Hasta La Gadget!

We know you’ve got questions, and if you’re brave enough to ask the world for answers, then here’s the outlet to do so. This week’s Ask Engadget inquiry is from Michael, who is suffering from a storage crunch. If you’re looking to ask one of your own, drop us a line at ask [at] engadget [dawt] com.

“I’m a bargain-basement kinda guy, and I’ve picked up lots of DVDs cheaply during the sale season(s). I was planning to rip my collection with Handbrake so I could watch them on my iPad, but my 1TB HDD is already close to being maxed out! Is there a better solution out there than just buying a 2TB HDD now, waiting a year and buying a 3TB HDD when the prices come down? Is there a cheap RAID-style system that plays nicely with my iTunes? Please help!”

• You can pick up a standalone 3TB external HDD for between $150 and $200,
• Or you could take the leap and set up an iTunes home server, perhaps using the cheapest Synology DiskStation, which is $200 plus the cost of the drives. That way you can get a 4TB iTunes server for just under $400.
• You could also snag a Drobo that’ll give you the same storage options with significantly increased expandability, up to 16TB in the future.

That said, perhaps our friendly readers know a way to tame this man’s ever growing media collection, so if you’ve already set up your own system, why not share your knowledge in the comments below?

Filed under: Portable Audio/Video, Storage

Ask Engadget: What’s the best way to store my media collection? originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 20 Oct 2012 23:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Many of us may have liked the prospect of Western Digital’s My Book Thunderbolt Duo, but there’s no doubt some of us who discovered that even 6TB just wouldn’t cut it. If that digital pack rat mentality describes you, the solution is here: the company has taken advantage of larger 4TB hard disks to stuff a total 8TB of storage into the Duo’s enclosure. The extra capacity hikes the price to $850, although the company notes that it’s including the often expensive Thunderbolt cable to avoid any surprise trips to the store. Those without the ports or budget for the Duo can still reap some of the benefits through an updated, 4TB version of the regular My Book that hums along on USB 3.0 at a more reasonable $250 price. Either of the new drives should be lurking in stores if you’re hurting for space as we write this.

Filed under: Storage

Western Digital bumps My Book Thunderbolt Duo to 8TB, consoles regular My Book buyers with 4TB originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 09 Oct 2012 17:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Last year’s floods in Thailand caused hard drive shortages after wreaking havoc on a number of electronics manufacturers, but new stats from IHS iSuppli indicate that the HDD market for PCs has fully recovered and is poised to hit an all time high. The firm expects 524 million units for internal use in PCs to ship this year, besting the previous record by 4.3 percent. What’s giving the recovery an added boost? According to the analytics group, the extra demand comes courtesy of Windows 8 and Ultrabooks. Unfortunately for deal hounds, the company noted in a report earlier this year that prices aren’t expected to dip below the pre-flood range until 2014. If IHS iSuppli projections hold true, total annual hard drive shipments could reach 575.1 million by 2016.

Filed under: Storage

Hard drive shipments recover from floods in Thailand, expected to reach record high originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 29 Sep 2012 16:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A-DATA claims that their recently introduced DashDrive Elite HE720 is also the world’s thinnest external hard drive, and I leave the commenting floor open to the rest of our dear readers to counter that claim or to further strengthen it. Well, one thing’s for sure though, the DashDrive Elite HE720 is definitely a thing of beauty from the moment you lay your eyes on it, where this USB 3.0 compatible device is sleek enough that it already looks fast without having you plug it into your computer.

Boasting a brushed stainless steel surface with a chassis that measures just 8.9mm thin, the DashDrive Elite HE720’s protective layer provides 9H scratch resistance, which is said to prevent damage even after long-term use. Perhaps Apple might want to look into this and see whether they can incorporate a similar material and build quality in their next iPhone, don’t you think so? A bright blue LED indicator will let you know of power and data transfer status, while other features include one-touch backup, USB 3.0 connectivity, and being eligible for a free download of the latest Norton Internet Security 2012 anti-virus software (albeit this is just a 60 day trial version). Not only that, throw in a 3 year warranty service and you’ve more or less got yourself a winner here.

Expect the DashDrive Elite HE720 to retail for $89.99 if you are interested.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: ADATA Wine Bottle USB flash drive , ADATA XPG SX910 announced ,

The folks from Toshiba look to continue the trend of packing tons and tons of storage into an extremely small space. Today they’ve outed their latest Canvio Slim portable hard drive and are stating it’s the “world’s thinnest” portable hard drive. Coming in at just 9mm thick offering 500GB of storage for only $115 — lets take a look.

Essentially they are using an Ultrabook class leading 7mm portable HD, packed it into an ultra-sleek enclosure like most portable hard drives, added a few ports and are offering it for an excellent price. This new Canvio drive is extremely small and will fit in nearly all pants or shirt pockets — basically being the size of most smartphones these days.

As a comparison the new iPhone 5 is just 7.6mm thick, and the Galaxy S III is 8.6mm in size. Making this new 500GB portable storage option pretty sleek. Not only is Toshiba’s latest drive sleek and cheap, but it’s also quite fast being operated and powered by USB 3.0, with full compatibility with both PC and Mac. Here’s what Maciek Brzeski, VP of Product Marketing had to say:

As consumer electronics continue to get thinner, lighter and more portable, we recognized a huge demand to create a storage device that is in line with those trends,” and With the Canvio Slim, consumers can now easily stash their storage device right along with their Ultrabook, knowing that their data is always safe, even when they’re on the go.”

Other specs include 5400 RPM and an 8MB cache buffer, along with a 12 ms average seek time. It’s not the fastest around, but it sure is portable. You can get it from Toshiba direct today for $115 in Graphite Black or brushed Aluminum Grey, and it should hit retail stores starting in October.

[via MaximumPC]

Toshiba outs Canvio Slim as world’s thinnest 500GB hard drive is written by Cory Gunther & originally posted on SlashGear.
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