Friday, January 1, 2021 at 5:03AM ioSafe is one of our vendors that we use for onsite safe storage and one of their techs posted a great article on hard drive life expectancies for both spinning (HDD) and solid state (SSD) drives. It is worth a few minutes to learn what you can expect from each kind of drive and how the environment and use of the drive will effect the drive's life expenctancy.
Friday, July 22, 2016 at 8:57AM Samsung has just launched an EVO 850 4 TB drive SSD which has just become the largest consumer grade SSD on the market.
Built with Samsung's renowned V-NAND technology, the 4TB 850 EVO SSD melds the reliability and endurance of the 850 EVO series with high-end performance. Set in a slim and compact 2.5-inch form factor, the Samsung 850 EVO 4TB model sports all the trimmings and optimizations of the 850 EVO line with blistering-fast 540 MB/s read and 520 MB/s write speeds with TurboWrite.
Four terabytes is quite a staggering amount of data, especially for an SSD; for reference the 4TB 850 EVO can hold up to 1,000 two-hour 1080p movies with compression--that's more than two or three movie libraries on a single 2-inch SSD. The colossal SSD also features a 1.5 million hour MTBF rate, and uses the SATA 6Gb/s interface for speedy transfers.
Samsung's 4TB 850 EVO SSD retails for a staggering $1,499 and comes with a five-year limited warranty, with availability across over 50 regions like the United States, Korea, China and Europe. Drop by the product page for more information.
Thursday, August 14, 2014 at 3:47PM Intel offers its new SSD 730 series, which provides a combination of enthusiast-grade speed and data center endurance.
New SSD 730 series testing specs show the following key features:
Friday, August 8, 2014 at 7:12PM The ioSafe 1513+ NAS can scale up to 90TB, has 4 LAN Ports with Link Aggregation and High Availability and solves a variety of business challenges for the enterprise, creative professionals and home users
With its fire/water protection, superior performance, scalability, resilience, and comprehensive features, ioSafe® NAS 1513+ is the ideal storage solution for your growing business. The 1513+ can help to simplify disaster recovery, business continuity, data management, sharing storage for storage and backup - with minimal setup and the freedom to expand capacity at any time.
An Ideal Solution for:
The ioSafe 1513+ connects to your network, preferably at the main router or switch. A network drive (or "share") can be created that allows everyone on the local area network (LAN) with proper permissions to "see" the common drive and share the data. The data can also be made available to the wide area network (WAN - aka the Internet) by allow applications and data to be "forwarded" to the NAS at your router.
These are great products that we use for onsite backup solutions where there is too much data to effectively get it offsite. We typically use them with Veeam for our larger VMware installations.
Monday, August 4, 2014 at 2:29PM 
The use of systems that utilize both SSD and HDD technology together are growing in use. On the PC side, we have Smart Response Technology (SRT). When this type of technology fails, it is generally one or the other of the two incorporated drives that has failed, rather than both. Usually, it is the HDD. Perhaps for this reason we often receive just one of the drives from a Fusion or SRT rather than both the HDD and the SSD.
PC: Smart Response Technology (SRT)
In the case of an Intel SRT drive, the device can be configured with "Maximized" write-back or "Enhanced" "write-through" configurations. In the case of "Maximized" configuration, we need both the SSD and the HDD to perform the recovery. In the case of the "Enhanced" mode, we need only the HDD. This can be confusing to the end user as to how it was configured. That being said, to err on the side of caution, always send in both the HDD and the SDD components.
Friday, September 7, 2012 at 5:52PM Western Digital has unveiled a sleek new My Passport Edge portable drive. It is ultra thin and works with bot Windows and Mac computers. I don’t know if you want to call a hard drive Sexy but if you did the term would probably fit this new device.
There are minor differences between the Mac and Windows versions. They are both USB 3.0 compatible and are bus powered. In other words, plug you USB cable in and you are powered up. Both of them are about as thin as a traditional internal laptop hard drive (9.5 millimeters). This is because on the inside they use the new ultra slim type of internal hard drive that's just 7mm thick.
