Jul 12

MacBook Pros with 7200RPM HDDs getting a touch too noisy?

Posted in: Apple, Mac, macbook, MacbookPro, memory, rumor, rumors, storage, Today's Chili

MacBook Pro hard disk storage really seem to be down on its luck this generation. First was the 3Gbps SATA transfers (now fixed), which honestly didn’t affected but a marginal percentage of users upgrading to SSD themselves. Now comes word from a number of irate users on the Apple support forums that claim their HDDs, specifically those spec’d at 7200RPM, are suffering from performance issues and some audible clicking / beeping sounds. The folks at Other World Computing chimed in to say that it might have something to do with the Seagate Momentus 7200.4 G-Force drives, which takes anti-shock precautions that are possibly causing both noise and extra strain. If you’re not hearing anything now, we wouldn’t suggest you start getting hyper paranoid over the issue — it’s the internet, where things often get blown way out of proportion, in case you haven’t noticed. If you’re still worried / curious, hit up the read link for the full collection of anecdotes.

[Via Engadget Spanish and MacNN]

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MacBook Pros with 7200RPM HDDs getting a touch too noisy? originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 12 Jul 2009 04:16:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Jul 06

Carbon ring storage promises 1,000 times higher memory density

Posted in: memory, Today's Chili

Terrifying news, kids: we’re growing seriously close to maxing out the density limits of present magnetic memory technology as it becomes increasingly difficult to shrink the necessary grains used in the process. Thankfully, there’s a team of German scientists devoted to doing more than standing around and watching the inevitable happen. Cobalt, the element responsible for keeping your precious data intact, typically requires a 50,000 atom fleet for each grain, but boffins from Dresden have found a way to shrink that to a measly flotilla of 50. Without trampling you with technological details, attaching carbon rings to the cobalt reproduces the requisite hexagonal close packed structure, which leads to reduced space requirements. Should this technique prove viable, we can expect yet another race among hard drive makers as they strive to make each other’s most capacious drives look downright diminutive. Hit the read link for all the grisly details.

[Via Graphene-Info]

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Carbon ring storage promises 1,000 times higher memory density originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 06 Jul 2009 08:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Jun 23

Digital Rosetta Stone memory could last a thousand years

Posted in: Japan, memory, Sharp, Today's Chili

The race for bigger and better memory continues apace, it seems. It was only a week or two ago that we caught wind of the work that scientists in Berkeley were doing with nanotubes and thousand-year-plus memory lifespans, and now it looks like a group of researchers in Japan have made some headway using an electron-beam direct-writing technique that utilizes semiconductor devices that can keep data intact for a thousand years, so long as humidity is kept at 2% or less. The prototype Digital Rosetta Stone, developed by Keio University, Kyoto University, and Sharp, has a storage capacity of 2.5TB and a max transmission speed of 150Mbps. Of course, there’s no telling if or when this will become a reality, so if you want to ensure that your adolescent poetry lasts for the next thousand years, you’d better print out your MySpace blog and have it carved in granite.

[Via TechShout]

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Digital Rosetta Stone memory could last a thousand years originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 23 Jun 2009 18:48:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Jun 22

Nanometer wars heat up, Toshiba and Intel enter unofficial race

Posted in: intel, memory, Today's Chili, Toshiba

Think the megapixel race is bad? Now we’ve another to worry about, with both Toshiba and Intel hastily approaching 0.01nm technology in order to make chips faster, more nimble and smaller. According to undisclosed sources at Digitimes, Intel has actually canned production plans for its 45nm Havendale processors, which were originally slated to slip into machines later this year. The cause? It’s heading straight to 32nm, reportedly hoping to ship its Clarkdale line in Q1 2010 with entry-level prices ranging from $60 to $190. In related news, Toshiba is joining the likes of IBM, Samsung and Globalfoundries in an effort to dish out chips based on 28nm process technology. Needless to say, the move is being made in an effort to “stay relevant in an area dominated by the likes of Intel Corp and Texas Instruments.” Now, if only we could get one of these potent, low-power chips inside of a netbook, we’d be pleased as punch.

