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

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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MSI makes AMD-laden GX60 gaming laptop official with A10 heart, Radeon HD 7970M graphics

MSI launches GX60 allAMD gaming laptop with A10 processor, Radeon HD 7970M graphics

We can't say that there's a huge cross-section of buyers who want a gaming laptop but refuse to touch Intel components. Whatever the size, MSI likely has that group sewn up with the official unveiling of the GX60 following a stealth appearance at Computex. The 15.6-inch portable is built as showcase for AMD's latest mobile technology: it revolves around a 2.3GHz, quad-core A10-4600M processor using the Piledriver architecture as well as a Radeon HD 7970M to feed its 1080p screen at full speed. Thankfully, the PC is more than just a marketing vehicle and carries some of the gamer-tuned parts that we've seen in other MSI rigs, such as dual SSDs in a RAID stripe, a low-lag Killer networking chipset and a heavy-duty SteelSeries keyboard. Buying a GX60 may prove to be the real obstacle -- in keeping with most MSI introductions, there's no mention of a price or ship date, and none of the usual suspects have it in stock as of this writing.

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MSI makes AMD-laden GX60 gaming laptop official with A10 heart, Radeon HD 7970M graphics originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 25 Sep 2012 23:26:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Former Olympus executives plead guilty in accounting fraud trial

Former Olympus executives plead guilty in accounting fraud trial

Three executives from troubled imaging giant Olympus have pleaded guilty to artificially boosting the company's true value in 2007 and 2008 by concealing losses in financial statements. Former chairman Tsuyoshi Kikukawa, ex-auditor Hideo Yamada and former VP Hisashi Mori were charged with fraud in the scandal, which was brought to light last year by ex-CEO Michael Woodford. He was fired by the Olympus board for blowing the whistle, but reportedly received a large settlement for his troubles. The company has since confessed to cooking the books as far back as the '90s to hide investment losses, and revealed in 2011 that it had a billion dollars less in value than previously stated. That, along with the poor performance of its camera division, has forced Olympus to seek a partner or raise capital to survive.

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Former Olympus executives plead guilty in accounting fraud trial originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 25 Sep 2012 01:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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LaCie 2big, 4big Quadra drives hop the USB 3.0 bandwagon, give Macs 12TB of speedy storage

LaCie 2big, 4big Quadra drives hop the USB 30 bandwagon, give Macs 12TB of speedy storage

LaCie has been sprucing up its smaller drives to handle a new crop of Macs that support USB 3.0. It's now turn for the big boys to play. Updated versions of the 2big Quadra and 4big Quadra (not yet shown here) use the faster port to reach the potential of their high-capacity RAID arrays, peaking at either 210MB/s for the dual-drive 2big and 245MB/s for its quad-drive cousin. We're not seeing a fundamental shakeup of the design apart from the higher speeds, although that's not necessarily a problem given the FireWire 800 to catch legacy users and hot-swappable bays for future upgrades. Video editors and other storage mavens should just prepare themselves to pony up. The upgraded Quadra models will start at respective $499 (4TB) and $1,099 (8TB) prices when they ship in October, and they're only poised to get more expensive when LaCie sets the costs for the higher-end 6TB and 12TB models.

Continue reading LaCie 2big, 4big Quadra drives hop the USB 3.0 bandwagon, give Macs 12TB of speedy storage

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LaCie 2big, 4big Quadra drives hop the USB 3.0 bandwagon, give Macs 12TB of speedy storage originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 07 Sep 2012 15:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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G-Technology kicks out USB 3.0 G-Drives for Macs, keeps your Retina MacBook Pro well-fed

GTechnology kicks out USB 30 GDrives for Macs, keeps your Retina MacBook Pro wellfed

If you've just picked up a MacBook Pro with Retina display or a 2012-era MacBook Air, you may be jonesing for a matching external hard drive to take advantage of that much-awaited USB 3.0 support. G-Technology has you covered -- and how. Updated versions of the laptop-oriented G-Drive Mini, Mobile and Slim (you're looking at the Mobile up top) all roll in the higher peak speeds and progressively trade raw speed as well as 1TB capacities for sleekness, while the twin-drive, 1.5TB G-RAID Mini will tax that 5Gbps bandwidth without becoming too ungainly. Not taking your external storage on the road? The single-disk G-Drive now climbs to 4TB in addition to jumping on the USB 3.0 bandwagon, and the dual-drive G-RAID will serve up as much as 8TB at the newly brisk speeds. All but the G-Drive Slim support FireWire to ease those jitters over transitioning from old to new, although they won't all arrive at the same time. Most of the G-Drive and G-RAID gear will be showing up in August at prices between $110 and $810, but the two Mini-labelled drives could be a bit late to the party with a less defined summer target. You can get the full scoop after the break.

