Hasta La Gadget!

As much of a boon as Dropbox has been for iOS users, it’s been held back for shutterbugs wanting a one-for-one translation of their images. Any cloud photos saved for posterity were shrunk to iPhone 4S size and largely negated the point of a local copy. No more: an update to the app removes the resolution ceiling and shows whatever the iPad, iPhone or iPod can handle. While it still compresses the final image, all the basic nuances should remain intact. There’s a treat in store for those who want to see more of their files inside of the Dropbox app, too, with iPhone 5 support putting to work those 112,640 pixels of extra screen real estate. Just don’t expect to use Dropbox as a mobile viewer for your Hasselblad photos and you’ll likely be happy.

Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Storage

Dropbox for iOS removes the photo resolution cap, stretches out to iPhone 5 size originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 23 Oct 2012 10:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apacer hits back with a new line of mSATA SSDs, the Mini M4-M. Coming in capacities ranging from 4GB to 64GB, these ultra-compact SSDs are equipped with MLC NAND Flash memory chips, a 52-pin mSATA connector, TRIM support and capable of delivering read and write speeds of up to 80MB/s and 43MB/s, respectively. Unfortunately, there’s no word on pricing yet. [Apacer]

The cassette tape was a popular medium back in the 80s and early 90s, and served as one of the main platforms for distributing music. Today, the cassette is all but living as other types of media have taken over since then. However, researchers have developed a prototype that is able to store 35TB of data onto a single cassette tape.

Researchers from both Fuji Film and IBM were able to take a cassette tape that measures about 4 inches x 4 inches x 1 inch and stuff 35TB of data into it onto the magnetic tape that has been coated in particles of barium ferrite. News Scientist refers to this as “a new wave of ultra-dense tape drives.”

However, don’t expect these high-density casette tapes to reach your local store, though. They’ll be made with servers in mind, and would only be available to large companies who have huge server farms, like Facebook, Google, Apple, etc. Plus, these tapes are currently only being developed for the $43 million IBM computer that will run the upcoming Square Kilometre Array telescope (SKA).

The SKA, which will be the world’s largest radio telescope once it’s complete in 2024, will be able to push out a petabyte of data per day (approximately 1 million gigabytes). Obviously, this would be a huge task for today’s paltry hard drives, and the researchers are working to shrink the new cassette tape system even further, by attempting to squeeze in 100 terabytes per cassette.

[via New Scientist]

Image via Flickr

Cassette tape prototype able to store 35 terabytes of data is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

While the future of storage on your laptop is undoubtedly solid state, it’s more difficult to predict how the huge tranches of data in server farms will be housed in the future. Recent suggestions, though, predict the rebirth of an old technology: the humble casette tape. More »

We know you’ve got questions, and if you’re brave enough to ask the world for answers, then here’s the outlet to do so. This week’s Ask Engadget inquiry is from Michael, who is suffering from a storage crunch. If you’re looking to ask one of your own, drop us a line at ask [at] engadget [dawt] com.

“I’m a bargain-basement kinda guy, and I’ve picked up lots of DVDs cheaply during the sale season(s). I was planning to rip my collection with Handbrake so I could watch them on my iPad, but my 1TB HDD is already close to being maxed out! Is there a better solution out there than just buying a 2TB HDD now, waiting a year and buying a 3TB HDD when the prices come down? Is there a cheap RAID-style system that plays nicely with my iTunes? Please help!”

• You can pick up a standalone 3TB external HDD for between $150 and $200,
• Or you could take the leap and set up an iTunes home server, perhaps using the cheapest Synology DiskStation, which is $200 plus the cost of the drives. That way you can get a 4TB iTunes server for just under $400.
• You could also snag a Drobo that’ll give you the same storage options with significantly increased expandability, up to 16TB in the future.

That said, perhaps our friendly readers know a way to tame this man’s ever growing media collection, so if you’ve already set up your own system, why not share your knowledge in the comments below?

Filed under: Portable Audio/Video, Storage

Ask Engadget: What’s the best way to store my media collection? originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 20 Oct 2012 23:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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