WD says the My Passport Edge for Mac is designed specifically to complement Apple's portable computers (MacBook Pro and MacBook Air), and has an all-aluminum exterior that's not just good-looking but also protects the drive against drops and bumps. The drive is preformatted in HFS+ and has support for Apple's Time Machine right out of the box.
The Windows version of the My Passport Edge, according to WD, has a premium-finish plastic cover and includes WD SmartWare software that's capable of continuous and automatic backup. It's preformatted in NTFS. Either version of the new drive can work with either Windows or Mac OS, however, once formatted in the appropriate file system.
The new 500GB-capacity My Passport Edge is available now and costs $110 and $120 for the Windows and Mac versions, respectively. Both versions of the new drive come with a three-year warranty.
Tuesday, March 13, 2012 at 8:22AM Just a quick note reporting from techPowerUp! stating that we can expect drive availability to slowly coming back to marketplace needs. Still not at 100% we hopefully will be seeing a decrease in cost to provide us with more reasonably price storage. SSD prices are still coming down in price but are still more expensive than their spinning platter counterparts.
Friday 1:44 AM by btarunr@techpowerup.com (btarunr)
In what could alleviate high prices of hard disk drives (HDDs) after the devastating flood in Thailand that affected HDD foundries, industry sources predict that the reconstruction efforts of these foundries, led by Western Digital, will pay off to a large extant. In Q1 2012 alone, global volumes of HDDs are expected to restore to 80% of what they were before the floods. The global production of HDDs will increase to 140-145 million units.
HDD vendors across the board have exhausted their inventories in Dec-Jan when they supply PC/notebook ODMs their inventories of HDDs, but they haven't hiked quotes due to the off-season that followed. However, the flood situation isn't the only factor that will affect HDD prices. With increase in prices of raw materials, components, and labour-costs, HDD prices are expected to go up 30-40%.
Sunday, October 30, 2011 at 7:35AM 
The Intel SSD Toolbox does not support firmware updates on the following Intel SSDs. To update the firmware on these SSDs, use the Intel® SATA Solid-State Drive Firmware Update Tool.The Intel® Solid-State Drive Toolbox (Intel® SSD Toolbox) is drive management software that allows you to:
* View current drive information for Intel® Solid-State Drives (Intel® SSDs), including:
- Model number, capacity, and firmware version
- Drive health
- Estimated drive life remaining
- SMART attributes (also available for hard disk drives and non-Intel SSDs)
- IDENTIFY DEVICE information (also available for hard disk drives and non-Intel SSDs)
* Optimize the performance of an Intel SSD using Trim functionality
* Update the firmware on a supported Intel SSD
* Run quick and full diagnostic scans to test the read and write functionality of an Intel SSD
* Check and tune your system settings for optimal Intel SSD performance, power efficiency, and endurance
* View your system information and hardware configuration, such as central processing unit (CPU),
chipset, controller name, and driver versions
* Run Secure Erase on a secondary Intel SSD
Before beginning the Intel SSD Toolbox installation, review the Release Notes and follow the instructions in the
Installation Guide. A Frequently Asked Questions document is also available for your reference.
If you need assistance with the installation or experience issues, contact Intel Customer Support.
NOTE: Installing this version of the Intel SSD Toolbox overwrites any previous version of Intel SSD Toolbox installed in your system.
