Hasta La Gadget!

February 2010 has come and gone, and we’re still not seeing a heck of a lot of traction with regard to CFast. Hailed as the next major leap in the CompactFlash standard, CFast cards rely on the SATA interface versus UDMA / IDE, with Transcend’s latest expected to boast transfer rates of 108MB/sec. As with other CFast cards, these too are shaped exactly like existing CompactFlash units, and while it seems as if the company is pushing these towards enterprise and industrial applications right now, it’s just a matter of time before they make the jaunt to your local camera shop. Expect four sizes (2/4/8/16GB) to pop up in the next few months, and feel free to let your imagination run wild with respect to prices.

Continue reading Transcend issues four new CFast 500 memory cards, promises 108MB/sec transfer rates

Transcend issues four new CFast 500 memory cards, promises 108MB/sec transfer rates originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 02 Nov 2010 18:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Pricing pressure, anyone? Super Talent has just put a serious kink in the plans of storage makers hoping to milk their dwindling USB 2.0 flash drive inventories into the holiday season, as the introduction of the USB 3.0 Express Duo line sets a new bar for MSRPs on these things. Expected to ship later this month, these critters are available in 8GB and 16GB capacities, with each offering USB 3.0 speeds, USB 2.0 backwards compatibility and price points of $14 and $29, respectively. Who doesn’t love a good stocking stuffer, anyway?

Continue reading Super Talent intros 8GB USB 3.0 Express Duo flash drive for $14

Super Talent intros 8GB USB 3.0 Express Duo flash drive for $14 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 02 Nov 2010 06:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We thought the Samsung Focus was the only Windows Phone 7 launch device that could replace its external storage, but the HTC HD7 can apparently do the same — there’s an SD card slot under that Windows Phone logo, and The Unwired managed to replace it while dodging the dreaded “There’s a storage error” screen. What sort of black magic did the publication cast to make it recognize the new card? They’re not quite sure themselves, but several factory resets and physical reinsertion of the chip seemed to do the trick, if only for an 8GB card. If you’re in a daring mood, let us know if it works for you in comments below!

Update: HTC tells us that this particular surgery’s a risky one, not only for your warranty but the connectivity of your phone. Here’s what you’re getting yourself into, according to a senior company rep:

While this is not technically impossible, one thing that is important to know is that the process of removing the cover to access these components is actually very tricky – and in many cases, will result in the antenna section being irreparably detached from the circuit board (rendering the phone unusable). Additionally, to actually replace the card, a few reasonably important parts have to be forcibly removed. So, just a good warning to anyone thinking of attempting this maneuver is that the possibility of bricking is extremely high, and will, of course, void the product warranty.

HTC HD7 has hidden microSD slot, user-replacable card? (update: risky business) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 29 Oct 2010 00:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Blink, and you’ve probably missed it. Just four short months after we saw OCZ Technology’s original RevoDrive reviewed (and subsequently adored), along comes revision two. The RevoDrive X2 PCI-Express SSD looks, feels and smells the same as the first, but the performance is obviously looking north. The unit we saw introduced at Computex was capable of hitting 540MB/sec, while the X2 pushes that to 740MB/sec and up to 120,000 IOPS — “nearly triple the throughput of other high-end SATA-based solutions.” Furthermore, this guy packs double the SandForce SF-1200 controllers (four versus two in the original), and it retains the onboard RAID 0 design that you’ve come to know and love. It’s available as we speak in 100GB to 960GB capacities, but there’s nary a mention of price; something tells us that you’re probably not the target market if you have to ask.

Continue reading OCZ amps up performance on RevoDrive X2 PCIe SSD: 740MB/sec, up to 120k IOPS

OCZ amps up performance on RevoDrive X2 PCIe SSD: 740MB/sec, up to 120k IOPS originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 28 Oct 2010 16:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Many of us know the feeling where all the digital storage we have at home is just not enough for our photos, movies and music. So just how much storage do you need?

One guy in Russia seems to have found the answer to that question. He’s strung together 60 hard disk drives and built an array of cooling fans to support it to create 70 terabytes of storage–that’s 71,680 gigabytes.

It’s not pretty to look at. But it’s an amazing do-it-yourself project. Based on the photos you can see how homebrewed the whole idea is–from the rack of 20 fans to cool it down to an ugly custom cabinet to house the drives.

If you want to see more pictures of the storage array, check out the original post on a Russian forum (some ads on the site maybe NSFW).

Source: English Russia via Technabob