Tag Archives: HardDrives

Western Digital shows off upcoming WD Black hybrid drives, we go eyes-on (video)

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Western Digital shows off upcoming WD Black hybrid drives, we goes eyeson

As devices get thinner and thinner, there's no place in the world for chunky hard drives, and to that end Western Digital has been talking about bringing ultra-thin 5mm hybrid drive technology to the market. We just got a look at the new drives, which will be branded WD Black -- two 2.5-inch models consisting of a 500GB, 5mm thick (or thin) unit with 24GB of NAND memory, along with a 1TB, 7mm drive that also has 24GB of NAND. A spokesperson said that NAND could eventually go up to 32GB. There's no performance figures or pricing available yet, but WD has already started shipping copies of the new models to OEMs, and expects that they'll land in the laps of consumers within the next 6 months. For a brief video tour of the new products, head after the break.

Gallery: Western Digital WD Black hybrid drive

Continue reading Western Digital shows off upcoming WD Black hybrid drives, we go eyes-on (video)

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Ask Engadget: What’s the best way to store my media collection?

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Ask Engadget

We know you've got questions, and if you're brave enough to ask the world for answers, then here's the outlet to do so. This week's Ask Engadget inquiry is from Michael, who is suffering from a storage crunch. If you're looking to ask one of your own, drop us a line at ask [at] engadget [dawt] com.

"I'm a bargain-basement kinda guy, and I've picked up lots of DVDs cheaply during the sale season(s). I was planning to rip my collection with Handbrake so I could watch them on my iPad, but my 1TB HDD is already close to being maxed out! Is there a better solution out there than just buying a 2TB HDD now, waiting a year and buying a 3TB HDD when the prices come down? Is there a cheap RAID-style system that plays nicely with my iTunes? Please help!"

  • You can pick up a standalone 3TB external HDD for between $150 and $200,
  • Or you could take the leap and set up an iTunes home server, perhaps using the cheapest Synology DiskStation, which is $200 plus the cost of the drives. That way you can get a 4TB iTunes server for just under $400.
  • You could also snag a Drobo that'll give you the same storage options with significantly increased expandability, up to 16TB in the future.

That said, perhaps our friendly readers know a way to tame this man's ever growing media collection, so if you've already set up your own system, why not share your knowledge in the comments below?

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Ask Engadget: What's the best way to store my media collection? originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 20 Oct 2012 23:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Western Digital bumps My Book Thunderbolt Duo to 8TB, consoles regular My Book buyers with 4TB

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Western Digital MyBook Thunderbolt Duo at Macworld 2012

Many of us may have liked the prospect of Western Digital's My Book Thunderbolt Duo, but there's no doubt some of us who discovered that even 6TB just wouldn't cut it. If that digital pack rat mentality describes you, the solution is here: the company has taken advantage of larger 4TB hard disks to stuff a total 8TB of storage into the Duo's enclosure. The extra capacity hikes the price to $850, although the company notes that it's including the often expensive Thunderbolt cable to avoid any surprise trips to the store. Those without the ports or budget for the Duo can still reap some of the benefits through an updated, 4TB version of the regular My Book that hums along on USB 3.0 at a more reasonable $250 price. Either of the new drives should be lurking in stores if you're hurting for space as we write this.

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Western Digital bumps My Book Thunderbolt Duo to 8TB, consoles regular My Book buyers with 4TB originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 09 Oct 2012 17:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Hard drive shipments recover from floods in Thailand, expected to reach record high

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Hard drive shipments recover from floods in Thailand, expected to reach record high

Last year's floods in Thailand caused hard drive shortages after wreaking havoc on a number of electronics manufacturers, but new stats from IHS iSuppli indicate that the HDD market for PCs has fully recovered and is poised to hit an all time high. The firm expects 524 million units for internal use in PCs to ship this year, besting the previous record by 4.3 percent. What's giving the recovery an added boost? According to the analytics group, the extra demand comes courtesy of Windows 8 and Ultrabooks. Unfortunately for deal hounds, the company noted in a report earlier this year that prices aren't expected to dip below the pre-flood range until 2014. If IHS iSuppli projections hold true, total annual hard drive shipments could reach 575.1 million by 2016.

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Hard drive shipments recover from floods in Thailand, expected to reach record high originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 29 Sep 2012 16:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Synology launches DiskStation DS413j NAS server for your own private cloud

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Synology launches DiskStation DS413j NAS server for your own private cloud

If you like your data local, but crave remote access, you've now got options like Synology's new DiskStation DS413j -- a network-attached storage (NAS) server for your own private cloud. The feature-packed box has four drive bays for a total of 16TB storage, and you can mix and match HDDs of different sizes without losing the comfort of RAID. Along with what you'd expect from NAS, its media server will stream content to your console or TV via DLNA or UPnP and push tunes to your stereo, with iOS and Android apps for couch DJing. The server will sync your files across computers if you wish, and give you access to all that data on the move via the internet or mobile apps. And, if you need more files, you can download directly using your favorite protocols -- it'll even automate them if you trust RSS feeds to make recommendations. All this can be yours for around $380, depending on the retailer, but don't forget to budget for drives to fill those empty bays.

