Hasta La Gadget!

So, this is pretty… big. At this very moment, researchers at IBM are building the largest data drive ever — a 120 petabyte beast comprised of some 200,000 normal HDDs working in concert. To put that into perspective, 120 petabytes is the equivalent of 120 million gigabytes, (or enough space to hold about 24 billion, average-sized MP3’s), and significantly more spacious than the 15 petabyte capacity found in the biggest arrays currently in use. To achieve this, IBM aligned individual drives in horizontal drawers, as in most data centers, but made these spaces even wider, in order to accommodate more disks within smaller confines. Engineers also implemented a new data backup mechanism, whereby information from dying disks is slowly reproduced on a replacement drive, allowing the system to continue running without any slowdown. A system called GPFS, meanwhile, spreads stored files over multiple disks, allowing the machine to read or write different parts of a given file at once, while indexing its entire collection at breakneck speeds. The company developed this particular system for an unnamed client looking to conduct complex simulations, but Bruce Hillsberg, IBM’s director of storage research, says it may be only a matter of time before all cloud computing systems sport similar architectures. For the moment, however, he admits that his creation is still “on the lunatic fringe.”

IBM developing largest data drive ever, with 120 petabytes of bliss originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 26 Aug 2011 09:35:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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With iFixit’s kit, some time and some patience, you can save yourself $400

You won’t be able to add an optical drive to your new Mac Mini (not without some extensive Dremel work at least), but with this kit from iFixit, you can at least add a second hard drive, or even your own SSD.

The $70 Mac Mini Dual Hard Drive Kit contains the parts and tools you’ll need to fill the empty space inside the 2011 Mac Mini with the storage device of your choice. You get a SATA cable, mounting screws and grommets plus a logic board removal tool, 26-piece driver kit and the ever useful spudger. As that list might suggest, taking the Mac Mini apart to get to the hole within is harder than the actual installation. But as this is iFixit, there is a full step-by-step guide on the site. Follow this and even I can’t go wrong.

Why would you do this instead of just buying the pre-configured two-drive model from Apple? Because that sever model costs an extra $400, that’s why.

The Mac Mini Dual Hard Drive Kit is currently out of stock, and will be back soon..

Mac Mini Dual Hard Drive Kit [iFixit]

See Also:

• New Mac Minis, Now Without Optical Drive
• Your Next Mac: Slim Unibody Mac Mini With HDMI
• IFixit Breaks Into New Mac Mini, Takes Photos

Another week, another external HDD from the folks at Seagate. This go ’round, it’s the GoFlex Turbo taking the stage, positioned somewhere between the GoFlex Slim and Satellite in terms of depth. It’s the outfit’s first drive to ship with two free years of SafetyNet, which nets you a single data recovery attempt should something go haywire during the honeymoon period. Tucked within, you’ll find a 500GB / 750GB drive (7200RPM), a USB 3.0 port and support for eSATA / FireWire 800 connectors via an optional interface adapter. Per usual, it’ll hum along just fine on both Windows and OS X, and can be snapped up today at Best Buy for $119.99 / $139.99, respectively. Full release is after the break, and if you’re curious, we managed to see consistent USB 2.0 rates of 30MBps to 40MBps (read / write) during our brief time with it.

Continue reading Seagate’s GoFlex Turbo portable hard drive touts USB 3.0, built-in SafetyNet

Seagate’s GoFlex Turbo portable hard drive touts USB 3.0, built-in SafetyNet originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 08 Aug 2011 08:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Continue reading Toshiba unveils MQ01ABD HDD series, packs 1TB on a 9.5mm frame

Toshiba unveils MQ01ABD HDD series, packs 1TB on a 9.5mm frame originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 02 Aug 2011 10:10:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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These days, it’s hard to shake the urge to pop a solid state drive into your next laptop, but even if you’re down with dropping the requisite coin, the restrictive capacity choices may make it darn near impossible for pack rats to bite. For those fitting squarely into that category, there’s Western Digital’s newest laptop drive: the 9.5mm 1TB Scorpio Blue. It’s one of the first in this form factor (read: the one that slips into most everything smaller than a Clevo) to hit the 1TB milestone, and at just $99, it’s a veritable bargain. The benchmarking gurus over at Hot Hardware threw it through the usual gauntlet of tests, pitting it against a 500GB Scorpio Black and a 640GB Seagate Momentus. As you’d likely expect, the 1TB spinner bested the competition in SiSoftware, ATTO and CrystalDiskMark tests, though not by a tremendous margin. Still, taking performance up a notch while also boasting a full terabyte of space makes it somewhat of a no-brainer for capacity freaks, and you can hit the source for a barrage of charts proving as much.

WD’s 9.5mm Scorpio Blue 1TB laptop hard drive gets benchmarked originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 31 Jul 2011 21:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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