Hasta La Gadget!

It’s no speed demon, but Toshiba’s newest 2.5-inch hard drive sure lets you store an awful lot of illicit images precious memories on a single unit. The 640GB MK6465GSX drive spins at 5400RPMs and is said to be the industry’s largest in this form factor. The range also includes 500GB, 320GB, 250GB and 160GB models, with the whole lot shipping out to OEMs and distributors later this month. In related news, Tosh is also slapping these bad boys into a few shiny enclosures (Vivid White, Liquid Blue, Komodo Green and Rocket Red if you must know), giving storage junkies an even more capacious offering to slide into their briefcase. Of note, As of now, there’s no pricing information available on the bare 640GB unit, but it should be available as we speak for $179.99 in external form.

[Via HotHardware]

Read – 640GB 2.5-inch hard drive
Read – External editions

Filed under: Storage

Toshiba intros 2.5-inch 5400RPM 640GB hard drive in internal / external flavors originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Sep 2009 01:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Itching for a speedy and spacious new upgrade for your laptop? Ain’t got the cheddar required to pop in a 512GB SSD? Then have a look at Hitachi‘s latest, a half-terabyte drive that spins at 7200RPMs yet draws just 0.69 watts when idle and 1.8 watts during read / write operations. The Travelstar 7K500 plays nice with the SATA interface and promises 16 percent better application performance than its predecessor, and for the paranoid in attendance, you can rest easy knowing that a BDE (Bulk Data Encryption) option enables users to have each and every byte encrypted as it’s written. As of now, it’s only shipping in “limited quantities” to top tier OEMs, but whenever it strolls into retail it’ll land for $159.99.

Continue reading Hitachi ships 500GB Travelstar 7K500: 7200RPMs in a 2.5-inch form factor

Filed under: Storage

Hitachi ships 500GB Travelstar 7K500: 7200RPMs in a 2.5-inch form factor originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 01 Sep 2009 03:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Our good friend Sascha from Netbook News recently got to poke his nose around Kingston’s production lines, specifically the factory where USB thumb drives are put together. Luckily for us, after Sascha had donned his natty cap and other dust-busting gear, he picked up his video camera and took it in with him.

The biggest surprise is how office-like this seems. If you expect the factory resemble those which churn out cars or wash returned milk bottles, you’ll be disappointed. The machines which do the work here are small and quiet, more like photocopiers than giant, Transformer-like welding-bots. In fact, we’re reminded of nothing so much as a high-street print bureau. Which is, given the nature of circuit production, not far from the truth. Bonus: Just over halfway in, the memory card in the video camera gets almost full — inside a memory-making factory!

How’s a USB Is Made? Trip to the Kingston Production Plant [Netbook News. Thanks, Sascha!]

Apple loves keeping secrets, but it can’t hide something as big as the 500,000 square-foot data center it’s constructing in North Carolina. But what exactly will this data center be used for?

Cloud computing, ponders Rich Miller, editor of Data Center Knowledge. That is, a data-hosting method in which information or services can be accessed by users through the internet. Examples of cloud-based utilities include Evernote, Google Docs, or Apple’s MobileMe, all of which provide services to users via the internet. Cloud computing would only make sense with a data center this enormous, says Miller.

“Apple is planning about 500,000 square feet of data center space in a single building,” Miller said in an interview with Cult of Mac’s Leander Kahney. “That would place it among the largest data centers in the world… This would qualify as a big-ass data center.”

Surely such a big-ass data center couldn’t be used merely for expanding support for MobileMe. Miller is thinking this is something bigger. For Miller’s take, check out Kahney’s interview.

Cloud computing huh? We noticed Apple’s iWork app was pretty lacking with no real-time online collaboration tools. A data center devoted to cloud computing would certainly fill that hole. But there still has to be something even bigger going on here, and your guesses are as good as ours. Add them in the comments below.

See Also:

• Apple's Entry Into Online Office Apps Is Confusing, Laughable …
• Cloud Computing. Available at Amazon.com Today
• Why Cloud Computing Still Doesn't Work and How Google Will Fix it …
• Cloud Computing
• Dell to Push Cloud Computing with Inspiron Mini 9

Photo: michaelhilton/Flickr

Indilinx controllers are widely viewed as some of the best in the industry, and while most SSD manufacturers don’t have any issues charging a few arms and a leg for the privilege of ownership, OCZ Technology is hoping to bring the charm and pizazz of said controller to the general populace. The firm’s newest SSD range, the Solid 2 crew, is comprised of just two models to start: the 60 (64GB) and the 120 (128GB). Designed to fit into 2.5-inch laptop spaces, these “mainstream” SSDs offer up 125MBps read rates and 100MBps write rates, not to mention 64MB of onboard cache and “unique performance optimizations to keep the drives at peak performance.” We’re guessing that it’s referring to that oh-so-endearing garbage cleanup system we heard about earlier in the week, but don’t say you heard from us. Oh, and if you’re curious about whether or not these are actually priced for Joe Six Pack, it looks like you’ll have to ping your favorite flash dealer to find out.

Filed under: Storage

OCZ’s Indilinx-based Solid 2 SSDs bring MLC NAND to the masses originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 12 Aug 2009 07:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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