Tag Archives: hard drives

This Circuit Board Makes Your SSD Sound Like an Old Hard Drive

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The brainchild of Matthias Werner, the HDD Clicker 2.0 is a tiny computer board that attaches to your solid state drive (SSD) and makes it sound like an old platter-style hard disk drive (HDD). And it doesn’t just make the sounds all willy-nilly either; it only does it when your hard drive is actually reading or writing. +1 for realism!

The board is plugged into and powered by your motherboard via a Mini-Molex connector. At the same time, an ATTiny microcontroller “monitors your SSD’s activity, and a piezoelectric speaker produces a ‘hard drive noise’ whenever your SSD reads or writes data.” How about that! But can it make the sound of the disk arm vainly moving back and forth on a failed disk drive?

Admittedly, just the other day, I got to thinking my computer was way too quiet. And that’s when I realized it had crashed on me. Now I just need an app that creates a blue screen of death animation whenever my computer throws an error, and this nostalgic trip down memory lane will be complete!

[via ReviewGeek]

Deal Of The Day: 56% Off On Monster Digital 128GB Solid-State Portable Hard Drive

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Carrying large amounts of data around used to be expensive, and transfer rates were often slow. But SSDs have changed the game somewhat. Now that they’re everywhere, prices of course start coming down. The Monster Digital 128GB Solid-State Portable Hard Drive is quick, spacious, and above all, inexpensive.

Storing your hard drive safely in your closet does you little good when you’re on-the-go—but sticking to the Cloud can end in a hacker catastrophe. There’s no better solution for this classic tech dilemma than the spacious Monster Overdrive, storing 128 GB of data—that’s up to 1280 hours of video or 49,000 photos. Plus, even if a thief swipes your device hoping for your credit card numbers and identity details, joke’s on them. Monster Encrypt™ software encrypts your data so it’s completely unreadable by anyone but yourself.

– Get higher reliability than w/ rotating hard drives
– Transfer data quicker than ever before (an HD movie transfers in just 30 seconds)
– Protect your data w/ 256-bit AES Security
– Simply plug in to your Mac or PC to use
– Store photos, videos, files & more
– View transfer status w/ LED indicatory
– Easily take it on travel thanks to the compact & light design
– Detach the USB 3.0 cable when needed elsewhere
– Utilize the pre-installed Monster Encrypt™ file security

Normally you’d be asked to pay $80 for this, but after today’s deal, it’s $34.99!

[ Get The Monster Digital 128GB Solid-State Portable Hard Drive ]

Deal: Save 43% on the Monster Overdrive SSD Portable Hard Drive

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Need a little extra storage? This 128 GB external SSD from Monster Digital will give you that extra space you need for photos, videos and other files, and let you transfer data at lightning fast speeds.

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The Monster Overdrive 128GB SSD offers greater reliability and performance than mechanical hard drives, and is plug-and-play compatible with Macs and PCs via its USB 3.0 connection. Monster also includes encryption software to ensure your files are protected from hackers. Priced at just $44.99 in the Technabob Shop, it’s also a great bargain.

This Exists: Samsung’s 16TB SSD

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1TB and 2TB hard drives are pretty common these days. What isn’t, is a 16TB SSD. That is pretty insane, and it’s exactly what Samsung recently announced. The PM1633a features 500 256 gigabit (32 gigabyte) NAND flash chips crammed inside a 2.5 inch enclosure, albeit one with twice the thickness as a standard 2.5 inch hard drive found in laptops. This gives it a total capacity of 15.36TB, which Samsung feels comfortable calling “about 16TB”. It’s really impressive, and we expect the price to be equally as impressive; considering the drive was demonstrated in a server packed with 48 of them (totally a jaw dropping 768TB, operating at “2,000,000 IOPS (input/output operations per second). By comparison, the consumer-grade SSD that you have in your PC is probably capable of around 10,000-90,000 IOPS, depending on the workload.”), it’s clear the drive is targeted at enterprise customers who will have less trouble justifying its rumoured $5,000 price tag. Exact pricing and availability haven’t been announced yet, however.

