Jun 21

Apple Releases New Time Capsules

Posted in: Apple, storage, Today's Chili

Apple has finally upgraded its Time Capsule line with more storage

Apple has updated its Time Capsule hard drive/router combo. Instead of coming in 1TB or 2TB sizes, it is now available in 2TB and 3TB capacities. And despite rumors of a fancy new version which would cache iOS updates for pushing to iOS 5 devices, there is no mention of this from Apple.

The Time Machine can be viewed a few ways. One is that it’s a super-convenient, always-running backup for your computers, a great worry-free option for less tech-savvy users. Another is that if you’re buying routers from Apple for $300 or $500, then you really have been swimming in the Kool-Aid.

As a 1TB Time Capsule owner, I tell myself that I bought it as a gift for the Lady. And as she sneered and told me I was unromantic when I bought her an iPad, you can probably tell what she thinks of that.

The new Time Capsules will be available as soon as the Apple Store comes back up.

3TB Time Capsule [Apple]

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Jun 20

From iCloud to Dropbox: 5 Cloud Services Compared

Posted in: amazon, Google, Microsoft, storage, Today's Chili

Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Google and Dropbox offer "cloud" services hosting data over the internet. (Photo: Extra Medium/Flickr)

With the recent announcement of iCloud, Apple joins Google, Amazon and Microsoft in their aggressive push into cloud computing, in a race to reel customers into their media ecosystems.

The general idea of the “cloud” is to store your media on the internet so you can access it from any device anywhere, as opposed to leaving it on a hard drive. Now with cloud services, we can juggle around our data between multiple gadgets.

Have music on your PC that you want to listen to on your smartphone? Boom, stream it from the cloud. Want to access a document on another computer? Bam, grab it from your web-connected “cloud” drive. Ideally, with cloud services you can access other types of media, such as photos, e-books and videos, across multiple devices, too.

But cloud services vary between companies so much that the buzzword can get awfully confusing. What exactly do you get? Is it just online storage? Or is it streaming media? Both? In the chart below, we give a side-by-side comparison of five major cloud services, in terms of features, device compatibility and storage space.

  • Features
  • Device
  • Music
  • iCloud
  • Includes 5 GB of free online storage, synchronization for music, photos, apps, documents, iBooks, contacts, e-mail and calendars; cost for additional data not yet announced.
  • Macs and iOS 5 (Windows PCs get PhotoStream and some basic features only)
  • All iTunes-purchased music can be shared between devices; iTunes Match: $25 per year to push 25,000 tracks in your library to be shared through iCloud
  • Google
  • Includes 1 GB free online storage for Google Docs, 1 GB free storage for Picasa, 7 GB free storage for Gmail; streaming music, synchronized documents, contacts, e-mail, calendars; expandable to 16 TB for $4,000 per year
  • All devices with a web browser.
  • Google Music Beta lets you upload up to 20,000 tracks from your own library
  • Amazon CloudDrive
  • Includes 5GB free online storage; additional storage can be purchased for $1 per gigabyte per year.
  • All devices compatible with Adobe Flash.
  • Includes Cloud Player music-streaming application.
  • Windows Live
  • Includes 25 GB free storage for files and synchronization for photos.
  • Windows PC, Mac, Windows Phone 7
  • None.
  • Dropbox
  • Includes 2GB free storage, upgradeable to 100 GB for $200 per year
  • All devices with a web browser or Dropbox client.
  • Built-in audio player in web interface and iOS client.

Pretty complicated differences, right? For further clarity, here’s what you need to know about how each service works.

iCloud

Apple designed its iCloud service to work as if it were invisible. Snap a photo on your iPhone and it pops up on your Mac or Windows PC. Edit a document in the Pages app on a Mac, and that same edit appears on the Pages app on your iPhone. Buy a song on iTunes on your Mac, and on your iPhone you can re-download it; same with e-books you buy through iBooks.

Additionally, iCloud enables automatic wireless backups for iOS devices. Each Apple customer gets 5 GB of free space for backups, documents and e-mail; the photos, music and books don’t count toward the 5 GB.

Apple has left some questions unanswered as to whether iCloud will have a web app interface for accessing these services from any device with a browser, like MobileMe did. However, we believe it’s shortsighted to think that iCloud would not eventually have a web app suite to complement the aforementioned services.

Amazon

Amazon’s Cloud Drive is as straightforward as a cloud service gets: It’s just an online storage locker. You put files in there, and they’re online. You can access the files from any device that supports Flash. (That means Cloud Drive is useless for any iPhone or iPad customer, since the devices do not support Flash.) Sign up for a Cloud Drive and you get 5 GB for free; you can pay an extra $1 per extra gigabyte each year.

