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While the old-fashioned hard drive isn’t as fast or slender as an SSD, it can still lord its greater capacities and cheaper price over its upstart rival. TDK thinks it’s extended the mediums lead in that area by tweaking the magnetic heads and recording medium of the hardware — increasing the areal density of a unit to 1.5 TB per square inch. It means that we could see 1TB platters arriving in 2.5-inch laptop drives and 2TB platters in desktop modules, meaning even your commuting machine can store all of your heftiest data with ease.

Filed under: Storage

TDK breaks the Hard Drive density limit, could go on to develop super-sized storage originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 02 Oct 2012 17:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Toshiba is one of the biggest names in storage products, and it offers a wide range of internal storage devices and external storage devices. Toshiba has announced that it has started shipping its first Hybrid Drive MQ01ABDH series (PDF) storage devices. These new Hybrid Drives combine the performance of a SSD with the capacity and pricing of a traditional HDD.

Toshiba offers the drives with capacities of up to 1 TB, and the drives are 2.5-inch form factor with a 9.5 mm height. The new Hybrid Drives use SATA connectivity and have self-learning caching algorithms to learn the data access patterns of the user and optimize performance. These algorithms determine what data should be stored in the flash memory for quick access and what data should be stored on the traditional magnetic platters.

The hybrid drive is initially available in 1 TB and 750 GB capacities. Toshiba says the drives are sized for use in ultrathin and standard notebooks, gaming PCs, AIOs, and slim desktops. The hard drive portion of the Hybrid Drives spins at 5400 RPMs and has an average seek time of 12 ms.

On 1 TB and 750 GB capacity Hybrid Drives the amount of NAND Flash storage is 8 GB. Toshiba says that the design of the Hybrid Series storage devices will enable faster system boot times and faster data access. Pricing on the new drives is unannounced at this time.

Toshiba Ships First MQ01ABDH Hybrid Series Drive is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
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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

Filed under: Storage

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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Here you are the latest Canvio external and portable HDDs from Toshiba! Announced in Japan and in the USA, the new comer is the Canvio Slim! Available in 500GB only and with the support of USB 2.0 and USB 3.0, the Canvio slim come with a 7mm thin thick body and will be available at launch (end of October) in Graphite Black and Silver.
The Canvio Desk in the other hand also come with the support of USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 as well as being available in 1 or 2TB. Finally the Canvio will 500, 750GB, 1 …

It turns out that if you take an Ultrabook-style 7mm hard drive and put it in a sleek enclosure, you end up with a portable HDD that’s barely any bigger, thicker or heavier than a smartphone. Toshiba guessed this might happen, and so it came up with a new addition to its Canvio range: the Canvio Slim, which sports 500GB of PC- and Mac-compatible luggage room, uses a single USB 3.0 connection for data and power, and is encased in either “graphite-black” or silver brushed aluminum. Look for it in stores from October priced around $115, including a three-year warranty.

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Toshiba outs Canvio Slim portable drive: 500GB, $115 and just 9mm thick originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 24 Sep 2012 10:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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