Ad: Manage updates with the Download App
ie8 fix

sata

BlackArmor NAS server: Seagate gets serious about network storage

I got my hands on Seagate's BlackArmor 440 NAS server and it seems different from most NAS servers I've reviewed.

The BlackArmor 440 is one of two products in the BlackArmor NAS server family that Seagate introduced last Tuesday. The other is the BlackArmor 420. The only difference between the two is the 420 ships with only two hard drives preinstalled, leaving two bays empty, while the 440 comes fully populated with four drives. Both devices are aimed at business and home office environments.

These are the first NAS servers that are truly from Seagate. The company does sell and support a few others, such as the Central Axis, but under a different brand.

The BlackArmor NAS server has a rugged and compact look for a four-bay NAS server and comes with an easy-to-use, tool-free design. It can take up to four SATA hard drives of up to 2TB of storage.

Unlike other NAS servers I've seen, the BlackArmor has four USB ports and two Gigabit Ethernet ports. The USB port can host other external USB hard drives that can be set to contain the backup of the NAS server's internal storage. According to Seagate, this allows for offsite backup rotation.

… Read more

Seagate demos 6Gbps hard-drive transfer speed

In collaboration with AMD, Seagate announced Monday its demonstration of a new hard drive Serial ATA (SATA) interface, tentatively called SATA3, that offers speeds up to 6Gbps, or 600MBps.

(SATA3, or SATA 6Gb/second, was developed by the Serial ATA International Organization under the Serial ATA Revision 3.0 specifications.)

Currently most consumer-grade computers use either the SATA or SATA2 interface that offers cap throughput speeds of 1.5Gbps and 3Gbps, respectively, or 150MBps and 300MBps. However, it's important to note that because of software and hardware overhead, the actual speed of most SATA hard drives is still less … Read more

Access hard drives conveniently with NewerTech Voyager

If you do a lot of work that involves transferring data from one hard drive to another, you'll probably love the NewerTech Voyager hard drive dock.

This the first quad-interface hard drive docking station that supports FireWire 800/400, USB 2.0, and eSATA. The device can turn any 2.5-inch or 3.5-inch SATA hard drive, up to 2.0TB, into a fully bootable and hot-swappable external drive solution.

NewerTech Voyager is compatible with both Macs and PC and features plug-and-plug installation with no software or driver needed. All you need to do is plug in a new hard drive, and format it if need be. You can of course--and I believe this is the main use of the device--put in an old hard drive to access data from it.… Read more

Seagate boasts new family of hard drives

Seagate claims that its all new family of hard drives offers the lowest power consumption and record-setting for any tier-two enterprise applications.

The Constellation family, as it's called, includes two models: the 2.5-inch Constellation and the 3.5-inch Constellation ES. Both drives also include PowerChoice from Seagate, which decreases power consumption by up to 54 percent, arguably the highest in the industry.

According to Seagate, the PowerChoice technology is designed to deliver the power-reduction savings without sacrificing performance and data integrity. In addition, the Constellation family features enterprise-grade reliability and is rated at a full 1.2 million … Read more

Return of the $99.99 1TB hard drive

It's been awhile, but once again you can pick up a 1-terabyte external hard drive for under $100.

Specifically, Buy.com has the Fantom 1TB G-Force USB/eSATA hard drive for $99.99 shipped. That's an awful lotta storage for the money. And no rebates!

Though fairly industrial in design and not likely to win any beauty contests, the Fantom's got it where it counts: a 7,200-rpm drive, an 8.5-millisecond seek time, and your choice of USB or eSATA interfaces. It's compatible with most versions of Windows and the Mac OS.

A drive like … Read more

USB 3.0 will crush eSATA, FireWire

Intel demonstrated a working version of USB 3.0 at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last week. Here's why it will make eSATA and FireWire obsolete.

When USB 3.0 is expected to hit the market in early 2010, it will have been 10 years since the now ubiquitous USB 2.0 was introduced (April 2000). The current USB 2.0 specification runs at a theoretical maximum speed of 480Mbps, and can supply power (for those looking for the hard details, you can find the USB 2.0 specification here (zip file).

According to the USB Implementers … Read more

Toshiba unveils two new notebooks in Satellite series

Toshiba continues its lineup with a couple of new notebooks from its Satellite series.

First up is the 15-inch Toshiba Satellite L305-S5921, an average, entry-level notebook that will suffice for the student on a budget. Don't expect to find a FireWire port, Bluetooth, or a Webcam on this unit, but do expect to see the usual row of media-control keys for pause, stop, rewind, and fast forward and two programmable keys defaulted to mute and open Windows Media Player. Also on this notebook are three USB ports, a 4-in-1 Bridge Media Adapter, and an Express Card slot. It comes … Read more

Toshiba releases new Qosmio X305-Q725

One of the many laptops being announced at CES this week is the Toshiba Qosmio X305-Q725. It will offer the same bells and whistles of recent X305s, except that its primary drive will consist of a 64GB solid state drive, while the secondary drive will be the standard spindle-based 320GB SATA hard disk drive. This hybrid solution will not only boost performance on an already beast of a machine but will also help with its typically lackluster battery life--as with most gaming laptops--not by much, but it's something.

Here's a quick look at the specifications:

Intel Core 2 … Read more