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Connected Data are the ones behind the award-winning Drobo range of smart storage solutions, and in their latest product announcement, they have turned our attention to the the newest 4-bay Drobo. This third generation Drobo will be easy on your finances, and not only that, it is also three times faster compared to its predecessor, and you will be able to enjoy updated features including the likes of USB 3.0 connectivity, significantly faster rebuild times and enhanced support for Apple’s Time Machine. Not only that, in order to entice existing customers to perform an upgrade, the company has rolled out a customer loyalty discount program of $50 off for all first and second-generation Drobo customers.

Touted to be the “Most Advanced 4-Bay Drobo” ever, this third generation Drobo will cost a relatively affordable $349 each, packing in a totally new architecture that makes it three times faster compared to the previous generation. Not only that, we did mention that it will have faster rebuild times, but just how much faster would that be? We are looking at four times the speed in order to maximize data availability just in case there is a disk drive failure, and there is also the option of throwing in a battery back up that delivers additional protection in the event of a power outage.

Data protection becomes a no-brainer with Drobo, as whenever a drive fails, Drobo will automatically protect your precious data without requiring any form of user intervention. Apart from that, you will be able to purchase the capacity that you need at the moment, with the flexibility to increase space by throwing in extra disk drives, or through the swapping of smaller disks with larger ones some time down the road. Not only that, Drobo even offers protection against one or two simultaneous drive failures with but a single click.

Pre-orders for the third generation Drobo are already being accepted as you read this, and shipments are set to commence later this April.

Press Release
[ Third generation 4-bay Drobo delivers portable storage in a stylish design copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

Buffalo has revealed its latest external drive, the DriveStation DDR HD-GDU3, slotting more RAM into the USB 3.0-connected enclosure so as to rival SSD speeds, allegedly, with HDD pricing. The new drive, available in 2TB and 3TB capacities, uses traditional spinning-platter disks to keep prices down, but Buffalo claims that thanks to a combination of caching and other tweaking it’ll reach write speeds of up to 400 MB/s.

That’s a pretty impressive number for an HDD-based external drive, if Buffalo can sustain it, while the quoted read rate of 330 MB/s is also ample. In fact, Buffalo claims, it’ll take around 3.5s to shuttle 800MB of photos from a PC to the DriveStation DDR.

So far, high-speed has generally been synonymous with SSD, with solid-state drives cropping up in models like LaCie’s Little Big Disk. That uses not only solid-state storage for performance, but hooks up via Thunderbolt.

Buffalo has stuck with USB 3.0, which is theoretically a “narrower pipe” than Thunderbolt, but arguably makes up for it by being more commonly available (plus backward-compatible with USB 2.0, albeit with a speed hit). It’ll work with both PCs and Macs.

The DDR’s trick is more cache than you’d usually find in an external drive: in this case, 1GB of DDR3 memory. Buffalo is being coy with the details, but says that by buffering files during larger jobs, it can bypass the bandwidth limits of traditional HDDs and push content through the USB 3.0 connection more readily.

We’ll have to wait until we can test the DriveStation DDR out ourselves before we know how accurate that all is – in our experience with drives that use caching systems, we’ve generally found that the performance isn’t necessarily consistent across all content stored. The drive is shipping now, priced at $159.99/£129 for the 2TB model and $209.99/£169 for the 3TB model.

Buffalo DriveStation DDR claims SSD speeds with HDD hardware is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Buffalo is going to release the world’s slimmest portable hard disk in the beginning of February. It’s a 500GB hard disk that is only 8.8mm thick and weights 140g. Its surface has been treated with aluminum, with a smooth texture and great strength that is relatively scratch-proof. It is very easy to slip in your pocket and carry around.
Also, I found it very handy that it has three modes, depending on your needs:
“Speed Mode” – Quad-speed
“Save …

Announced a few weeks ago here you are in the “Flesh” Toshiba’s new Canvio external USB 3.0 HDD line-up. Not much to say here really with the exception maybe of Canvio Slim that is indeed slick and elegant!

LaCie’s no stranger to kicking out portable HDDs that are a-okay with getting kicked around, and the Rugged USB 3.0 Thunderbolt Series is no exception. As the extended title implies, this one is equipped to transfer files via USB 3.0 or Thunderbolt, and it’ll play nice with Mac and Windows platforms. The LaCie Rugged SSD offers up transfer rates as high as 380MB/sec — a feat we came darn close to hitting ourselves in testing — and the HDD variants claim up to 110MB/sec. The bantam drive is entirely bus-powered, and it’s engineered to shake off drops of up to four feet. Interesting? Both models should be shipping shortly, with the 1TB HDD edition going for $249.99 and the 120GB SSDer for $199.99.

Continue reading LaCie’s Rugged USB 3.0 Thunderbolt: fast portable storage that can take a beating

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LaCie’s Rugged USB 3.0 Thunderbolt: fast portable storage that can take a beating originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 25 Sep 2012 11:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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