Hasta La Gadget!

Limited storage on the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro can sometimes be a pain in the neck when you really need more to work with, which is why the new Nifty MiniDrive has been introduced as a new semi-permanent backup storage solution. Taking advantage of the MacBook’s SD card slots, it should be a great alternative to carrying around extra bulky pieces of hardware and having pieces sticking out of the side of your laptop.

The Nifty MiniDrive is a small plastic adapter with a microSD card, which can be inserted to any MacBook Pro’s or MacBook Air’s full-size SD port. It’s been designed to fit snuggly in there without sticking out from the side. It can support microSD cards up to 64GB and is removable from the port by slipping the end of a paperclip through a small section of the outer-facing side to pull it out.

This “nifty” little storage helper is in its Kickstarter project funding phase right now, and its developers were initially aiming for $11,000 in funding to make production possible. They seemed to have had no problem with achieving that amount since they’ve nearly crossed $35,000, so we’ll be seeing this product in the future for sure. Backers can pledge from $25 up to $1,000 for the Nifty MiniDrive project and shipping will be free in the US.

[via Verge]

Nifty MiniDrive offers storage solution for MacBook Pro and Air is written by Elise Moreau & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

With the massive flooding in Thailand last year, the hard drive market took a beating with many of the major players in the industry having to shut down assembly lines and shift production to other countries. Seagate was banking on growing business significantly due to competitors having significantly reduced production. That hasn’t worked as expected as the market has recovered quicker than expected.

We’ve also seen SSD prices decreased significantly leading more and more consumers to opt for the better performance of SSDs rather than HDDs. The price gap between an SSD and HDD has closed with SSDs getting cheaper and the price of HDDs increasing due to shortage. Seagate announced that its Q4 2012 financial results would miss targets. Seagate expects to report revenue of about $4.5 billion with non-GAAP gross margin of 33.6%.

The company expected at least $5 billion in revenue in non-GAAP gross margin of at least 34.5%. Wall Street expectations were somewhere between Seagate’s reality and its own expectations. Seagate also notes that an issue with one of its enterprise line of storage devices resulted in reduced shipments and also impacted earnings performance.

“Seagate expects to report another record quarter of revenue in the June quarter, however we did not meet our expected revenue and margin plan,” said Steve Luczo, Seagate chairman and chief executive officer.

“The June quarter’s shortfall was due primarily to two factors. First, we did not achieve our planned market share growth as we reduced shipments in response to the industry’s faster than expected recovery from their supply chain disruption. Second, we experienced an isolated supplier quality issue that affected one of our enterprise product lines. This product issue impacted enterprise product unit shipments by approximately 1.5 million units and drove our non-GAAP gross margin below our targeted plan. While this disruption to our business was disappointing, we acted quickly and conservatively by suspending shipments of the affected products. We have resolved the issue and have resumed fulfilling our supply commitments to customers.”

Luczo continued, “Based on the macro-economic concerns indicated by a broad base of customers, we are approaching the September quarter conservatively and aligning our business for a relatively flat addressable market and modest improvements in our product mix. We are adjusting our production and inventory planning accordingly, and we expect average selling prices and margins to remain relatively stable in the September quarter. We also continue to expect to exit the calendar year with non-GAAP gross margins exceeding 30%.”

Seagate misses Q4 financial goals as HDD competition rebounds is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

OCZ’s latest line of SSDs ‘Vertex 3 Low Profile’ is finally making its way to Japan. These SSDs (60GB, 120GB, 240GB & 480GB Models) will become available in Japan from mid-July via ASK Inc. Japan for around 6,900 Yen / $86 (60GB Model), 9,900 Yen / $124 (120GB Model), 20,200 Yen / $252 (240GB Model) and 42,300 Yen / $528 (480GB Model), respectively. To refresh your memory, these slim 2.5-inch SSDs (7mm thick) are equipped with MLC NAND Flash memory chips, a SATA 6.0 Gbps interface, a SandForce SF-2281 controller, TRIM support, a MTBF of 2 million hours and capable of delivering read/write speeds of up to 535/480 MB/s (60GB Model), 550/500 MB/s (120GB Model), 550/520 MB/s (240GB Model) and 530/450 MB/s (480GB Model), respectively. [Product Page]

Buffalo is ready to release the HD-PATU3 in the Japanese market. It is actually an external hard disk drive that supports both USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt interfaces. Available in 500GB and 1TB of storage capacities, the Buffalo HD-PATU3 retails for 27,720 Yen ($347) and 33,285 Yen ($416), respectively. Each purchase comes equipped with a 50cm Thunderbolt cable. [Akihabara]

Here you are according to Pioneer Japan the world smallest external BDXL Drive, the BDR-XD04R! Announced for a launch within July at around 15,000 Yen, the BDR-XD04R is a tiny USB 2.0 DBXL Burner with just 133x133x14.8mm and 240g!
Featuring just 4MB of Buffer this DBXL Burner will toast any BD-R at 6x as well as DVD and CD up to 24x and comes with Pioneer’s PURE READ2+ Technology, oh and I almost forget, you can even buy it in Red, White Pearl or Black.