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Large HD is now a must have thing. Not even corporates and industries, but home users are also using large HDs. See mine,I have 250GB WD 16MB Buffer SATA2 in just 74$!. PC usage is increasing day by day. Now everyone wants big space, Jet speed and less price. And that's what we are getting here.Samsung has announced a low-cost 1 Terabyte HD, that will be available to consumers in June, at an affordable price of $199. Specs with 5400RPM rotational speeds, and offering the highest capacity per disk for one terabyte hard drives, at 334GB per platter, will keep the size limited and boosted up performace. Also Samsung says the drive uses up to 50 per cent less power than other one TB drives and has technology to keep it quiet through operation.Media hunger is increasing with HD movies, Gaming and pictures. Also if big thing in less money is available, people will be attracted to it. Let's hope this will give best performance as samsung said.
The 300GB VelociRaptor from Western Digital. Said to be 35% faster than previous WD Raptors, the 10,000 RPM drive features a 3Gbps SATA interface, 16MB cache, and impressive 1.4 million hour MTBF thanks in part to the IcePack Mounting Frame. The IcePack heat sink not only keeps the drive spinning extra cool, it also bumps the 2.5-inch HDD to a required 3.5-inch drive bay. Available exclusively on Alienware's ALX gaming desktop this month and then up for grabs for everybody with $300 to burn starting mid-May.
Western Digital Product Page
Laptop computer storage is racing fast towards the 500G-byte level with Fujitsu becoming the third hard-disk drive maker to announce a drive at that capacity.Fujitsu is accomplishing this capacity by combining three disk platters -- the magnetically-coated disks on which data is stored -- each with a 170G-byte capacity inside the drive. Hitachi, the first company to announce a 500G-byte drive, and Samsung Electronics are also using three platter designs. The third platter increases the thickness of the drive to 12.5 millimeters versus most other laptop drives, which have just two platters and are 9.5 millimeters thick.PcWorld.com
So you think you're pretty hot because you figured out how to load Windows XP and Ubuntu on your PC, huh? Or maybe you've even gone so far as creating a triple boot machine with XP, Vista, and a Linux distribution. Well, one JustLinux forum member has you beat. And by beat, we mean he finished a marathon in the amount of time it took you to cross the street.JustLinux member saikee has posted details of his system that boots 145 operating systems. That includes 3 versions of DOS, 5 versions of Windows, and 137 flavors of Linux. He created 152 partitions on 4 hard drives to get his system up and running. And he probably has the longest GRUB menu you've ever seen. We're guessing the slowest part of the boot process on this system is the amount of time it takes to find the operating system you want to use.There are obviously very few practical reasons anyone would want to load 145 operating systems onto a PC, but we have to say, we're pretty impressed anyway. It's kind of like climbing Mount Everest because it's there. If you had licenses for 8 MS operating systems, the ability to download as many Linux distributions as you'd like and way too much free time on your hands, wouldn't you do the same thing? No?Via:JustLinux
Toshiba Corporation today announced a prototype hard disk drive (HDD) that uses Discrete Track Recording (DTR) technology to boost capacity to a record-breaking 120 gigabytes (GB) on a single 1.8-inch platter. The drive is the first in the world to apply DTR, a breakthrough technology that boost the areal density of a perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) by a full 50 percent. Toshiba plans to start mass production of HDDs integrating DTR technology in 2009. The new prototype HDD is a 1.8-inch PMR HDD. Toshiba's latest 1.8-inch HDD in the market offers a single platter capacity of 80GB; application of DTR technology boosts platter capacity to 120GB, and takes the recording density to 516 megabits per square millimeter (333gigabits per square inch). A servo pattern for tracking control is also formed on the disk. DTR technology increases recording density by forming a "groove" between the tracks on the PMR medium. The groove reduces signal interference between adjacent data tracks, allowing the pitch of the tracks to be shortened. The improved signal quality also contributes to raising the recording density by 50 percent. The DTR "groove" forming process is most easily applied to small form factor HDDs, such as 1.8 inch and 2.5 inch drives. It will take these drives to a new level of enhanced capacity.Full Story @ NewsWire