The Intel SSD Toolbox supports firmware updates on the following Intel SSDs:
| Intel® Solid-State Drive Latest Firmware Version | |
| Intel® Solid-State Drive 710 Series | 6PB10362 |
| Intel® Solid-State Drive 710 Series | 6PB10362 |
| Intel® Solid-State Drive 320 Series | 4PC10362 |
| Intel® Solid-State Drive 311 Series | 2CV102M5 |
| Intel® Solid-State Drive 310 Series | 2CV102M3 |
| Intel® X18-M / X25-M SATA SSDs (34nm) | 2CV102M3 |
| Intel® X25-V SATA SSD | 2CV102M3 |
The Intel SSD Toolbox does not support firmware updates on the following Intel SSDs. To update the firmware on these SSDs, use the Intel® SATA Solid-State Drive Firmware Update Tool.
| Intel® Solid-State Drive | Latest Firmware Version |
| Intel® Solid-State Drive 510 Series | PPG2 or PPG4 (120GB SSD) PWG2 or PWG4 (250GB SSD) |
| Intel® X18-M/X25-M SATA SSDs (50nm) | 045C8820 |
| Intel® X25-E SATA SSD (50nm) | 045C8850 |
Sunday, October 30, 2011 at 7:18AM Press Release:
Sharkoon presents the successor to their local network, insertable hard drive docking station with the SATA QuickPort Pro LAN: The Sharkoon SATA QuickPort Pro LAN Giga replaces the existing Fast Ethernet interface with a significantly faster Gigabit Ethernet interface. Through its LAN Port, associated hard drives and other medians can be integrated into a local home or office network.
In addition to the LAN Port and plug-in for SATA hard drives in 2.5 and 3.5 inch format, the Sharkoon SATA QuickPort Pro LAN Giga provides an integrated dual USB2.0 hub and a card reader for SD, SDHC, MMC and MS cards. The USB hub and card reader are connected via USB to a computer or laptop, with hard drives also being connected alternatively via the eSATA interface.
In order to ensure that all inserted SATA hard drives, memory cards and USB devices within the QuickPort are available to all users of a local network, the docking station must be connected to the network with the corresponding software installed on all computers involved. The individual user can add the device to their computer through the Software menu. If a user accesses the device then it is closed to all remaining network users. If another user needs the device, they can simply send the current user a request for release. If needed, the reset button on the backside allows the USB server to be restarted.
Like the previous QuickPort models, the Sharkoon SATA QuickPort Pro LAN Giga is equipped with a hard drive ejection button and LEDs indicating power supply and disk activity. The adapter measures 133 x 71 x 95 mm (W x H x L), weighs 545 grams and includes an instruction manual with Tool CD, power supply, patch cable, USB cable and eSATA cable.
Saturday, April 23, 2011 at 4:26PM So, you're trying to make the most out of the front bays of your tower machine. We never seem to have enough storage in our computers anymore, and we want the fastest speed we can get to access our information stored on our computers. So here is an interesting product that expands the five of the quarter inch PC Bay with either a four or six drive bay solution that will house 2 1/2 inch format drives. You will of course need to have the appropriate number of SATA connections to connect all that drives to your system. Power is supplied via a 4-pin power connector.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011 at 10:34PM I have always been enthralled with the technology from Drobo and have used it 
in several customer solutions that I have designed. Lee Hutchinson has written a two part article about his experience with the Drobo FS product and how it works. If you are interested in technology I’m sure you will find this as interesting as I did.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011 at 5:41PM Backup your Data and Fulfill your Need for Warm Breakfast Pastries with the SATDOCKTOAST4 from StarTech.com
Tuesday, April 5, 2011 at 3:44PM Looking for a super small fast USB 3.0, 7200 RPM hard drive to add to your mobile kit bag? Seagate is finally releasing it’s 9mm 2.5 inch GoFlex external HDD. This drive is probably thinner than your cell phone. It has a 3 year warranty and is priced at $99.99. It only weighs 0.356 pounds and measuring 4.91 x 30.7 x 0.354 inches. It requires a special USB cable that is included. It can transfer files at upwards of 40MB/sec when attached to a USB 3.0 system. To put the size into perspective this drive is thinner than a pencil. It is supposed to be shipping now and we do see it SKU’d up now.
Monday, March 21, 2011 at 4:45PM I am a little late getting this on my blog but here is a press release from Intel From2 weeks ago announcing their new SSD 510 Series drives
Tuesday, March 1, 2011 at 6:07PM Barracuda XT high-performance desktop drives deliver 3TB capacities with a massive 64MB cache and the fastest SATA interface–SATA 6Gb/s.
