Hasta La Gadget!

You know, making that jump from HDD to SSD still costs an arm and a leg, so how about somewhere in between that gap? That’s what Lenovo‘s offering as an option for the IdeaPad Y460 and Y560 coming in March. The idea with this RapidDrive technology is that you can have a 32GB or 64GB PCI-Express SSD installed alongside your regular HDD (up to 500GB option), and the two drives will effectively be combined into one. Sounds like a tribute to the hybrid hard drives that seem to have quietly disappeared. The guys at Lenovo Blogs claim that “this is not Intel TurboMemory” as RapidDrive implements a “more automatic” algorithm to dynamically pool and manage the hybrid drive, thus giving up to 66 percent increase in Windows 7 boot speed as well as everyday performance. Regardless of this jab at Intel, we’ve seen this demoed at CES and it looked as good as the video demo after the break. Just don’t let us down with the SSD prices, Lenovo.

Continue reading Lenovo RapidDrive brings SSD and HDD together, demoes 66 percent speed boost on video

Lenovo RapidDrive brings SSD and HDD together, demoes 66 percent speed boost on video originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 20 Jan 2010 18:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Last year was a relatively quiet one for Clickfree after it showed its cards at CES 2009, but it’s clear the company is looking to start 2010 off with a bang here in the desert. The recently updated C2 backup drive is seeing a significant overhaul at CES, with the C2N acting as a portable backup drive for any computer on your home network. The C2N drive is the company’s first to boast its BackupLink technology, which enables all of your networked machines (Macs and PCs) to be backed up automatically; of course, you’ll only be backing up between 250GB and 640GB of information, but we’re told that larger models are expected later in the year. Next up is the Network Edition of the Transformer, which is apt to be entirely more useful for those of you with capacious USB hard drives already looking for work. Essentially, this touts the same functionality as the aforementioned C2N, but it connects to any USB hard drive rather than providing a drive of its own. Finally, the Traveler SD is a 32GB Secure Digital card with the Clickfree backup software baked in; as you might imagine, this enables computer backups to take place on a card reader, which just might be the perfect solution for travelers who haven’t any room for a spare HDD. You can expect to find all three on store shelves between March and April, with pricing set for $159.99 (250GB) $179.99 (320GB), $199.99 (500GB and $219.99 (640GB) for the C2N, $99.99 for the Transformer Networ Edition and $89.99 (16GB) / $149.99 (32GB) for the Traveler SD card.

Continue reading Clickfree busts out automatic backup solutions: C2N HDD, Transformer and Traveler SD

Clickfree busts out automatic backup solutions: C2N HDD, Transformer and Traveler SD originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 06 Jan 2010 00:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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CES just wouldn’t be CES without a few new introductions from LaCie, now would it? Nah. Up first from the sexiest name in storage is a fresh member of the LaCinema multimedia hard drive family, the Mini HD. Equipped with 802.11n WiFi and a penchant for serving up 1080p video, this DLNA media player boasts an HDMI output, internal hard drive, USB socket (for uploading media or playing files back from a USB drive) and an extensive list of supported codecs that includes MKV, AVC and DivX. This one should be filtering out now in the US and Europe for an undisclosed amount. Moving on, we’ve got the simply titled Network Server, which sports five drive bays, gigabit Ethernet and Windows Home Server running the show. LaCie also enables users to backup their backups via its own Wuala technology, though exact pricing and availability details won’t be revealed until later in Q1. Lastly, there’s a new trio of USB Keys, which look an awful lot like actual keys. Sadly, these aren’t ready to handle the beast that is SuperSpeed USB, but they do promise transfers as fast as 30MB/sec, and they’re also waterproof and available in sizes as large as 32GB. The company’s also throwing in 4GB of web-accessible Wuala storage for the first two years of ownership, with the CooKey and WhizKey available in 4GB, 8GB, 16GB, and 32GB capacities for $19.99 and up, up, up. The full releases are just past the break.

Continue reading LaCie serves up LaCinema Mini HD, Network Server and Wuala-infused USB keys

LaCie serves up LaCinema Mini HD, Network Server and Wuala-infused USB keys originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 05 Jan 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Oh, Brando — how we do love thee. Be it random accessories we don’t need at all or legitimate peripherals that make our lives all that much easier, you’re always there — steadfastly waiting for us to fall in love over and over again. Mushiness aside, the outfit’s new USB 3.0-to-SATA adapter is indeed one of those remarkably useful devices, enabling any old SATA hard drive to be accessed externally at USB 3.0 speeds. Essentially, this is the pocket-friendly version of Sharkoon’s latest SATA QuickPort, but rather than forcing you to carry around a dock, this simple dongle travels easy and plugs directly into the port-laden side of your spare HDD. Granted, you’ll need a USB 3.0-enabled PC or expansion card in order to take advantage of the additional speed, but for $48, this looks to be an excellent excuse to get that dusty, unused drive of yours back into service.

Brando’s USB 3.0-to-SATA adapter gives any old HDD those SuperSpeed powers originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 28 Dec 2009 09:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Hard drives gone bad don’t always have to end up in the trash. Miguel Rivera, a systems administrator, took a pile of used drives, gutted some and turned them into beautiful sculptures.

“The overall concept was to make something out of just hard drive parts and pieces,” says Rivera. “I wanted it to look solid and heavy so I leaned towards just using metal — no plastic or gluing things together.”

The results are creations that almost take your breath away in their complexity and beauty.

Rivera’s first sculpture was made out of a standard 3.5-inch hard drive, and designed to evoke a car. “It wasn’t really difficult putting this one together since I didn’t have to modify anything other than the cover — everything else just screwed on,” he says. It took 33 hard drives — each wheel made of eight discs from gutted drives, and one intact drive for the body — and a whole weekend to make.

From there, he created his second project, a mini car that took 29 hard drives. The third project, the “fat boy motorcycle,” was even more complex. “This one was a bit tricky for me because I just couldn’t get parts to mix well at first to reflect the look I wanted,” he says.