The Western Digital Raptor hard drive achieves its remarkable performance thanks to the high rotation speed of its platters. At 10,000 RPM the WD Raptor is definitely one of the fastest spinning Serial ATA desktop HDD on the market, on par with enterprise level SCSI counterparts. While 7200 RPM drives are improving in performance by increasing platter density and putting larger caches on the HDD, Western Digital uses a "brute force" type method in increasing performance.The only drawback to Western Digital's Raptor family is the premium price it commands, and a relatively small storage capacity. Conventional 7200 RPM desktop HDDs come in capacities up to 1TB (1000GB), and 500GB models can be had for around $100US. Western Digital's 74GB Raptor goes for around $130 USD, so you see what we mean.Western Digital alleviate the storage bottleneck with the 150GB WD1500AFHD RaptorX, a serial ATA hard drive with a clear window into its inner workings. Western Digital offers two variants of its high performance 150GB HDD, the Raptor WD1500ADFD and the RaptorX WD1500AHFD. The difference between the two is that Raptor 'ADFD' has a solid steel top while the RaptorX 'AHFD' has a crystal clear plastic see through top - so you can see the hard drive platters spinning and the read arm moving rapidly back and forth. The Western Digital RaptorX is the only hard drive on the planet that lets you look into the heart of the drive.The 150GB Western Digital RaptorX WD1500AHFD SATA hard drive retails for about $206 CDN ($196 USD, £96 GBP), and comes with HDD management software and WD Secure Connect SATA DATA cable.PcStats
Toshiba revealed Aug. 22 that it will soon add three new high-density flash memory cards to its product lineup—including one it touts as the world's first 32GB flash card. The Tokyo-based company, which partners with SanDisk to produce SanDisk High Capacity cards, also announced a 16GB SDHC card and an 8GB microSDHC card.
Toshiba Corporation has announced two new lineups (MK-GSX and MK-GSY) of hard disk drives for mobile or portable applications that offer either increased capacities or leading performance. Both families of HDDs support an optional Free Fall Sensor function, which detects falling HDD and parks the head before it crashes. Toshiba did not reveal when the new drives are planned to be commercially available.The flagship Toshiba MK3252GSX model has two 160GB platters, for a total capacity of 320GB. The new hard drive features Serial ATA-300 interface, 5400rpm motor, 8MB buffer and 12ms average seek time. Other members of Toshiba MK-GSX family sport similar technical characteristics, but feature capacities of 250GB, 160GB, 120GB or 80GB. The Toshiba MK2049GSY uses two 100GB platters for a capacity of 200GB. The two main advantages of the HDD are 7200rpm motor and a 16MB buffer. Toshiba declares that the new drive increases the maximum transfer rate by approximately 46% and the average random access time by approximately 8% when compared to the current MK1637GSX model. Other new members of the family feature capacities of 160GB, 120GB or 80GB.Xbit Laboratories
There are a variety of ways to carry data with you. You could buy a notebook computer and schlep it with you everywhere. That can be helpful if you need processing power or internet access on the move. Not everyone, however, has the extra cash for another computer, or the shoulder muscle to tote around a heavy laptop. On the other end of the spectrum are USB keys. Small enough to fit on your key chain, these little gadgets can be the perfect addition to your mobile office. Flash drives cater to almost every need, from storage capacity of up to 16GB to bullet-proof encasement (I wish I were kidding). Nevertheless, 16GB runs you on the expensive side and isn't really all that big considering the price, not to mention their limited lifetimes. If notebooks and flash drives aren't your style, never fear, there's an alternative: the classic external hard-drive. External HDDs come in a variety of forms, but today we're looking at the 2.5” laptop form-factor drives that are slim and mobile. You can find laptop drives of up to 250GB now, which is far larger than any flash drive, while still keeping the lightweight, small-sized mobility of a solitary hard-drive. Cirago has sent us the 10GB version of their mobile storage line for today's review, which offers drives of up to 120GB in size. Specifications and features, from the Cirago website, are below: External Interface: USB 2.0/1.1 Hard Drive Interface: IDE/ATA Form Factor: 2.5” Dimension: 10” x 3” x 0.8” Power: USB bus power Warranty: 1 yearFull Review...