Can’t wait to see what comes out next. Seagate and others are saying that this drive is release but I don’t see in distribution yet. I’m sure it will be there soon. This is great because we should start seeing a drop in 2TB drives as these come out and are available.
I have only found it SKU’d at one of our vendors and they are not expecting their first shipment until April 4th. Price should be some where around $300.
Monday, February 7, 2011 at 7:44PM While this is the headline streaming through the technology blogs, QNAP (Quality Network Appliance Provider) has a great inventory of products to choose from for your network storage needs. While this announcement highlights some of the neat features in their latest home designed appliances that provide digital media streaming to more of your devices in your home, they are much, much more than a home media streaming company.
The QNAP TS-x12 Turbo NAS Product line provides an All-in-one NAS Server with iSCSI for SOHO and Home Users. The TS-412 appliance supports a 3-bay hot swappable system with RAID 0/1/56/5+Hot Spare and JBOD. It also supports both 2.5” and 3.5” drives as well.
If you are looking for a repository for all of your Home Entertainment needs to share Photos, Music Movies and Videos, you can do worse than this device. With support for PS3, Xbox 360 or other network media players you will be able to stream full HD 1080p movies to your TV or Projector. You can even provide access to your digital media over the Internet by web browsers or iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad or Android mobile devices.
Of course you will have file share and backup of all your network devices as with most NAS compatible devices. With DLNA and iTunes Server support.The NAS features high-speed data transfer of exceeding 70MB/s, fast enough to support multiple 1080p HD streams. The whisper-quiet design brings you the best cinema-grade home theater experience right in your living room.
QMobile is an application dedicated to iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, and Android users. You can view and play Terabytes of photos, music, and video files on the NAS by QMobile from anywhere regardless of the actual storage size of your mobile devices. You can also upload photos to QNAP NAS straightway from your iPhone for instant sharing.
If you are using a Surveillance system at home you can easily use this NAS device as a central storage area for your IP cameras. The Surveillance Station of QNAP NAS enables you to connect to multiple IP-based security cameras for real-time monitoring, recording, and playback. It supports leading network camera brands such as AXIS, D-Link, IPUX, LevelOne, Linksys, Panasonic, and VIVOTEK. By using particular models, you can use two-way video and audio monitoring and recording, and smart PTZ control to control the monitoring direction of the IP cameras by a web browser.
Versatility seems to be the watch word with these new devices by QNAP.
Thursday, October 14, 2010 at 5:25PM We have been using the Buffalo NAS and USB products in many of our installations over the past several years. Buffalo has provided us with great support which allows us to pass that support on to you as well.
“Protecting and managing digital content has always been a time consuming task for home and small business users,” said Ralph Spagnola, vice president of sales at Buffalo Technology. “With the new LinkStation V-Series family, users access and share their data twice as fast that they would with a standard NAS device.”
Buffalo Technology has just announced its update to its popular LinkStation network storage family in the form of its high-performance V-Series line that includes the LinkStation Pro, LinkStation Pro Duo and LinkStation Pro Quad. The new V-Series family uses a 1.6GHz processor, offering users performance with network transfer speeds up to 76MB/s, touted as being twice as fast as competing network hard drives and faster than USB 2.0 storage solutions.
The dual drive solution offers RAID for redundancy and data protection, not to mention a user removable quick swap hard drive for simple drive servicing without the need for tools.
Dual drive gives you the opportunity to have redundancy built right into the machine. This gives you better data protection for your most important information, especially in a business environment.
If you are putting one of these into a home environment it is a DLNA CERTIFIED device, enabling simple streaming to any DLNA compatible media device, such as the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Combined with the recently announced free WebAccess i app for Apple iPod touch and iPhone and WebAccess i HD app for iPad, the new high performance LinkStation V-Series family revolutionizes how digital content is shared and consumed. These new apps provide iPhone and iPad users an easy and convenient way to access and stream digital content from a Buffalo NAS solution directly to their Apple mobile devices. With a simple setup and intuitive interface, Buffalo’s newly redesigned WebAccess feature allows users to easily stream digital content stored on any Buffalo network storage solution from anywhere in the world via a Web browser, iPhone, iPod touch or iPad.