Google

Google’s “cloud” suite can be confusing: There’s no one-stop destination that hosts all your media. You have to go to Picasa to deal with your photos, Gmail for your e-mail, Music Beta for online music storage and Google Docs for your documents. Each service offers at least 1 GB of free space, and you can plunk down an extra $5 per year to add 20 gigs for most of its services. You can rent up to 16 TB each year for $4,000 (you know, in case you’re trying to boot up Skynet).


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Jun 16

OWC Mercury Electra 6G SSDs boast big speeds, price to match

Posted in: solid state drive, SolidStateDrive, SSD, storage, Today's Chili, upgrade
OWC Mercury Electra 6G SSD

Other World Computing may specialize in upgrading aging Macs, but you don’t have to own one to jam one of its new Mercury Electra 6G SSDs in your computer. The high-end SandForce Driven line of NAND drives range in size from 120GB to a far more impressive 480GB and, with the aide of 6Gb/sec SATA 3.0, can sustain write speeds of 523MB/sec and read speeds of 556MB/sec. Of course, this sort performance doesn’t come cheap — the smallest of the trio will set you back $230, while the massive 480GB model weighs in at a wallet-sapping $930. You can pick them up now from OWC if you’ve got a serious need for speed, and plenty of disposable income. Check out the PR after the break.

Continue reading OWC Mercury Electra 6G SSDs boast big speeds, price to match

OWC Mercury Electra 6G SSDs boast big speeds, price to match originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 16 Jun 2011 15:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Jun 16

PhotoFast i-FlashDrive Shifts Files Between Computers and iPhones

Posted in: Accessories and Peripherals, ios, storage, Today's Chili

The i-FlashDrive works as a thumb drive for both computers and iPhones

The i-FlashDrive is a curious device, although it looks as if it may be obsoleted by Apple’s upcoming iCloud service. The i-FlashDrive is a dongle with a USB plug on one side, a dock-connector on the other and a chunk of flash memory in between. The idea is that you load it up with files from a computer and then transfer them to your iPhone or iPad.

If you name a folder on the drive “DCIM” and filled it with pictures, you should be able to open them directly into the iOS Photos app, just like with the camera connection kit. But the i-FlashDrive also works with a companion app of the same name. This lets you transfer files to and — crucially — from the iDevice, something that can’t otherwise be done. You can also transfer files between iDevices.

You can also view these files on the device, but it is unclear whether you can then open them in other apps via the standard “open in” method. If so, then this is very cool indeed. If not, it is pretty pointless.

The i-FlashDrive comes in three sizes. 8GB for $82, 16GB for $100 and 32GB for $161. Considering these crazy prices, the fact that the i-FlashDrive app is another $10 seems rather cheeky. The i-FlashDrive app is available now, and the dongles ship in July.

PhotoFast i-FlashDrive [PhotoFast via Oh Gizmo!]

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Jun 16

Intel’s 710 ‘Lyndonville’ and 720 ‘Ramsdale’ SSDs see full spec leak well ahead of release

Posted in: intel, leak, solid state drive, SolidStateDrive, SSD, storage, Today's Chili

You may recall Intel’s 710 “Lyndonville” and 720 “Ramsdale” enterprise SSDs outted by a leaked roadmap back in April, but details were as thin as high mountain air. Luckily, German site Computer Base has obtained what appears to be a full spec sheet for the aforementioned drives. Starting with the 710, this 25nm HET MLC — a more durable variant of MLC — device will come in 100GB, 200GB, and 300GB flavors, and it claims to have read and write speeds at up to 270 MB/s and 210 MB/s, respectively, along with a 3Gbps SATA connection.

Things are a bit wild with the 720: not only does it have 34nm SLC chips making up the 200GB and 400GB versions, but it also boasts some truly insane read and write speeds of up to 2200 MB/s and 1800 MB/s, respectively. Yes, 2200 MB/s and 1800 MB/s, garnished by the fast 4K IOPs as well. We had our doubts initially, but looking at the previously stated 6Gbps PCIe interface and the much higher power draw, we think there’s a good chance for this to come into reality. Well, only time will tell if these numbers will stick around for the Q3 launch this year — not that our wallets will want to know, mind you. Hit the source link for the full lowdown.

Update: As pointed out by our readers, it looks like the 720 will need more than 6Gbps at the PCIe bus to accommodate its maximum read and write speeds. At this point, we can only assume that there is indeed a typo somewhere — either on the roadmap or on this table.