Fujitsu has announced a 300GB external 2.5" HDD featuring a SATA interface internally and a USB 2.0 interface for connecting to a notebook computer. The drive also features a 16-point omnidirectional shock mounting design to protect the drive for rough handling. The MSRP for Fujitsu's new drive is $229 and it will be available during the third quarter. While Fujitsu may now hold the storage crown with its new drive, the spindle speed is a disappointing 4200RPM. The latest 250GB drives announced feature 5400RPM spindle speeds while 200GB units are spinning at 7200RPM.DailyTech
Two makers of perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) platters for hard disk drives (HDDs) said recently they had started to produce platters with leading capacities that enable creation of 1TB hard drives for desktops as well as up to 320GB drives for mobile computers.Both Fuji Electric Group and Showa Denko K.K. (SDK) this week said they had begin shipments of 334GB platters for 3.5” hard drives as well as 160GB platters for 2.5” HDDs to their customers. The 334GB platters are already utilized by Samsung’s SpinPoint F1 hard disk drives, but unfortunately it is unclear whether 160GB platters are already used by the companies’ customers.The full story
Seagate has unveiled two new hard drive lines that both offer a maximum 1TB capacity: the Barracuda 7200.11 (consumer) and the Barracuda ES.2 (enterprise). Expect both to arrive sometime this quarter and note that Seagate prices the consumer 1TB HDD at an MSRP of $399. As with other Seagate drives, the new Barracuda 7200.11 and ES.2 come with five year warranties.
Seagate packs the 1TB Barracuda 7200.11 with 32MB of L2 cache, SATA 3.0Gbps and native command queuing support. The Barracuda 7200.11 makes use of four 250GB platters with second-generation perpendicular magnetic recording technology. The company claims the new Barracuda 7200.11 can sustain a 105MB/s data rate and only draws 8-watts during idle as well as 11.6-watts during seek. Acoustically, the Barracuda 7200.11 generates around 27-to-29 decibels of noise during idle and seeking tasks. Seagate also offers the Barracuda 7200.11 in 750GB (three platters) and 500GB (two platters) sizes with the same 32MB buffer and PMR technology.
Seagate’s new Barracuda ES.2 models are offered with serial attached SCSI, or SAS, interfaces. Seagate has also raised the MTBF rating of the Barracuda ES.2 to 1.2 million hours, up 200 thousand hours from the previous Barracuda ES.
DailyTech
Western Digital, the world’s second largest maker of hard disk drives, has began shipping 750GB HDDs, currently the largest capacity that the company offers. Along with a 750GB capacity, WD’s Caviar SE16 GL188 offers a 7200rpm rotational speed, 16MB cache, 4.2ms average latency and sustained buffer to disk 70MB/s data transfer rate. The Caviar SE16 GL188 is designed for systems that support Serial ATA-300 interconnection as well as native command queuing technology. The HDD is based on four platters which capacity is currently unclear. The new model also supports an array of WD’s own technologies that improve reliability and decrease power consumption. The manufacturer’s suggest retail price for the WD Caviar SE16 750GB is $249 USD. Xbit Laboratories
The Transportation Security Agency has lost an external computer hard drive containing the personal, bank and payroll information of up to 100,000 of its former and current employees who worked for the TSA from January 2002 until August 2005. It was reportedly stolen from a human resources office in Crystal City, VA and the Federal Bureau of Investigation and U.S. Secret Service are now helping the TSA investigate the theft. The TSA learned about the missing hard drive sometime Thursday, but the agency informed possibly affected employees Friday evening - a delay which has upset some employees.DailyTech.com
For many families the days of owning just one computer are over. The “family computer” is dead, or at least it is in our home! Rather we have several computers, and with five family members all using their own in separate rooms around the house, sharing data effortlessly can become a daunting task.The Thecus N2100 is a small and simple to use network attached storage device that would allow everyone on the home network to access and share data. However, while simple in design, I quickly learned upon receiving it that it was actually very powerful when it came to sharing data. Features such as dual Gigabit LAN, external USB 2.0 ports, optional wireless and Serial ATA hard drive support make this NAS device one to take under serious consideration.TechSpot