Gallery: Synology DiskStation DS413j

Continue reading Synology launches DiskStation DS413j NAS server for your own private cloud

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Synology launches DiskStation DS413j NAS server for your own private cloud originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 06 Sep 2012 04:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Seagate completes purchase of LaCie in quest to become king of the hard drive hill

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Seagate completes purchase of LaCie

The final price may end up being more than the initially proposed $186 million, but Seagate has successfully acquired a controlling share of LaCie stocks. The provisional price of €4.05 per share could increase to €4.17 if Seagate manages to accumulate 95 percent of the company's stocks in the next six months. As of now, however, it hold just shy of 65 percent, enough to take control of the French manufacturer. With LaCie and its valuable consumer business under its belt and Samsung's SSD expertise, the move to reject a Western Digital take over is looking better and better. After all, consumer choice is the engine of capitalism and now Seagate has more than enough ammunition to take on WD and its Hitachi properties. Check out the PR after the break.

Continue reading Seagate completes purchase of LaCie in quest to become king of the hard drive hill

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Seagate completes purchase of LaCie in quest to become king of the hard drive hill originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 03 Aug 2012 23:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Hands-on with G-Technology’s Mac-friendly, USB 3.0-packing G-Drive slim

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When we set out to get hands-on with a hard drive, of all things, you can bet we're going to do more than just pick it up and marvel at how lightweight it is. Here at a gdgt event in New York City, we spotted G-Technology's new Mac-friendly USB 3.0 drives on display and immediately got to work running some speed tests on the thinnest of the bunch, the G-Drive slim. Though transfer rates varied, both download and upload speeds tended to hover around 95 MB/s, and that was after ten or so runs in the Blackmagic benchmark. (Next time we'll bring a USB 2.0 cable to test a backward-compatible setup.)

According to a company rep staffing the event, the other drives in the lineup, the G-Drive mini, mobile and mobile USB 3.0, should deliver similar performance. Really, the differences here are in the specs: the G-Drive mobile and mini have FireWire ports, and all three offer more storage (750GB to 1TB, as opposed to 500GB for the slim). Design-wise, all the drives on display here seemed fairly impervious to scratches, and that rubberized band around the edges also makes the devices feel a little less delicate. On that point, you can check out the hands-on photos to see what we're talking about, though you'll just have to take our word on the speed testing.

Gallery: G-Technology USB 3.0 G-Drive Slim hands-on

Zach Honig contributed to this report.

Hands-on with G-Technology's Mac-friendly, USB 3.0-packing G-Drive slim originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 25 Jun 2012 18:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Toshiba Canvio 3.0 external drives bump up to 1.5TB, give Mac users some love

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Toshiba Canvio 3.0

Toshiba's Canvio external drives have just gotten a hefty boost, most of all for data swappers that play both the Mac and PC sides of the computing fence. Both the regular Canvio 3.0 and the Canvio Basics 3.0 have made the jump from 1TB to 1.5TB of capacity to hold that much more in the way of backups and videos. If you spring for the top-end 1.5TB Canvio 3.0, though, you'll also get a new NTFS driver for the Mac that lets you take the USB 3.0 disk between a Mac and a Windows PC without having to either load a special reader app or wipe the drive clean. Living in that technology utopia will cost you $200 when it's ready in early June, but the Mac- or Windows-only among us can pay as little as $120 to get a 500GB Canvio while still getting backup software and one of six glossy colors. More frugal travelers can pay $10 less at the capacity for one of the software-free Basics drives.

Continue reading Toshiba Canvio 3.0 external drives bump up to 1.5TB, give Mac users some love

Toshiba Canvio 3.0 external drives bump up to 1.5TB, give Mac users some love originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 May 2012 22:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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WD grits teeth, hands over the goodies to Toshiba to regulators and dentists’ delight

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Western Digital has completed its FTC-ordered handover of assets to Toshiba in order to buy Hitachi's HDD business Viviti. The wedding of the year was halted when regulators, citing monopoly concerns, demanded WD hand over a bundle of IP, R&D materials and production line gear to Tosh. In exchange, Western Digital will take over Toshiba Storage Device (Thailand), the arm of the company that was devastated in the recent flooding. It's WD's aim to integrate the remaining assets into its own local operations -- you can read the official line in the land of pure imagination below.

Continue reading WD grits teeth, hands over the goodies to Toshiba to regulators and dentists' delight

WD grits teeth, hands over the goodies to Toshiba to regulators and dentists' delight originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 May 2012 08:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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