Hasta La Gadget!

Western Digital claims its newly-announced 2.5 TB and 3 TB Caviar Green hard drives are the largest capacity SATA drives on the market. But WD admits that these bigger drives need a little bit of help working on older systems.

“Drives with capacities in excess of 2.19 TB currently present barriers for PC hardware, firmware and software,” according to WD’s press release. To get around these barriers, WD is bundling its new drives with an Advanced Host Controller Interface (AHCI)-compliant Host Bus Adapter (HBA), which will pair legacy operating systems with a driver than can support bigger drives.

The 2.19 TB limit isn’t a problem for 64-bit versions of Windows 7 or Vista, OS X Leopard or Snow Leopard, or many versions of Linux. Really, the problem is Windows XP.

XP (whether in 32- or 64-bit) runs into problems because of its legacy BIOS and Master Boot Record (MBR) partition table, which it in turn carried over from earlier versions of Windows. These allow XP to address a maximum only 2^32 logical blocks at 512 bytes each — for an upper bound of 2.19 TB.

Any 32-bit system (even one as new as Windows 7) has trouble booting into a drive with a capacity over 2.19 TB, but they can work around that limitation for a secondary internal drive. XP can only use these large drives as external drives with special USB firmware that either presents it as a single drive using larger sector sizes or as more than one smaller drives to the host (this is how Seagate’s 3 TB external drive works) — or using an internal HBA card, which does basically the same thing.

Still confused? WD has a complete list of operating systems, motherboards and USB bridges that it supports for its new large-capacity drives. Meanwhile, if you’re ready to roll and the old 2TB drives just weren’t enough storage, the new drives are available now. The 2.5 TB is $189 and the 3 TB hard drive is $239.00.

See Also:

• Western Digital Hard Drives With E-Ink Displays
• Western Digital Portable Drives Now Smaller (and Bigger)
• The Price of a Hard Drive
• HyperDrive 750GB Photo-Storing Hard Drive for iPad
• Imation Ships First Wireless USB Hard Drive
• 'World's First' 3TB Desktop Drive Offers USB 3.0, FireWire …

You already know most of the spec sheet delicacies that RIM has in store for its PlayBook, but here are a couple more details to complete the picture. The PlayBook will indeed match the iPad in having 16GB, 32GB and 64GB variants available, and will also come equipped with a pretty huge 5,300mAh battery. That’d be a generously proportioned cell for a full-sized laptop, we imagine it’ll turn the PlayBook into quite the endurance champ. Beside those tidbits, there’s another video appearance by the tablet that we weren’t allowed to touch just after the break. You know you wanna see it.

Continue reading BlackBerry PlayBook 64GB variant confirmed, strapped to a 5,300mAh battery (video)

BlackBerry PlayBook 64GB variant confirmed, strapped to a 5,300mAh battery (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 19 Oct 2010 06:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Look, we’ve all been there — you cruise home to hang with mom and pops, and one of the two asks if they can see those vacation images you took of the grandkids last month. “They’re on my hard drive at home,” you reply. Weeping commences, and your mum in particular scolds you for not “getting with the program” and “investing in a NAS drive.” It’s about time you listened, don’tcha think? Buffalo does, as it has just revealed a trio of new LinkStation drives (Pro, Pro Duo, Pro Quad) in the V-series ranging from 1TB to 8TB in size. The whole family looks mighty stylish for a Buffalo, and they’re all eager and willing to stream to DLNA-certified devices (hello, PS3 and Xbox 360!). The company claims that all three members — which sport a 1.6GHz CPU — can hit transfer speeds up to 76MB/sec, and a gratis WebAccess app enables you to pull up those images for gramps with your iPhone or iPad. The whole lot is available now starting at $189.99 (topping out at a whopping $1,039.99), and given that we both know you’ve know been schooled… well, let’s just say a new level of expectations have been set. Don’t blow it.

Continue reading Buffalo gets snazzy with LinkStation V-Series NAS drives

Buffalo gets snazzy with LinkStation V-Series NAS drives originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 13 Oct 2010 14:05:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you’re not familiar with the Pogoplug, you’re missing out: the handy little gadget will set you back $99 USD, is available exclusively at Best Buy retail stores, and turns any four USB devices you plug into it into Network Attached Storage (NAS) devices as soon as you plug the Pogoplug into your home network. Just connect the Pogoplug to your router via wired Ethernet, and your USB drives are suddenly available to all of the computers in your home, not just one.

The new Pogoplug Pro makes the whole process a little easier by removing the need to plug in your Pogoplug via wired Ethernet. The “Pro” version adds Wi-Fi, and changes the Pogoplug’s former hot-pink exterior to a sleek black one. It still offers media streaming and network sharing, the same as the original, and even has mobile and desktop apps to help you access your files at home on the go.  The best part though is the price hasn’t changed, and both versions will run you $99 list.
 

Well, at least you’ve got options now. Just days after SanDisk’s once-rare 32GB microSDHC card fell to $87, along comes Kingston with a nearly identical unit of its own. The difference? It’s Class 4 instead of Class 2, which means that you can look forward to a 4MB/s minimum data transfer rate. Of course, you’ll be paying dearly for the speed boost when it starts shipping on Monday with the card alone priced at $153. Slow and cheap, or pricey and snappy? Decisions, decisions…

Kingston introduces Class 4 32GB microSDHC card, charges dearly for the speed originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 09 Oct 2010 03:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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