Solid state disk drives are quieter and cooler, faster and lighter, and consume much less power than the traditional hard disk drive. They cost more per GB, however, but as technology advances, prices go down. To do that, consumers must be able to purchase them easily. The world’s second largest PC manufacturer is doing its part.Dell has begun to offer the January 2007-announced 1.8" SanDisk UATA 5000 drives on its Latitude D420 ultra-mobile and Latitude D620 ATG semi-rugged notebooks. SanDisk's 1.8" SSD drive features patented TrueFFS flash management technology, a MTBF of 2 million hours, read speeds of 62MB/sec and had an average access speed of 0.12 milliseconds. The drive reportedly boosts overall system performance by 23% and reduces boot times by 34% on the D420 and D620. The SanDisk UATA 5000 is currently available as a $450 option on the D420 and a $300 option on the D620 ATG. The drive is also available direct from Dell at a price of $549.DailyTech
Until now, 200GB 2.5” hard disk drives have only been available with a 4200rpm motor speed. Samsung Electronics has announced a new lineup of 2.5” hard disk drives that includes a model with 200GB capacity and 7200rpm motor speed. Samsung’s SpinPoint MP1-series products will be available in 80GB, 120GB, 160GB and 200GB capacities with 8MB or 16MB cache. The new family features 7200rpm spindle speed as well as Serial ATA-300 interface with support for native command queuing technology that can improve computer’s responsiveness when the hard drive is used very intensively. In order to improve reliability of SpinPoint MP1 hard drives, Samsung implemented a rotary vibration controller (which prevents the head from leaving the track under severe vibration conditions) and an optional digital free-fall sensor to protect the disk drive from vibration and shock.The electronics equipment maker said that MP1-series is designed for enterprise applications such as workstations, RAID servers, and blade servers. Nevertheless, nothing prevents makers of mobile computers to install them into their machines. Mass production of Samsung SpinPoint MP1 is scheduled for May, directly following sample availability in early May.source: Xbit Laboratories
Hitachi Global Storage Technologies has started to ship its 1TB hard disk drives which were commercially introduced early this year. Hitachi’s Deskstar 7K1000 HDS721010KLA330 model features five 200GB platters and ten heads, has a 7200RPM motor as well as a 32MB data buffer. The manufacturer claims that the drive has a 8.5ms read seek time, a 9.2ms write seek time and 1070Mb/s (133.75MB/s) maximum media transfer rate. Currently the company ships 1TB hard disk drive that use the Serial ATA-300 interface, but a model with Parallel ATA interface is also expected to be available.Hitachi’s 1TB hard disk drive indisputably represents a milestone in desktop storage, as the 1GB landmark in desktops was achieved back in 1995. As with many top-of-the-line purchases, end-users will have to pay a significant premium for 1TB on a single drive. Currently Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000 hard disk drives are available in Japan for ¥51 500 - ¥55980 ($433 - $470), much higher compared to Seagate Barracuda 750GB, which retails for ¥29400 - ¥39660 ($247 - $333) in Tokyo. The recommended price of the 1TB drive from Hitachi for the U.S. is $399, whereas Seagate’s 750GB product costs starting from $249 in the country.source: Xbit Laboratories
Samsung has announced 80GB and 160GB flavours of its new 3.5” SpinPoint S166 Series of ultra silent and high-speed hard disk drives. The S166 Series has a spindle speed of 7,200RPM, provides an 8MB buffer, features the SATA 3.0Gbps interface (PATA interface also available) and includes Native Command Queuing. The new SpinPoint S Series of hard drives offer upgraded versions of Samsung’s proprietary SilentSeek and NoiseGuard technologies. Benchmarking results presented by Samsung show competing hard drives generate on average 2.8 bel (1 bel = 10 decibels) in idle mode and 3.2 bel in seek mode, while Samsung’s S166 series generate just 2.4 bel and 2.75 bel respectively. Samsung claims the 15% noise-level reduction is “significant”.Source: DailyTech
SoftPerfect File Recovery is a tool to recover accidentally deleted files from hard disks, USB flash drives, CF and SD cards and other storage media. We tested the program with images deleted from a USB stick and they were recovered without problems - however the program will not be able to recover any files if the media has been formatted (or files have been overwritten). SoftPerfect File Recovery supports popular file systems such as FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, NTFS and NTFS5 with compression and encryption.Homepage
