genius 4. This comprehensive diagnostic and repair software makes short work of hard drive performance issues.

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The software not only can repair, but can proactively monitor for potential hard drive problems. It can also optimize and speed up your drive, and help clean up files you don’t need, including duplicates and large files you didn’t know were there.

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Normally priced at $99, Drive Genius 4 is currently on sale in the Technabob Shop for just $49.99.