The age of USB 3.0 is almost here. Today, storage leader Thecus® Technology is proud to announce its first portable storage device featuring the new USB 3.0 standard – the D0204. With massive storage capacity in a tiny package no larger than a paperback book, the D0204 delivers impressive data security and performance with an integrated USB 3.0 port, making it the most powerful and versatile portable DAS on the market.
The D0204 is a small and compact direct attached storage (DAS) device. Wrapped in a housing measuring a mere 86mm x 55.3mm x 132mm, the D0204 may appear to be a mere portable hard disk at first glance, but peering inside this tiny form factor reveals a powerful storage unit.
Headlining is its integrated USB 3.0 port at the back of the unit, which grants the D0204 data transfer speeds of up to 5Gb/s – ten times the speed of USB 2.0. With USB 3.0 built-in, users can transfer files to and from the device at unprecedented speeds with a USB 3.0-enabled computer. Of course, the D0204 is fully backward-compatible with USB 2.0 and USB 1.1 standards, which means you can use it with virtually any USB-equipped device.
Cirago International, a leading manufacturer of multimedia centers, storage and wireless solutions, today announced the launch and immediate availability of its exclusive new CDD2000 USB 3.0 Hard Drive Docking Station. As one of the first SuperSpeed USB 3.0 devices of its kind on the market, the CDD2000 allows home and business users to keep legacy hard drives in service for quick and easy access to archived data or expanded storage options.
Featuring high-performance data transfer of up to 5 Gbps, the CDD2000 supports both 2.5" and 3.5" SATA I and II hard drives with plug-and-play ease and hot-swappable convenience. The sleek, contemporary design of the dock is unobtrusive on the desktop and its compact size makes for a small footprint.
Putting more terabytes in the hands of consumers worldwide, Seagate, the leader in hard drives and storage solutions, today announced the world’s first 3 Terabyte (TB) external desktop drive. Available immediately, the 3TB FreeAgent® GoFlex™ Desk external hard drive helps to meet the explosive worldwide demand for digital content storage in both the home and the office. With 3TB of capacity people can store up to 120 HD movies, 1,500 video games, thousands of photos or countless hours of digital music.
A key addition to the company’s recently introduced GoFlex™ family of hard drives, the 3TB GoFlex Desk external drive couples immense capacity with the flexibility to adapt the drive’s USB 2.0 interface to a USB 3.0 or FireWire® 800 connection to meet varying performance and transfer speed needs. Consumers can easily create, store and access content from either a Windows® or Mac OS X computer on the GoFlex Desk external drive, thanks to an included NTFS driver for Mac.
“Consumer capacity demands are quickly out-pacing the needs of business as people continue to collect high-definition videos, photos and music,” said Dave Mosley, Seagate executive vice president of Sales, Marketing and Product Line Management. “Seagate has a tradition of designing products that break into new storage frontiers to meet customer requirements and the 3TB GoFlex™ Desk external drive is no exception–delivering the highest-capacity storage solution available today.”
Thermaltake, leading DIY chassis and storage enclosure brand, introduces the newest series of USB 3.0 SuperSpeed docking stations for all 2.5” and 3.5” HDDs, making it more convenient and easy to transfer large documents, pictures or movies between hard drives and computers. With support for hard drives of up to 2 TB capacity the Thermaltake BlacX 5G offers utmost storage convenience and flexibility for people on the move and those with huge data archives.
Backward compatibility with USB 2.0 and USB 1.1 increase usage scenarios to even migrate data from older systems and make them available on the latest USB 3.0 SuperSpeed devices. The easy plug & play installation warrants for operation with Windows systems as well as Mac OS, while the premium shielded data cable does not only guarantee increased data safety but also boosts transfer rates up to 5.0 Gbps with USB 3.0 compatible devices.
Sharkoon presents another external housing with a faster USB 3.0 port: After the accessory specialist had introduced their QuickStore Portable USB 3.0 for 2.5-inch SATA hard drives in May, Sharkoon has now expanded their "Rapid Case" series with a SuperSpeed model for SATA hard drives with a 3.5-inch form factor.
The "Rapid Case" series offers solid Aluminum for users who are searching for an inexpensive yet quality made external hard drive case for an enclosure. Current models will be available with external USB 2.0 ports for 2.5 and 3.5-inch IDE hard drives as well as either with USB 2.0 or USB 2.0 plus eSATA hard drives in both sizes.
Western Digital today introduced its new 1 TB My Book® AV DVR expander, allowing customers to instantly and seamlessly expand their DVR recording capacity by simply attaching the My Book AV DVR expander.
