Storage

Get a 90GB internal SSD for $79.99

This is an update of a post from a few months ago.

For a long time I was a solid-state-drive naysayer. I'd heard mixed things about their performance and longevity, and I certainly wasn't a fan of their sky-high prices.

But SSDs have improved considerably over the years, to the point where they're now a highly desirable alternative to traditional hard drives.

Indeed, a good SSD is usually significantly faster, and it consumes less power -- a big consideration for battery-conscious laptop users. Also, because it has no moving parts, it's much less susceptible to damage.… Read more

Is Hadoop the new tape?

I attended GigaOM's Structure:Data 2012 conference in New York City last week. This is the second one I've attended and I'm now a confirmed advocate of this event. Om Malik brings together people who, in one way or another, represent much the creative thinking around so-called big data. I got the feeling that I could strike up a conversation with anyone there and learn something new.

I noticed at least two major differences between the Structure:Data event I attended last year and this year's version. Last year, most if not all of the exhibiting … Read more

WD My Book Thunderbolt Duo review: Good but not really a page turner

If price has been your biggest concern about a Thunderbolt storage device, and it should be, then the new My Book Thunderbolt Duo from Western Digital is worth the wait.

After teasing about it at CES 2012, WD finally released the drive, and it costs about $100 less than the 2big Thunderbolt from LaCie, which offers exactly the same storage capacities and RAID support.… Read more

Asus RT-N66U router review: Worth the wait

I waited for a while before reviewing Asus's latest RT-N66U Dark Knight Double 450Mbps N router, which is the successor of the award-winning RT-N56U.

And it was worth the wait.

The reason for the holdup was the router's initial versions of the firmware had a few known bugs. I tested it with the latest, version 3.0.0.3.108, and while I could still find some minor quirks, the router proved itself to be one of the best N900 routers on the market.… Read more

Get a Kingston 16GB Wi-Drive for $45 shipped

Is your 16GB iPad feeling the storage pinch? Are you wishing Amazon had squeezed more than 8GB into the Kindle Fire? Here's the rub: Kindle Fires and iDevices lack expansion capabilities, so you're pretty much stuck with what you've got.

Or not, thanks to the Kingston Wi-Drive. It offers wireless, portable storage for select phones and tablets.

The big downside has always been the price, but Adorama now has the 16GB Kingston Wi-Drive for $44.95 shipped. That's a heckuva lot more reasonable than the original $129.99 list price.

The gizmo measures 4.78 inches … Read more

WD debuts 2TB My Passport portable external hard drive

Western Digital announced late yesterday the first single-volume portable external hard drive on the market that offers 2TB of storage, 500GB more than the second-highest-capacity portable drive of its type, the GoFlex Ultraportable of Seagate.

The new drive belongs to the My Passport family which, prior to this, offered up to 1TB of storage space. Despite the doubling of the capacity, the new 2.5-inch drive remains compact, bus-powered, and portable. WD says it supports USB 3.0 and USB 2.0, and is preformatted using NTFS but can be easily reformatted for Mac OS.… Read more

Get a 16GB Kingston flash drive for $10.95 shipped

Jumping jack flash-drives!

While supplies last (and they definitely won't last long), Buy.com has the Kingston DataTraveler 109 16GB flash drive for $10.95 shipped--the lowest price I've ever seen on a drive with that much storage space.

Update: Be sure to select the "budget shipping" option. Also, remove the CA security option that is automatically added to your cart.

Though it's hard to tell from the picture, this drive is tiny. I've got the 8GB version, and it's barely longer than the end of your pinky finger. Because it's … Read more

Seagate GoFlex Satellite gets boost from firmware update

As promised at CES 2012, Seagate announced the latest major firmware upgrade for the Seagate GoFlex Satellite today.

When first released almost a year ago, the Satellite was effectively the first wireless storage expander for the iPad as well as other mobile devices, allowing for streaming digital content it stored to up to three mobile devices via its built-in Wi-Fi network. One of the few drawbacks of the device was the fact that it couldn't relay the Internet access from another Wi-Fi network, making mobile devices remain offline when connected to its Wi-Fi network. … Read more

Seagate reaches 1Tb per square inch, hard drive to reach 60TB capacity

The current highest-capacity internal hard drive that you can buy offers 3TB of storage space, which is huge. Soon you'll be able to put even more data on one, thanks toSeagate's recent achievement in data density.

The hard-drive maker announced today that it has become the first company to achieve the milestone storage density of 1 terabit (1 trillion bits) per square inch, promising to double the current hard-drive's capacity before the end of this decade. The company says its new storage technology will also allow hard drives to reach 60TB capacity within the next decade. … Read more

Seagate GoFlex Desk Thunderbolt adapter review: Best deal so far

Finally, you now can have access to a Thunderbolt storage device without having to sell an arm and a leg, but maybe just a little finger.

Seagate's latest adapter for its superflexible external hard drive, the GoFlex Desk, now supports the Thunderbolt standard and costs just $190.

While $190 is not a small amount, the GoFlex Desk Thunderbolt adapter, when coupled with a GoFlex Desk drive (which costs another $250 for the top 4TB capacity), still comes out at least $100 cheaper than any other Thunderbolt storage device, including those with much less storage space.

To add icing to … Read more