One of BitTorrent’s latest little tricks, a sorta-kinda-but-not-really cloud storage service, just grew up into a real app today. BitTorrent Sync and all of its shared folder goodness just launched into Alpha today, and you can go check it out for yourself. More »
Western Digital has just begun shipping a new 2.5-inch internal hard drive that’s only a mere 5mm thick. The company is calling it the UltraSlim, and it packs in 500GB of whatever you can stuff in it. the new drive will fit in any standard 2.5-inch drive bay, but will take up less vertical space than a typical 9.5mm drive.
The drive will be a part of Western Digital’s Blue series of hard drives, and the 5mm drive is able to be so thin because of a tiny edge connector that combines both power and the SATA transfer interface, which leaves more room for the hardware to do its thing. Although, with its 5mm form factor, everything is squeezed in there rather tightly.
This marks the return of Western Digital back into the full production process. After the 2011 tsunami and earthquake over in Asia, Western Digital and other component manufacturers suffered setbacks and were unable to produce hard drives temporarily. However, the company got back on track last year, and took over the top spot in the hard drive market with $4.8 billion in revenue and 71 million hard drives produced during Q4 2012.
While the UltraSlim is definitely something to admire, this isn’t the first 5mm drive we’ve seen. A*STAR unveiled their own 5mm hybrid drive last year, and it packs in a whole 1TB of storage. Then again, the company has yet to ship the new drive, so Western Digital is certainly the first out of the gate it seems.
Western Digital releases 5mm UltraSlim 2.5-inch hard drive is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
While BitTorrent threw its hat into the cloud storage ring this January with an early version of its Sync app, it was hard to be truly excited when only a small circle could use it. The company isn’t waiting for a completely polished version to renew our interest, however — it’s making BitTorrent Sync Alpha available to the general public, starting today. The newly accessible build brings the same unlimited Linux, Mac and Windows file syncing as before, although it adds a handful of tools to limit just who can see what. Those worried about security can now sync read-only files or offer one-time Secrets (file sharing keys) to friends that expire after a day if they’re unused; it’s also possible to exclude specific files or folders in larger transfers. Sync remains in a rough state, as the Alpha badge suggests, but those willing to live with the quirks no longer have to wait on the sidelines or consider alternatives.
Filed under: Storage, Internet, Software
Source: BitTorrent Labs
We were intrigued with the prospects of Western Digital’s 5mm Blue drive when we saw it last summer: finally, a 2.5-inch spinning disk thin enough to rival slimmer SSDs without the price premium of a hybrid like the WD Black SSHD. If you shared the same curiosity, you’ll be glad to hear that the finished product is shipping as the WD Blue UltraSlim. Device builders can now stuff 500GB into spaces that would exclude 7mm disks, yet pay just $89 for the privilege — a price low enough to let even frugal Ultrabooks shed some bulk. The 5mm disk reaches its miniscule dimensions through the use of a tiny edge connector that mates both power and a SATA interface, leaving more room for the drive machinery. We can’t guarantee that you’ll find a Blue UltraSlim in your next PC or set-top box when Western Digital hasn’t named any of its customers, but we wouldn’t be surprised if the wafer-like drive is commonplace in the near future.
Source: Western Digital
Buffalo will release a new line of USB 2.0 external hard drives, the HD-LSU2D. Coming in 1TB and 2TB sizes, these fanless hard drives feature a USB 2.0 connection interface, Turbo PC EX2 Plus HDD speed software pre-loaded and TV recording support. The 1TB and 2TB models will begin shipping from late April for 12,075 Yen (about $121) and 15,330 Yen (about $154), respectively. [Buffalo]
Silicon Power has unveiled a new line of USB 3.0 flash drives called the Power Blaze B20. Coming in capacities ranging from 8GB to 64GB, these high speed USB flash drives feature a luxurious diamond cut pattern on the front cover, a retractable USB 3.0 connector and a built-in internal LED indicator that will illuminate through the from cover to display data transfer status during use. The 8GB, 16GB, 32GB and 64GB models will begin shipping from late April for about $10, $15, $26 and $50, respectively. [Silicon Power]
I have a feeling I’m not the only one who’s ever needed to move information to or from the iPhone and felt like Apple played some sort of cruel joke on us. Without a memory card slot or some sort of data transfer application, you can’t just move files back and forth easily. This is one of the big benefits of most Android phones in that they have a built-in memory card slot so you can just copy files to and from that card as you need to.