TiVo Verified™ compatible with TiVo® Series3™ and TiVo HD DVRs, the new My Book AV DVR expander is capable of storing up to 120 hours of high-definition (HD) television programming. The drive, which offers USB and eSATA connections, has also been tested and is compatible with Dish Network® and DirecTV® DVRs. WD is working with other major satellite, cable and telecom companies to integrate its DVR expander technology into set-top boxes around the world.
DVRs have become an indispensable technology for consumers around the world by helping users time-shift their TV and recommend new shows. According to Parks Associates, 40 percent of U.S. broadband households and 38 percent of Western European broadband households have a DVR (Parks Associates: The Consumer Perspective 2009). HD programs take several times more storage space than standard definition programs, requiring users to constantly delete old shows to make more room for new ones. Shortage of storage also prevents the DVRs recommendation engine from suggesting new shows, limiting the use of a favorite consumer feature. WD's My Book AV DVR expander addresses these issues by providing users with up to 120 additional hours of HD storage for their TiVo, DirecTV, Dish Network and other compatible DVRs.
Toshiba Storage Device Division (SDD), a division of Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc. and the industry pioneer in small form factor enterprise-class hard disk drives (HDDs), today announced the launch of the MBF2xxLRC, a 2.5-inch enterprise HDD mounted in a 3.5-inch bracket.
Following the successful launch of the 600GB MBF2600RC 2.5-inch enterprise drive in February this year, customer demand steadily increased for small form factor HDDs due to their stability, reliability, and reduced power consumption compared to traditional 3.5-inch drives. To support this demand, Toshiba developed the 3.5-inch bracket, giving IT departments easier access to the benefits of 2.5-inch drives by enabling the small form factor drives to be used in legacy 3.5-inch servers and storage enclosures.
Iomega today announced the launch of the exciting new line of Iomega® Skin™ branded Hard Drives, three different 500GB portable hard drives that pop with unique designs and colors that scream, "Who says portable storage has to be boring?"
In conjunction with the popular Skin Industries, one of the leading alternative "Sports Fashion" brands in America today, Iomega's new Skin Hard Drives feature three compact personal storage models with custom Skin-branded graphics that stand out in a burst of hip culture compared to anything else in the hard drive market today.
"The new Iomega Skin Drives exude an alternative personality with eye-catching Skin Industries graphics that demand the attention of anyone who doesn't accept the status quo, who zigs when others zag, especially when it comes to the look and design of their digital devices," said Jonathan Huberman, President of Iomega and the Consumer and Small Business Products Division of EMC. "Iomega's new Skin Drives deliver that kind of excitement in a lightweight, compact design with the quality features people expect from Iomega, including industry-leading ruggedness to protect your data and a top-tier software suite bundled free of charge with every Skin Hard Drive. That's an unbeatable personal storage combination for tech-savvy students and young professionals alike."
Samsung Electronics announced today that it is now shipping the Spinpoint F4, the newest model of its Spinpoint F series drives. The superior performance and high-reliability Spinpoint F4 is engineered for high-end computing in PCs, Macs, high-end workstations and server applications.
"Higher performance combined with increasing capacities continues to accelerate demand for 3.5” drives in desktops storage,” said In-Chul Park, vice president of sales, storage systems division, Samsung Electronics. “The one-head platform of the new 7200rpm Spinpoint F4, packing up to 320GB of storage capacity per one head in half platter, delivers added reliability that our customers have come to expect from Samsung.”
With a one-head platform design and fewer mechanical parts, the reliability and acoustic features of the Spinpoint F4 have been improved. The drive delivers 10% increased read/write performance and 7% lower power consumption than the Spinpoint F1.
Preparing for the pending industry transition to Advanced Format, 4K sector hard drives, Seagate has developed new technology to greatly ease and simplify this transition for Seagate customers. First featured in the new Momentus 750GB notebook drive introduced last week, SmartAlign is the industry’s first utility-free solution for customers moving to Advanced Format hard drives.
Advanced Format is a new standard defining the 4K sector hard drive format which all hard drive manufacturers will adopt over the coming months. Through participation with IDEMA (The International Disk Drive Equipment and Materials Association), all major hard drive manufacturers have agreed to migrate to the Advanced Format standard for new desktop and notebook platforms introduced after January 1, 2011.
Advanced Format hard drives offer sector sizes that are eight times larger than the legacy 512 byte standard. This provides format efficiencies that will help push storage densities higher, reaching new capacity milestones. It also enables higher levels of drive robustness due to increased error correction capabilities.