A Great Way To Commemorate An Old Friend [DIY]
When you can’t keep your computer functioning anymore, this is one way to deal with it: taking it apart and turning it into a piece of furniture. Much more sentimental (and creative) than tossing it i…
LaCie refreshes connectivity options on Rugged eSATA portable HDD
LaCie’s startlingly orange Rugged drive has been waltzing around and taking beatings for years now, but the company finally decided to give it an interface overhaul to deal with this phenomenon known only as “technological progress.” The latest and greatest in the family is the Rugged eSATA, which maintains the iconic shape and color of the original, yet adds support for eSATA; reportedly, users can see transfer rates as high as 90MB/sec, and if you can only find a USB port, it’ll also work with that when speed isn’t a concern. It’s up for order right now in a 500GB model, but you’ll have to amicably part with $159.99 before calling it yours.
LaCie refreshes connectivity options on Rugged eSATA portable HDD originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 12 Feb 2010 07:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Samsung’s S2 Portable gets Michael Jackson makeover, promises to heal the world
You know, something deep, deep inside of us knew that this was going to happen, but with Michael Jackson’s untimely departure of Planet Earth back in the news thanks to Mr. Conrad Murray’s arraignment, it seems like the glut of This Is It-related gear is even touching the typically straightforward tech industry. The drive you’re weeping at above is the February 22nd-bound 500GB S2 Portable, complete with a paint job that can only be described as overkill. Jackson’s final film is pre-loaded on here (and likely entangled in DRM), as well as Samsung’s own Auto Backup feature that’ll keep your aged concert photos safe for a few more decades. Of course, the inclusion of a “SecretZone” service — which encrypts specific files while requiring a password to access — seems a bit tasteless given the subject matter here, but leave it to Samsung to Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’.
Samsung’s S2 Portable gets Michael Jackson makeover, promises to heal the world originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 09 Feb 2010 09:52:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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SilverStone HDDBOOST lets you build your own hybrid SSD hard drive
We’ve already seen Lenovo and others pair an SDD up with a standard hard drive for maximum speed, but SilverStone now has a fairly novel solution to let you build your own hybrid storage device. Dubbed the HDDBOOST, the device itself is just a simple chassis that lets you plug in any SDD drive and any standard hard drive and connect the whole rig to your computer — you can even apparently daisy chain multiple hard drives and have them all take advantage of the SSD boost. Of course, those drives will be recognized as one by your computer, and the initial setup appears to be minimal, with only a simple mirror backup required to copy all your priority data to the SDD — which the company says could result in up to a 70% increase in speed. No word on an official release over here, but this one should be available in Europe later this month for €33 (or about $45).
[Thanks, Alex]
SilverStone HDDBOOST lets you build your own hybrid SSD hard drive originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 04 Feb 2010 13:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Samsung does the 2TB shuffle with EcoGreen F3EG hard drive
Look out, Western Digital — you’ve got a little competition up there in the rarefied storage air. Samsung just got official with its newest EcoGreen HDD, the 1.5TB and 2TB F3EG. This here drive is the followup unit to last year’s F2EG, and aside from sucking down as little power as possible for a capacious internal drive, it also incorporates a 3.0Gbps SATA interface, native command queuing features and 16MB / 32MB of buffer memory. It should be making its way out onto European and US shelves this month starting at $179.99, thus bringing your ultimate archival dreams that much closer to reality.
Samsung does the 2TB shuffle with EcoGreen F3EG hard drive originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 03 Feb 2010 06:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Sony licenses ‘official’ PS3 external HDDs, doesn’t fully comprehend concept of interoperability
Hey there, why so glum? You’ve overfilled your PS3′s internal storage with mission-critical data and don’t have anywhere else to stash your incoming Best of Miley Cyrus compilation? Fear not, Sony’s got you covered with a pair of officially licensed external HDDs built by Buffalo. They look remarkably similar to standard issue USB portable drives — so much so in fact that one of them is a rebadged unit that Buffalo already retails in the US — but let’s not nitpick here. The two drives on offer come with a generous 500GB of storage and their prices aren’t too bad with the rebadge setting you back around $130 while the more stylish HD-AV500U2 above will cost around $168. You could of course ignore Sony, buy any drive you like and jack it into your PS3; it’s just that these aren’t too terrible as far as unnecessarily licensed peripherals go. Both drives will be hitting Japan in March to coincide with the Torne DVR adapter release.
Sony licenses ‘official’ PS3 external HDDs, doesn’t fully comprehend concept of interoperability originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 03 Feb 2010 05:37:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Xbox 360 Hard Drive accessory bumped to 250GB in Japan
On March 11th, Microsoft will kick out its 250GB external hard drive to the good people of Japan; notable, as the first time that this 250GB drive has been sold anywhere outside of a new console bundle. The slab of external magnetic storage is set to cost ¥15,540 or about $172 should it ever ship Stateside. Unfortunately, Microsoft isn’t revealing its plans for that at the moment while conceding the need for more local storage for content such as software, TV shows, and movies downloaded from the Xbox Live Marketplace. In other words, you’ll get your storage bump… someday.
Xbox 360 Hard Drive accessory bumped to 250GB in Japan originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 01 Feb 2010 03:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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LaCie serves up Enterprise Class versions of Quadra external drives
LaCie dabbled in the CES extravaganza with a few minor offerings, but it decided to wait a few weeks for things to calm down before busting out a new range of wares. Today, the outfit is slinging out a trio of products in the freshly created Enterprise Class: the d2 Quadra Enterprise Class, 2big Quadra Enterprise Class and the 4big Quadra Enterprise Class. Obviously engineered for the more hardcore among us, these units pack enterprise-class SATA drives, a five-year warranty, 128-bit AES hardware encryption and hardware RAID with hot-swappable disks. Each HDD within spins at 7200RPM and boasts 32MB of cache, and 700MB/sec are promised when using a RAID 50 array with four 4big Quadra Enterprise Class units. The whole slate of Neil Poulton-designed drives offer up quad interfaces (FireWire 400 / 800, USB 2.0 and eSATA), and prices get going at just $299.
LaCie serves up Enterprise Class versions of Quadra external drives originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 28 Jan 2010 08:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Sarotech updates book-like Hardbox to version 3.0, embraces SuperSpeed USB
We’ll just come at you straight — the world needs a more varied selection of external hard drives. Aside from the occasional LaCie / Lego-inspired alternative, there’s really a stark lack of style when perusing the storage shelves at Best Buy. Sarotech’s been one to blaze its own trail before, but we’ve yet to see a serious update to the impossible-to-hate Wizplatz W-31… until today, of course. The Hardbox 3.0 is, for all intents and purposes, a refreshed version of the aforementioned unit, and this HDD enclosure sports a sleek, all-black exterior along with a full complement of updated hardware that supports USB 3.0. It’s apparently available with 1TB, 1.5TB, 2TB or 3TB within, though it sounds as if you’ll have to wait until at least February to find one available for shipping. It’ll be worth it, though.
Sarotech updates book-like Hardbox to version 3.0, embraces SuperSpeed USB originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 28 Jan 2010 07:51:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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LG XF1 500GB Multimedia HDD Comes Complete With HDMI-Out [Storage]
The LG XF1 is a 500 GB “Multimedia HDD” that packs a HDMI-out for quick media playback, and has a slick looking design to boot.
However, the XF1 looks geared towards the mainstream consumer crowd, as it only plays back video at 1080i, and fails to support the h.264 or MKV standards. It does, however, support the AVI, Xvid and MPEG family of codecs, along with all the major audio ones. Price and availability are yet to be announced. [LG via Everything USB]
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