A company called Apotop has unveiled a new accessory aimed specifically at iPhone users that should make it very easy to move your data around. The product is called the DW-09 Wi-Reader and it has a built-in USB port and SD memory card slot. The device is designed to allow you to plug in an SD, SDHC or SDXC memory card or a flash drive. When using the companion application that runs on your iPhone or iPad, you can transfer data to and from that memory card wirelessly.
Powered by an internal rechargeable battery, the device can also be used with external USB hard drives as long as the drives are externally powered. Another cool thing about the Wi-Reader is that it supports content streaming for up to three users at the same time, and you can also use the DW09 as a Wi-Fi hotspot to connect wireless networks when traveling.
Pricing and availability for the Apotop DW09 have yet to be announced.
If you have even just one important digital file, you owe it to yourself and that intangible bundle of electricity that you hold dear to sign up for a cloud file storage service. Many of them have entry level services that offer a few gigabytes of storage for free. Of course they’ll happily sell you more space if you need to back up more data. But a small startup called Space Monkey wants you to trust in other users instead.
Space Monkey is a backup service that will offer 1TB of both local and online storage for $10 (USD) per month. The local storage is straightforward – you will simply use a complementary app to back up your files to the Space Monkey computer (pictured above), as if you were using an external drive. The online storage is where Space Monkey gets eccentric. Instead of setting up expensive and complicated datacenters, all Space Monkey subscribers act as each other’s datacenters. Bits of your data are encrypted and scattered among the Space Monkey computers of other subscribers, and vice versa.
It’s like the reverse of Bittorrent. In theory, the more subscribers that join Space Monkey, the more collective storage you all have and the more secure your data will be. And because they don’t have to setup datacenters, that also means less expenses and maintenance on the part of Space Monkey. Clever eh?
Is it just me or does the name Space Monkey just not fit into the product? They should’ve called it Data Offcenter. A pledge of at least $119 on Kickstarter lets you sign up for a 1 year 1TB subscription with Space Monkey.
If you’re not that familiar with online storage I highly recommend you shop around first. I can see what Space Monkey is getting at but there are dependable and affordable cloud services out there like CrashPlan or Backblaze. Or as I said earlier, try a free service first like the ones offered by Dropbox and Google to see if it’s good enough for you.
I-O Data hits back with a new line of bus-powered USB 3.0 portable hard drives, the HDPC-UT. Coming in 500GB and 1TB sizes, these compact hard drives (W75mm x D112mm x H14mm) feature a scratch resistant hard coating on the top plate and a non-slip rubber bottom, a USB 3.0 connection interface and TV recording support. Available in five different color options: white x silky gray, red x brown, silver gray, black x blue and bordeaux x brown, the 500GB and 1TB models will start shipping from late April for 9,975 Yen (about $101) and 13,860 Yen (about $141), respectively. [I-O Data]
Back in early March, we talked about a new product that turned up called Space Monkey. The product gave the user the benefits of a hosted cloud storage account with pricing you would expect to find for an external hard drive. We mentioned at the time that the people behind Space Monkey hoped to launch the product in the next few months.
The company behind the product has now turned to Kickstarter to raise the money it needs to come to market. The project had a goal of $100,000 and with 29 days to go, it has surpassed that goal with a total of over $153,000 pledged at the time of writing. 1438 people have backed the project so far.
Space Monkey is described as a next-generation cloud service and for $10 a month; you get a terabyte of storage space. The company promises that the Space Monkey service is up to 60 times faster than other cloud services. The idea behind the project remains the same, rather than having to send your data across the Internet to some big data center, Space Monkey puts the cloud server in your home or office.
That means uploading data from devices in your home or office directly to the cloud is much quicker. However, you can still access your data and upload data to your personal cloud server via Space Monkey at the same speed as traditional cloud-storage networks anywhere you have access to the Internet. Currently a pledge of $109 or more will get you the 1 TB Space Monkey for 12 months.
[via Kickstarter]
Space Monkey personal cloud hits Kickstarter is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
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