[ Ars Technica ] VIA [ DamnGeeky ]

HDD Watches Look Cool, Just Tell Time

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We’re used to seeing smart watches in the news, but the HDDWatch is nothing of the sort. It just shows time, and pretty much nothing else. But it does so with the innards of a 1 inch hard drive. Considering memory cards have pretty much taken over, old disc-based drives have dramatically dropped in price, so you’ll be able to get a HDDWatch for €150, or about $184. It’s actually €100 ($123) as an Early Bird if you don’t mind wearing it on the right wrist, because all the left wrist Early Bird watches have sold. It’s a project from Frenchman Jean Jérôme, and the Indiegogo is fully funded.

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[ Project Page ] VIA [ GeekyGadgets ]

The post HDD Watches Look Cool, Just Tell Time appeared first on OhGizmo!.

This Hard Drive Self-Destructs With A Text

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There are many reasons why you’d want to have ultra-secure hard drives, and most of these are legal. The Autothysis128t SSD drive from company SecureDrives features top of the line “256-bit AES CBC hardware level encryption and computer independent 2 factor authentication via a separate Token. The encryption engine is FIPS 140-2 level 3 certified.” We understood some of those words, at least enough to understand they’re quite well encrypted. But there’s more! The drive is GSM enabled, and should your stuff ever be compromised and end up in the hands of anyone hell-bent on getting to its contents, you can simply send an auto-destruct text to your drive. This will cause the data to physically fragment in an unrecoverable manner. Yes, it’s quite literally a self-destruct feature, which is also activated if the drive senses someone trying to tamper with the GSM module, or entering the security code too many times.

As a matter of fact, there are a number of optional triggers that can lead to destruction, including low battery levels or trying to remove the drive from its PC. It sure sounds like if you possess some super critical data that cannot, under any circumstances, be accessed by someone else, the Autothysis128t is as good as it gets. It’s also quite expensive, setting you back a cool £1,027.00 ($1,660USD, roughly) for the privilege. And that’s for 128GB of storage.

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[ Product Page ] VIA [ Engadget ]

The post This Hard Drive Self-Destructs With A Text appeared first on OhGizmo!.

LaCie Sphere Hard Drive

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Check out this newly released hard drive from LaCie, the Sphere. Designed by Christofle, this elegant handcrafted hard drive is enclosed in a spherical case of silver-plated steel, has a USB 3.0 connection interface and comes in 1TB of storage capacity. The 1TB Sphere is available now for a retail price of $499. [Product Page]

HGST 6TB Ultrastar He6 Helium-Filled Hard Drive Shipped

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HGST has begun shipping their newest helium-filled hard drive, the Ultrastar He6. Claimed as the industry’s first helium filled hard drive that simultaneously increases capacity while lowering power consumption and operating temperature, this 6TB 3.5-inch hard drive is equipped with a SATA 6.0 Gbps interface, a 64MB of buffer memory, a MTBF of 2 million hours and a 7200 RPM spindle speed. [HGST]

HGST Launches Helium-Filled 6TB Hard Drive

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HGST Helium filled hard drive He6HGST, a subsidiary of Western Digital, announced on Monday the launch of its first helium-filled hard drive. The new Ultrastar He6 drive comes with a 6TB capacity in a 3.5-inch drive enclosure.

According to HGST, having helium in the enclosure has significantly less friction than air, allowing for less energy needed to physically move platters around inside the drive resulting in more platters with an acceptable performance. More platters mean more drive space with a general increase by three quarters over a standard air-filled hard drive.

The challenge has been to create a chamber in the drive that was tight enough to avoid leaking the helium, and HGST assures us that it is a safe volume with “less helium than a balloon”. Pricing was not initially available, however the company stated that it will “…cost-effectively extend the capacity and cost-per-gigabyte curve for many product generations to come.”

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