Engadget’s recession antidote: win a 120GB Samsung S1 Mini HDD!

This whole global economic crisis, and its resulting massive loss of jobs got us thinking. We here at Engadget didn’t want to stand helplessly by, announcing every new round of misery without giving anything back — so we decided to take the opportunity to spread a little positivity. We’ll be handing out a new gadget every day (except for weekends) to lucky readers until we run out of stuff or companies stop sending things. Today we’ve got a 120GB Samsung S1 Mini portable hard drive (USB 2.0) ready to carry all sorts of love letters, Third Eye Blind jams and old skateboarding vids from high school. Read the rules below (no skimming — we’re omniscient and can tell when you’ve skimmed) and get commenting! Hooray for free stuff!

Major thanks to Samsung for providing the gear!

The rules:

  • Leave a comment below. Any comment will do, but if you want to share your proposal for “fixing” the world economy, that’d be sweet too.
  • You may only enter this specific giveaway once. If you enter this giveaway more than once you’ll be automatically disqualified, etc. (Yes, we have robots that thoroughly check to ensure fairness.)
  • If you enter more than once, only activate one comment. This is pretty self explanatory. Just be careful and you’ll be fine.
  • Contest is open to anyone in the 50 States, 18 or older! Sorry, we don’t make this rule (we hate excluding anyone), so be mad at our lawyers and contest laws if you have to be mad.
  • Winner will be chosen randomly. The winner will receive one (1) 120GB Samsung S1 Mini portable HDD, model number HXSU012BA. Approximate retail value is $137.99.
  • If you are chosen, you will be notified by email. Winners must respond within three days of the end of the contest. If you do not respond within that period, another winner will be chosen.
  • Entries can be submitted until Wednesday, April 15th, at 11:59PM ET. Good luck!
  • Full rules can be found here.

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Engadget’s recession antidote: win a 120GB Samsung S1 Mini HDD! originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 15 Apr 2009 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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OWC ships 4-bay Mercury Elite-AL Pro Qx2 RAID box

You won’t find an Ethernet port here, but you will find everlasting peace, love and a grand total of four direct connection options alongside four hot swappable bays for up to 8TB of local storage. OWC‘s latest is the quad-interface Mercury Elite-AL Pro Qx2 RAID box, which sports FireWire 400, FireWire 800, eSATA and USB 2.0 sockets ’round back. Users are graced with a number of selectable RAID settings — 0, 1, 5, 10 or Span (NRAID) — and the front-panel LEDs keep you informed at a glance. The box is shipping right now in a variety of configurations ranging from $679.99 (500GB x 4) to $1,149.99 (1TB x 4), and despite the unmistakable cheesegrater design, these actually won’t zero out your data if plugged into a PC.

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OWC ships 4-bay Mercury Elite-AL Pro Qx2 RAID box originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 14 Apr 2009 19:47:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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LaCie’s Rugged XL: 1TB of ready-for-anything storage

Clearly LaCie‘s going for that “timeless” look, ’cause the Rugged XL looks precisely like the original Rugged that launched over three years ago. The drive, which was unsurprisingly designed by Neil Poulton, touts a durable aluminum casing with external and internal shock absorbers, USB 2.0 and eSATA connectors along with a software suit to handle your backups. Packed within is a single 1TB drive, and externally, there’s a “warm orange LED strip” to either keep you informed of drive status or just look stupendously fashionable, one. It’s up for grabs today (or it should be soon, anyway) for $159.99, and no, the orange exterior cannot be swapped for a non-DOT-approved hue.

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LaCie’s Rugged XL: 1TB of ready-for-anything storage originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 14 Apr 2009 15:46:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Cheap Geek: Dell Notebook, Canon Videocam, Seagate Storage

DellLatitudeD532.jpg

Hey readers, Cheap Geek is late today because this cheap geek was getting numbers to his accountant. Yay! Pushing my taxes to the last minute makes me feel extra-cheap!

1. Buy.com has a great deal on a Dell Latitude D531 laptop. It runs off an AMD Mobile Sempron 3600+ 1.8-GHz processor and has 512MB of RAM and a 60GB hard drive. It also has a 14.1-inch screen and runs Windows XP Home. It doesn’t have a CD-RW or DVD drive, but whatever. The D531 costs only $299 with free shipping and looks like an excellent second machine or student machine.

2. A couple years ago, shooting home video meant shelling out some real money. Now, with this deal from Tiger Direct, you can grab a Canon ZR900 miniDV for only $129.99. Sweet price. It’s refurbished, but you get a one-month warranty so that’s enough time to check it out.

3. It’s a recurring theme in this column: Memory is getting so darn cheap! Costco is selling a Seagate FreeAgent external hard drive with 1.5TB of storage (!) for only $109.99. Wow, that’s cheap. That’s the best storage deal I’ve ever come across.