Read – Intel cans Havendale in move to 32nm
Read – Toshiba speeds to 28nm

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Nanometer wars heat up, Toshiba and Intel enter unofficial race originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 22 Jun 2009 10:12:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Jun 20

Seagate’s FreeAgent Go series bumped to 640GB

Posted in: external hard drive, ExternalHardDrive, hard drive, HardDrive, memory, storage, Today's Chili

Seagate‘s giving its FreeAgent Go drives a fresh new 640GB capacity ceiling, and while it’s not the first external to cross that 500GB threshold, it’s certainly on the thinner end of the totem pole, physically. Nothing revolutionary here otherwise, it’s still the standard USB-connected with up to 480Mbps transfer with multiple color options. Also distinctly the norm? Not a bit of info on pricing or availability, but if Seagate’s posting promotional materials on its main site, we suspect it’s not too far off.

[Via Slashgear]

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Seagate’s FreeAgent Go series bumped to 640GB originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 20 Jun 2009 11:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Jun 18

Samsung debuts first 32GB DDR3 memory module

Posted in: memory, samsung, Today's Chili

Samsung has been making promises about a 32GB DDR3 memory module since it rolled out its first 50nm 4Gb DDR3 memory chip way back in January, but it looks like it’s now finally delivered. While it won’t be headed for regular desktops or laptops just yet, the company does have a new 1.35 volt 32GB module for servers which, in addition to packing that record-breaking capacity, also boasts a 20% better throughput compared to previous 1.5 volt modules and, of course, a lower power consumption to boot. As some math not performed by us will reveal, the module itself is made up of 72 of those 4Gb memory chips, which are lined up in rows of nine quad-die packaged 16Gb DDR3s mounted on each side of the circuit board. No word on pricing just yet, nor is there any word about Samsung’s promised desktop and laptop memory, which are apparently still in the works — in the form of 8GB DIMMs, at least.

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Samsung debuts first 32GB DDR3 memory module originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 18 Jun 2009 15:38:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Jun 09

Researchers create nanotube memory that can store data for a billion years

Posted in: memory, nanotechnology, storage, Today's Chili

Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and UC Berkeley have developed an ultra-dense memory chip that is capable of storing data for up to a billion years (besting silicon chips by roughly… a billion years). Consisting of a crystalline iron nanoparticle shuttle encased within a multiwalled carbon nanotube, the device can be written to and read from using conventional voltages already available in digital electronics today. The research was led by Alex Zettl, who notes that current digital storage methods are capable of storing mass amounts of data, but last just decades, while, say, some books have managed to last nearly a thousand years, though the amount of data they contain is quite small. The new method, called shuttle memory, is based on the iron nanoparticle which can move back and forth within the hollow nanotu. Zettl believes that, while shuttle memory is years away from practical application, it could have a lot of archival applications in the future. There’s a video after the break, hit the read link for more tiny details.

[Via The Register]

Continue reading Researchers create nanotube memory that can store data for a billion years

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Researchers create nanotube memory that can store data for a billion years originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 09 Jun 2009 22:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Jun 04

Researchers Create Flexible Memory Device

Posted in: memory, R&D and Inventions, Today's Chili

gergel_memristor

After flexible displays, the memory chip is the latest electronic component to get twisted and bent. Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology have developed a flexible memory device that they say is inexpensive and can be easily manufactured.

“We have fabricated a lightweight memory device,”  says Nadine Gergel-Hackett, one of the researchers on the project, “that uses transparencies seen in overhead projectors as the material for its flexible sheet.”

Flexible components are a promising new area for electronics makers who envision using them for bendable, flexible, rollable, or merely curved devices that contain electronic circuits. Current silicon and circuit-board technology requires components to be flat and rigid. But flexible components would open up a whole new class of possibilities.  For instance, they could be used to create small medical sensors to monitor heart rate or blood sugar.

Though some flexible components have already been created, it’s been a challenge to create a pliable memory chip that is inexpensive to produce, says Gergel-Hackett.