Continue reading G-Technology kicks out USB 3.0 G-Drives for Macs, keeps your Retina MacBook Pro well-fed

G-Technology kicks out USB 3.0 G-Drives for Macs, keeps your Retina MacBook Pro well-fed originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 25 Jun 2012 03:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Netstor rolls out Thunderbolt-powered PCIe and storage expansion options for Macs

netstor-rolls-out-thunderbolt-powered-pcie-and-storage-expansion

We can sympathize -- your task-master Mac is hurting for PCIe expansion and more storage. Fortunately, Netstor has just announced several new products to boost your computer's ego and add either item via those newly christened Thunderbolt ports. The TurboBox NA211TB will lend three extra PCIe slots to any Mac that has the 10Gb/s port, while the NS780TB Desktop Storage will use it to bolt on 16 bays of disk storage. The company's rackmounted NA333TB Mac Mini Server, meanwhile, gives you 16 removable storage bays along with most RAID array options, and the aforementioned PCIe upgrade integrated to boot. Shipping dates and pricing weren't announced, but if you're looking to transform that Macbook Air into a video-editing behemoth, you may want to check all three options at the source.

Netstor rolls out Thunderbolt-powered PCIe and storage expansion options for Macs originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 21 Jun 2012 20:43:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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South Korea’s FTC reportedly raids Google again over lack of cooperation

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Google might be in trouble for how it handled an earlier raid by South Korean officials over antitrust concerns. Insiders claimed to AllThingsD that the country's Fair Trade Commission stormed Google's Seoul offices again on May 28th after the company allegedly stonewalled the investigation in suspicious ways. Among the accusations, Google supposedly deleted files and asked staff to work from home rather than face inquiries. The FTC's goal was still to answer complaints from local search firms Daum and NHN that Google was unfairly making it difficult to use a non-Google search engine in Android. Google still says it's cooperating with regulators, but the assertions if they're accurate would paint a different picture. They certainly don't alleviate pressure in the US over similar subjects.

South Korea's FTC reportedly raids Google again over lack of cooperation originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 30 May 2012 17:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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G-Technologies’ G-Raid with Thunderbolt drive now on sale, yours from $700

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Thunderbolt-equipped RAID options from the likes of LaCie and Promise not satisfying your desire for a 10Gbps storage option? Good news, as Hitatchi's G-Technology is finally ready sell its G-Raid with Thunderbolt, which might just throw a smile on your face. We now know that you'll pay $700 for 4TB or storage, $850 for 6TB and $1,000 for 8TB. If you'll recall, the unit features a duo of T-Bolt ports for daisey-chains and two 3Gbps 7,200RPM HDDs that can be configured in RAID 0 for extra pep or RAID 1 for redundancy. That said, it'll require plug-in power, so don't expect to go mobile. Looking for more details in the meantime? Move your cursor over to the links below.

Continue reading G-Technologies' G-Raid with Thunderbolt drive now on sale, yours from $700

G-Technologies' G-Raid with Thunderbolt drive now on sale, yours from $700 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 18 Apr 2012 08:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Report: HP’s South Korean offices raided over alleged price fixing

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Korea Times is a publication that isn't shy of the odd bold statement and today it's claiming that HP's South Korean offices were raided on suspicion of price-fixing deals made with IBM and Oracle. The country's Fair Trade Commission seized documents, computer records and questioned employees over alleged price-rigging on public-sector contracts. A company spokesperson said that the visit was routine, while FTC officers refused to comment about ongoing matters, but what is clear is that if any wrong-doing is found, the case will be turned over to prosecutors with the aim of commencing criminal proceedings for those responsible.

Report: HP's South Korean offices raided over alleged price fixing originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 16 Apr 2012 11:52:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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