Prices range from $189.99 to $1,039.99, depending on the model, and storage capacity that you choose, and will come with a one-year warranty.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010 at 8:23AM It seems anymore that we are constantly running out of storage space on our networks.One way to combat this is by adding Network Attached Storage (NAS) devices that can accessed on your network. Seagate's new BlackArmor NAS 440 device comes in 4,6 and 8 TB models with preinstalled that can be upgraded to 12 TBs total. It is flexible enough to handle multiple network solutions being able to be used as single machine’s storage device, or as a NAS device with support for support for Microsoft Active Directory 2000, 2003, 2008 for populating users and groups.The BlackArmor NAS 440 server is configured with RAID 5 and ships with 10 backup software licenses out-of-the-box, and can be upgraded to support up to 50 workstations. The 4, 8 and 12TB units will have a MSRP of $849.99, $1499.99 and $1,899.99 respectively.
Specifications:
Monday, September 20, 2010 at 8:01AM Another announcement of a product supporting the USB 3.0 interface format comes from LaCie providing either a 2TB or 4TB solution, $349.99 and $579.99 respectively. The biggest benefit besides the amount of storage capacity is the speed that you can read and write data to the device. It is still compatible with USB 2.0 so if you don’t have a USB 3.0 port on your computer yet you can get this now for when you do. It is compatible with Windows® XP, Windows Vista®, Windows 7 /Mac OS X 10.5, 10.6 (USB 2.0 only). Windows XP does not support drives greater than 2TB’s.
The SuperSpeed USB 3.0 supports up to 5Gbits/s and the Hi-Speed USB 2.0 supports up to 480Mbits/s. It supports RAID 0, RAID 1, JBOD modes through an easy switch-button.
Overview from LaCie:
Developed for professionals looking for high storage capacity and performance, the 2big USB 3.0 is the first RAID storage solution to feature the new SuperSpeed USB 3.0 interface, and supports multiple uncompressed HD streams. With three RAID modes for flexibility, you can choose "Fast" (RAID 0) to get speeds of up to 205MB/s, "Safe" (RAID 1) for full data protection, or JBOD for non-stop data access. With its 7200 rpm drives and compatibility with USB 2.0, the LaCie 2big USB 3.0 is the most complete USB 3.0 storage device. The unique fanless aluminum heat sink design is sturdy and features 60% more surface area, providing the most efficient heat dissipation. This keeps it ultra-quiet, and protects the hard disk. The LaCie 2big USB 3.0 helps you to reduce power consumption by letting you program when it switches to idle mode. You can schedule a deep sleep on/off mode according to your needs, and the 2big USB 3.0 can be switched back to operating mode from the client side. For users that need performance and flexibility such as print professionals, recording engineers, and video producers, the 2big USB 3.0 is the ideal storage solution.
For more information about Video Process, please click here
Cute that they are calling these drives the 2big… Hope that is just a typo.
Friday, September 10, 2010 at 7:59AM If you follow me at all you know that I have a penchant for making multiple copies of my data on multiple devices, locations and sources. Buffalo is coming out with a new series of portal hard drives that will help you make backups and share your data between machines and locations.The HD-PCTU2 comes in piano black and pearl white colors, and capacities that include 320 GB, 500 GB, and 640 GB, priced at around $119, $149 and $200, respectively. Measuring 77 x 14 x 114 mm, the drives weigh 165 grams. USB 2.0 handles power and connectivity. The bundled EcoManager software cuts down power draw by 20%. These devices have a 1 year warranty.
I love the size of this type of drive and that it will draw it’s power from your USB port connection. That it has less of a power draw will make it a great choice as a mobile solution along with your mobile computer for backup or extending storage capabilities.