A-DATA launches colorful line of CH91 portable HDDs

Do you have any idea how many episodes of Matlock you can fit on 500GB? No really, do you have any idea? To be totally frank, neither do we, but you’ll be hard pressed to find a half terabyte of portable storage more nicely colored than this to hold said episodes on. A-DATA has just introduced its CH91 external HDD, which is available in sizes up to 500GB (via a single 2.5-inch drive) and is completely USB powered. The only difficult part here is choosing between sapphire blue, sweet pink and purple white — oh, and finding a price. Full release is after the break.

Continue reading A-DATA launches colorful line of CH91 portable HDDs

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A-DATA launches colorful line of CH91 portable HDDs originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 03 Apr 2009 03:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ask Engadget: Best external hard drive enclosure?

No need to check your LCDs, folks — this is happening. This is this week’s rendition of Ask Engadget, and if you’d rather your own question be in this space next week, shoot us a good one at ask at engadget dawt com.

“Like any good geek, I have upgraded my MacBook’s hard disk many times, and have all the old 2.5-inch SATA disks sitting in a pile. I’d like to put them in a case, but the enclosures I see are either very expensive or look hideous and unreliable. I’d love to get some recommendations for dependable, fairly-priced portable enclosures; USB’s a must, but FireWire 400, then FireWire 800 then eSATA would be bonuses, as would any extra features.”

So, HDD upgraders — what kind of case (or cases) did you procure in order to keep using those displaced drives? Any great stories of success / failure? Let us know, would ya?

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Ask Engadget: Best external hard drive enclosure? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 26 Mar 2009 22:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ask Engadget: Best external hard drive under $100?

Ask Engadget is back this week with yet another thoughtful reader-submitted question, and if you’d like your own inquiry to get some face time, just send one in to ask at engadget dawt com. Without further adieu, we’ll let Zach take it from here:

“So I need some extra storage because I’ve been going a little iTunes “crazy” lately and have been downloading gigabytes of albums, podcasts and movies. I’m looking for a reliable hard drive but at the same time, price is a key factor considering not a lot of money is available at the moment. I’m thinking 100GB or more should suffice. I don’t want to get roped into buying a crappy hard drive and have it die on me a week after using it. What’s the best one out there for around $100 or less? Thanks!”

We’ll go out on a limb here and assume he’s looking for USB 2.0 (sorry, FireWire 400), so let loose those opinions!

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Ask Engadget: Best external hard drive under $100? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 05 Mar 2009 22:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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IDrive Portable HDD backs your files up locally and online

Look, we feel your pain. There’s about a gazillion options when it comes to portable hard drives, but the IDrive Portable actually does differentiate itself from the masses in one particularly useful way. Aside from being the “thinnest and lightest portable USB drive in its class,” this 0.3 pound unit houses 320GB of space on a 5,400RPM HDD, and it plays nice with Windows / OS X machines. Predictably, it features a one-click backup option for storing precious data outside of your PC, but unlike the other guys, this one also includes the ability to backup online for yet another layer of protection. Of course, that online bit will run you up to $4.95 per month, but we have to say the interface looks pretty swank. Anywho, the device itself is listed as shipping within one to two days for $119.95, and all the nitty-gritty about the services is tucked away in the read link.

[Thanks, Chris]

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IDrive Portable HDD backs your files up locally and online originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 05 Feb 2009 17:08:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apricorn introduces 1.5TB DVR Xpander, succeeds at making it ugly

Apricorn’s DVR Xpanders have never been the prettiest bunch, but we would’ve thought a redesign was in order with the introduction of the 1.5TB model. Sadly, our hopes and dreams of a DVR attachment from the outfit that isn’t completely heinous have been decidedly crushed, as the latest edition is just as unsightly as prior models. Of course, it can hold up to 187.5 hours of HD content or 843 hours of SD material, not to mention its ability to connect via USB 2.0 or eSATA. So yeah, if all that matters to you is functionality (and not missing a single drama while out on that month-long vacation), we’d say the $239 asking price is totally reasonable.

[Via PCLaunches, thanks Vinit]

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Apricorn introduces 1.5TB DVR Xpander, succeeds at making it ugly originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 22 Jan 2009 15:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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OWC tempts with 4-bay Mercury Rack Pro RAID solution

If OWC‘s latest and greatest external RAID drives are just too, um, unmountable for your tastes, how’s about this? The 4-bay Mercury Rack Pro features the increasingly familiar quad interface (USB 2.0, FireWire 400, FireWire 800 and eSATA) and supports up to four 2TB 3.5-inch SATA I / II hard drives, up to 128MB total data buffer, a variety of RAID options and ultra-quiet operation. Those looking to fill that one last 1U slot with oodles of storage room can buy in now for anywhere between $899.99 (2TB) and $1,499.99 (4TB).

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OWC tempts with 4-bay Mercury Rack Pro RAID solution originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 10 Jan 2009 00:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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