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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We’re a jaded bunch here at Engadget sometimes, and with most of us using SSD-based systems these days it’s hard to get too excited about good old spinny disks. Still we’re also suckers for impressive technology, so our interest was piqued when Western Digital announced its 5mm thin 2.5-inch hard drives the other day. Luckily, the company saw fit to bring samples of its skinny new WD Black hybrid drive and WD Blue HDD to IDF 2012 and let us handle both briefly. The verdict? These are impossibly thin — perfect for all those nice Ultrabooks we’re expecting to see hit the market in the next few months. Details on performance, availability and pricing are scarce since these drives are intended for OEMs. Take a look at our gallery below, which includes thickness comparisons with WD’s upcoming 1TB 7mm thin HDD and a standard-sized loyalty card — then peek past the break for our hands-on video.

Update: yes, the loyalty card was demagnetized in the making of this video, and you now owe us all coffee.

Continue reading Western Digital brings wafer thin 5mm hard drives to IDF, we go hands-on (video)

Filed under: Storage

Western Digital brings wafer thin 5mm hard drives to IDF, we go hands-on (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 12 Sep 2012 20:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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LaCie has been sprucing up its smaller drives to handle a new crop of Macs that support USB 3.0. It’s now turn for the big boys to play. Updated versions of the 2big Quadra and 4big Quadra (not yet shown here) use the faster port to reach the potential of their high-capacity RAID arrays, peaking at either 210MB/s for the dual-drive 2big and 245MB/s for its quad-drive cousin. We’re not seeing a fundamental shakeup of the design apart from the higher speeds, although that’s not necessarily a problem given the FireWire 800 to catch legacy users and hot-swappable bays for future upgrades. Video editors and other storage mavens should just prepare themselves to pony up. The upgraded Quadra models will start at respective $499 (4TB) and $1,099 (8TB) prices when they ship in October, and they’re only poised to get more expensive when LaCie sets the costs for the higher-end 6TB and 12TB models.

Continue reading LaCie 2big, 4big Quadra drives hop the USB 3.0 bandwagon, give Macs 12TB of speedy storage

Filed under: Storage

LaCie 2big, 4big Quadra drives hop the USB 3.0 bandwagon, give Macs 12TB of speedy storage originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 07 Sep 2012 15:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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