Hasta La Gadget!

CeBIT gets going next month, but OCZ Technology’s not waiting around for the show to begin. Instead, it’s pushing out details on its swankest SSD ever ahead of time, which will hopefully make room for some fancy prototypes to take up space in Germany. The Sandforce-based Vertex Limited Edition (LE) is based around an all-new architecture, and the company claims that this drive is its “fastest, multi-level cell (MLC), performance-based drive yet.” How fast, you ask? How’s about 270MB/sec on the read side and 250MB/sec on the write side, not to mention 15,000 IOPS. Unfortunately, it’s still stuck on the SATA 3Gbps interface, but for those indifferent to that lingering 6Gbps alternative, you can be on the lookout for these to ship in 100GB ($399.99) and 200GB ($829.99) flavors for a limited time.

OCZ cranks up the performance on Vertex Limited Edition SSD originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 19 Feb 2010 01:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Faster. Smaller. That explains so much of what happens in the computing world, and especially today’s announcement from Kingston Digital. The memory giant announced the availability of a 16GB microSDHC Class 10 card. If you’re not familiar with the “Class” business, that means it meets Class 10 requirements spelled out in the SD Association Specification 3.00: it has a minimum data transfer rate of 10MB/second.

The card comes with a lifetime warranty and Kingston’s 24/7 tech support. Nice. I wish more tech companies stood behind their products like that. You can buy it alone for $138, with an SD adapter for $139, or with a miniSD and SD adapter for $140. Those numbers are a little high, but you know how memory prices drop quickly. Just check the specs of your product before you buy: this card is compatible with microSDHC, miniSDHD, and SDHC devices, but not with standard microSD-enabled devices or readers.

LaCie’s startlingly orange Rugged drive has been waltzing around and taking beatings for years now, but the company finally decided to give it an interface overhaul to deal with this phenomenon known only as “technological progress.” The latest and greatest in the family is the Rugged eSATA, which maintains the iconic shape and color of the original, yet adds support for eSATA; reportedly, users can see transfer rates as high as 90MB/sec, and if you can only find a USB port, it’ll also work with that when speed isn’t a concern. It’s up for order right now in a 500GB model, but you’ll have to amicably part with $159.99 before calling it yours.

LaCie refreshes connectivity options on Rugged eSATA portable HDD originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 12 Feb 2010 07:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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On March 11th, Microsoft will kick out its 250GB external hard drive to the good people of Japan; notable, as the first time that this 250GB drive has been sold anywhere outside of a new console bundle. The slab of external magnetic storage is set to cost ¥15,540 or about $172 should it ever ship Stateside. Unfortunately, Microsoft isn’t revealing its plans for that at the moment while conceding the need for more local storage for content such as software, TV shows, and movies downloaded from the Xbox Live Marketplace. In other words, you’ll get your storage bump… someday.

Xbox 360 Hard Drive accessory bumped to 250GB in Japan originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 01 Feb 2010 03:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Don’t let their calm exteriors fool you: These three storage drives hold a lot under the hood. LaCie has introduced its new Enterprise Class range of storage solutions with the d2 Quadra, 2big Quadra, and 4big Quadra. All offer six data protection levels, robust performance, data encryption, excellent connectivity, and RAID protection.

Each of the three also delivers true internal SATA Enterprise Class disks running at 7200RPM with 32MB of cache. The internal disks target 1.2million MTBF (mean time before failure) and have been optimized for RAID towers with a vibration resistance technology. You’ll be able to get 700MB/sec of transfer speed through a RAID 50 array with four 4big Quadras. The service package provides a 5-year warranty and a 5-year advance product replacement plan. The line ships with cables with 24K gold-plated contacts.

These Enterprise drives range in storage capacity from 1TB to 8TB, with list prices from $299 for the d2 Quadra, $649 for the 2big Quadra, and $1,349 for the 4big Quadra.