Intel’s 710 ‘Lyndonville’ and 720 ‘Ramsdale’ SSDs see full spec leak well ahead of release originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 16 Jun 2011 02:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Jun 15

Nine Everyday Tech Tools Made Possible by 100 Years of IBM

Posted in: ps3, storage, Today's Chili, top, VideoGames, wii, xbox

IBM’s Centennial anniversary is fast approaching (as in TODAY), and their 100 years of hard work shouldn’t go unnoticed. Behind every major technological advance, you’re likely to find IBM’s name floating around somewhere. Here are 9 of our favorite IBM-aided innovations. More »

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Jun 14

Titanium Water Bottle Is Almost Pointless

Posted in: storage, Today's Chili

The Titanium Water Bottle weighs almost the same as a steel one, and costs just 15 times more

If you regularly buy bottled water, you should probably stop ruining the planet for the rest of us and refill a bottle from the tap instead. An old water bottle will probably do just fine, but in case that’s just not cool enough for such a fashion conscious person as yourself, why not try the Titanium Water Bottle from Exotac?

The bottle can be had with a plastic or titanium cap and holds 650ml (22 ounces) of water. The main selling point is weight, although as it is designed to lug around 22 ounces of water, the weight saving over stainless steel seems moot. The bottle has an empty weight of four ounces including the cap. This compares to around five ounces for a comparably-sized steel bottle. If you’re not keeping count, that’s a saving of one whole ounce.

Like steel, the bottle can also be used to heat water on a fire or camping stove. Unlike steel bottles, which can be had for $5, the Titanium Water Bottle costs an absurd $75 (plus another $10 for the titanium cap). Maybe that old Evian bottle will do fine after all.

Titanium Water Bottle [Exotac via Oh Gizmo]

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Jun 14

Sony PlayStation Vita’s removable memory looks like it’s an SD card, but it isn’t

Posted in: e3, memory, playstation, sony, storage, Today's Chili

Sony’s seen fit to tell us many of the PlayStation Vita’s specs, how much it’ll cost ($249 for WiFi, $299 for 3G), and who gets it (everyone). Amidst all the hullabaloo at E3 2011, however, we missed seeing that Sony was showing off the new handheld’s internal memory cards. Good thing an eagle-eyed member of the public snapped a pic of the 4, 8, 16, and 32GB cards on the show floor. They look awfully similar to garden variety SD cards, only there’s a little notch in the side confirming they hew to Sony’s unfortunate habit of using proprietary storage formats. The cost of the cards remains shrouded in secrecy, but life’s more fun when a little mystery’s involved, right?

Sony PlayStation Vita’s removable memory looks like it’s an SD card, but it isn’t originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 14 Jun 2011 05:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Jun 13

Moneta Onyx phase-change memory prototype can write some data 7x faster than traditional SSDs

Posted in: hard drive, HardDrive, memory, prototype, solid state drive, SolidStateDrive, SSD, storage, Today's Chili


As file sizes for many data types continue to grow, smaller chunks are also becoming more ubiquitous, particularly on social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, and search tools like Google. These high-volume, small-size blocks of data may soon be served up from a specific type of SSD, like the Moneta Onyx prototype developed by a team at the University of California, San Diego. Onyx uses phase-change memory (PCM), which can rewrite single bits of data (1s and 0s) on demand, rather than rewriting data in larger chunks, yielding sustained 327 megabyte per second (MB/s) reads and 91MB/s writes with smaller file types — two to seven times faster than the most efficient commercial SSDs. PCM specifically benefits granular data, rather than large files that must be transferred completely (like photos and documents), so the tech is more likely to appear on devices serving up short text-based messages. Traditional SSDs can write larger files faster than the Onyx prototype, though the new drive offers speedier read speeds across the board. It’ll be at least a couple years before PCM becomes commercially available, but once (and if) it does, you’ll be reading about your coworker’s breakfast or college buddy’s traffic jam milliseconds faster than before.

Moneta Onyx phase-change memory prototype can write some data 7x faster than traditional SSDs originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 13 Jun 2011 14:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Jun 12

Switched On: Apple’s cloud conundrum

Posted in: Apple, cloud, column, storage, switched on, SwitchedOn, Today's Chili

Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.

It is hard to believe that Apple has been trying its hand at the Internet services space since the year 2000, when it launched iTools. Like nearly all of iCloud, with which it shares its trademark vowel prefix, iTools was free. Unlike iCloud, though, its collection of services was all over the map, ranging from Web page creation to greeting cards. iCloud marks the third reboot of Apple’s Web services suite since that foray. In the intervening years, we’ve seen .Mac (essentially a subscription version of most iTools features), and MobileMe, which paved the way for the contact and calendar synchronization that will be free as part of iCloud.

Modern-day Apple has shown an appreciation for seamless network access since the launch of the iMac in 1998, which eschewed floppy drives in favor of network-based sharing. One can even trace a belief in the power of the network further back to eWorld, AppleLink, and even the Mac’s early, simple networking technologies, AppleTalk and LocalTalk. Internet services are clearly complementary to advanced devices running sophisticated software — two areas where Apple excels. So why has the cloud rained on Apple?

Continue reading Switched On: Apple’s cloud conundrum

Switched On: Apple’s cloud conundrum originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 12 Jun 2011 20:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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