Hasta La Gadget!

Not like we need our 2.5-inch external drives to get that much smaller, but who are we to kvetch about progress? Hitachi GST has just outed what it calls the thinnest 2.5-inch external hard drive in the world. The G-Drive Slim is encased in a 128.6- x 82- x 9.9mm aluminum enclosure, and tucked within is a slimmer-than-usual 7mm Travelstar Z5K320 hard drive. The USB-powered unit comes formatted for use with Macs, but a quick reformat on your Windows machine will have its mind changed in no time flat. For now, it’s only available in a 320GB flavor for $99.99, and you’ll only find it at your local Apple Store.

Continue reading Hitachi GST’s G-Drive Slim: world’s thinnest 2.5-inch external hard drive

Hitachi GST’s G-Drive Slim: world’s thinnest 2.5-inch external hard drive originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 03 Nov 2010 19:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The My Book Live definitely doesn’t mark Western Digital’s first foray into the world of connected storage, but the devil’s in the details on this one. The company’s newly released network drive falls into the budget-friendly My Book line, but promises access to files at up 100Mbps, or triple the speed of standard USB 2.0 units. Additionally, Apple Time Machine support comes baked in from the factory, and there’s also an integrated DLNA-compatible media server that can stream photos, videos and audio through any number of devices (WD TV Live Plus HD, Xbox 360, your Blu-ray player, a PlayStation 3, etc.). It’ll also double (triple?) as an iTunes music server, and when paired with the company’s refreshed WD Photos app — which is now optimized for iPad and iPhone 4 — users can flip through their photo albums remotely. The My Book Live is now available for $169.99 (1TB) / $229.99 (2TB), and the aforementioned app can be sucked down as we speak from the action-packed App Store.

Western Digital debuts My Book Live NAS / media streamer, revamped My Photos app originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 07 Oct 2010 09:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You may or may not have noticed, but Western Digital just followed up on Seagate’s earlier efforts by breaking out a 3TB external drive of its own — one that has just a single HDD within. The newest My Book Essential not only houses a 3TB drive, but also packs a USB 3.0 port on the rear and the same rounded black shell that you’ve come to know and love / hate. If that’s far too much for you to swallow (or simply too large to haul around), the My Passport Essential and My Passport Essential SE lines are also being bumped to USB 3.0, with the former shipping in a 500GB version and the latter in 750GB / 1TB. Both of those guys are powered entirely over USB and ship in a variety of mind-bending hues, with pricing starting at $99.99 for the 500 gigger and running up to $249.99 for more space than you’ll ever need.

Continue reading WD announces 3TB single-drive My Book Essential, two USB 3.0 Passport drives

WD announces 3TB single-drive My Book Essential, two USB 3.0 Passport drives originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 05 Oct 2010 11:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Look out, world — Seagate‘s got a new portable hard drive comin’ your way, and it’s as capacious as ever. If you’ll recall, Western Digital broke the 1TB mark in the diminutive 2.5-inch drive sector back in July of last year, and now we’re seeing a 50 percent boost with the 1.5TB FreeAgent GoFlex ultra-portable drive. The company’s claims that this is a first of its kind, and we certainly aren’t in the mood to argue. It’s designed to play nice with both Macs and PCs (it’s formatted as NTFS), and better still, it’s all set up to take advantage of that shiny new USB 3.0 port on your shiny new laptop. As with the other GoFlex gear, this one also has a removable dongle on the bottom for docking (with an optional GoFlex Net or GoFlex TV HD, naturally), and as with some of the company’s past drives, you’ll also find an assortment of 20 Paramount Pictures movies that can be unlocked via license key online. She’s available in every color you could imagine so long as it’s black, and it can be yours for the tidy sum of $249.99.

Continue reading Seagate issues industry’s first 1.5TB external 2.5-inch HDD: FreeAgent GoFlex USB 3.0

Seagate issues industry’s first 1.5TB external 2.5-inch HDD: FreeAgent GoFlex USB 3.0 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 21 Sep 2010 08:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Taking a note from Clickfree, are we Memorex? The company that continually attempts to blow everyone away is back with its latest gust, Mirror for Photos. It’s an odd name for an external hard drive, particularly when you realize that it functions nothing like bona fide photo backup drives that are designed to tether to your DSLR. At any rate, this here drive ships with software (PC and Mac compatible, in case you’re curious) that instructs the HDD to backup to a host machine as soon as it’s plugged in. Sounds great in theory, but we’ve always found it superbly annoying to try and halt those automated processes when you’re just trying to drag and drop a critical meeting file while darting out the door. The unit itself measures in at 3- x 5- x 0.5-inches and gets all the power it needs from a USB connection; it’s on sale today at Toys R Us (yeah, seriously) for $79.99 (320GB) / $99.99 (500GB) / $119.99 (640GB).

Continue reading Memorex intros Mirror for Photos external HDD, dares you to skip a backup

Memorex intros Mirror for Photos external HDD, dares you to skip a backup originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 18 Sep 2010 07:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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