Gergel-Hackett and her colleagues took polymer sheets and deposited a thin film of titanium oxide on their surfaces. To deposit the titanium oxide, they used a sol gel process that consists of spinning the material in liquid form and letting it set, similar to how gelatin is made. They added electrical contacts and created a flexible memory switch that operates on less than 10 volts.

The device can also maintain its memory when power is lost and can function even after being flexed more than 4,000 times, according to a paper in the upcoming July issue of IEEE’s Electron Device Letters journal. The paper does not specify what the capacity of the prototype flexible memristor is.

What also makes this bendable memory device special is that it has the characteristics of a memristor– a new component for electronic circuits. The memristor or memory transistor is seen, along with the three other widely known elements–the capacitor, the resistor and the inductor–as a fundamental circuit element.  A memristor changes its resistance depending on the amount of current that flows through it, allowing it retain the resistance even after the power is turned off.

The flexible memristor is still in the prototype stage and faces some challenges before it can be ready to market. Reliability and consistency between the different devices made are two issues, says Gergel-Hackett. But because of the fabrication process, she hopes some day it can be as easy to print a flexible memory component as it is to print a slide on a transparency.

Photo: Flexible memory prototype


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Jun 01

New Technique Promises Billion-Year Data Storage

Posted in: memory, R&D and Inventions, storage, Today's Chili

nanotube1A diamond is forever. And in a few years, you could say the same about everything you say on Twitter. Researchers from the University of California at Berkeley have found a way to develop a carbon nanotube-based technique for storing data that could potentially last more than a billion years.

The goal, say the researchers, is to improve on what they see as the general trend for memory storage. As memory density increases, the lifespan of the storage has been decreasing, they say.  For instance, stone carvings are still largely readable after 3,800 years, while information written with individual atoms by scanning tunneling microscopes last just a few seconds at room temperature. Conventional digital memory technologies in use — such as hard disk drives and flash memory — have an estimated lifetime of only 10 to 30 years. If successful, a billion-year memory storage device could change that, enabling humans to store any data — from the digital version of an ancient manuscript to your latest tweet — from now until long after the Earth has been overrun by superintelligent, fusion-powered cyborg ants.

Here’s how it works. The device has an iron nanoparticle positioned inside a hollow carbon nanotube. Carbon nanotubes are molecular-scale tubes usually made of a carbon allotrope. For data storage, a small electrical signal is applied across the nanotube causing the iron nanoparticle shuttle to move back and forth. The movement of the nanoparticles from one end to the other of the tube creates the binary ‘1′ or ‘0′ state.

The position of the shuttle can be read out directly, explain the researchers in a paper published in the current issue of the Nano Letters journal. “The reversibility of the nanoparticle motion allows a memory bit that can be rewritten,” according to the paper.

The technique has significant potential for archival storage, say the researchers, because the nanoparticle-based bits show significant persistence. It’s also possible to store a lot of data in a small space: With information density predicted to be as high as 1012 bits per square inch, you could store data from nearly 25 DVDs in the space of a postage stamp.

The beauty of the system is that it requires only a couple volts of electrical signal to stimulate it, Will Gannett, a graduate student in physics working on the project at UC Berkeley told campus paper The Daily Californian.

It’ll take awhile to get there, though — so far the researchers have only demonstrated the theoretical possibility of this technology.

[via Science]

Photo: Nanoparticle in nanotube representation


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May 21

Corsair DDR3 memory clocked at 2533MHz, women swoon ’round the world

Posted in: memory, Today's Chili

Corsair — the swashbucklin’ favorite of privateers in need of RAM and SSDs — has just announced that its Dominator GT DDR3 memory has been overclocked at a pretty astonishing 2533MHz. As you’d expect from a company made of braggarts and rogues, its claiming the world record for itself — unless, of course, one of you other memory manufacturers feels like taking this bad boy on. Kingston, we’re looking at you. Hit that read link for all the salacious details.

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Corsair DDR3 memory clocked at 2533MHz, women swoon ’round the world originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 21 May 2009 12:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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