Category: Hard Drives
VIDEO: See how fast SSDs can get
Most people know that the hard drive is one of the slowest bits in most modern computers, and we’re all eagerly anticipating the arrival of affordable, capacious SSD drives, but I hadn’t quite realized how fast these things were until I saw this video, from Samsung’s marketing team. Watch it above.
A set of 24 SSDs in RAID can open the entirety of Microsoft Office in half a second, the entire start menu (53 programs!) in 18 seconds, and can copy a DVD from place to place in less time than it takes to throw the aforementioned DVD out of the window. Best of all, the system can defrag in just three seconds. Impressive!
(via Gizmodo)
Eight Core Mac Pro, AirPort Extreme and 1TB Time Capsule – more from the house of Jobs
The Mac Pro is all about power and today Apple has laid down two models, one with a quad-core Intel Xeon “Nehalem” processor and the other with two of them.
Both come with a 640GB HDD as standard with 3GB of RAM on one and 6GB…
GDrive gets official description, looking more real by the day
Inspired no doubt by recent mentions of the GDrive in various bits of code, aspiring hackers are now trawling through Google’s entire codebase looking for references to the mythical cloud storage service. As a result, more nuggets of info are surfacing, including this description of the service:
“GDrive provides reliable storage for all of your files, including photos, music and documents. GDrive allows you to access your files from anywhere, anytime, and from any device – be it from your desktop, web browser or cellular phone.”
Interesting bits: “All your files” and “music” are mentioned. Maybe they’re not bothered about intellectual property issues after all. Still no mention of the originally rumoured “unlimited”, though.
(via Google Operating System)
Related posts: GDrive rumours solidify – code spotted in Google Apps | Rumours of Google planning an incredible unlimited cloud storage service
Western Digital's 2TB Caviar Green HD is ready for ordering, if you have need to store 500,000 MP3s
Not only has the newest Western Digital Caviar drive got more storage capacity than a dog’s brain, the 2TB hard drive has also been designed to be environmentally sound, with WD suggesting it consumes 4-5 watts less energy than competing HDs.
Coming with a 32MB cache and a SATA-II interface for hooking it into your PC, the drive’s appearing for pre-order right now. One bewilderingly in-depth and unnecessarily lengthy six page review can be summarised…
GDrive rumours solidify – code spotted in Google Apps
The rumours around Google’s GDrive, which we reported on the other day, look to be gaining steam. First, there was a mysterious menu option appearing in Picasa for Mac, and now code’s been added to Google Apps that references a ‘webdrive’. There’s even a little icon for it.
I’ll reiterate my comment from the other post – this isn’t likely to be ‘unlimited’ storage. People have too much crap for Google to allow that, and most of that crap is dubiously-acquired intellectual property like movies, games and music. Google’s had problems with that with YouTube, so I find it unlikely that they won’t put restrictions on the service.
More likely, we’ll see a limited storage, limited file upload service that doesn’t do very much more than what you can already do with Google Docs and Google Mail. When will we see it? My money’s on ‘fairly soon’.
(via Google Operating System)
Related posts: Rumours of Google planning an incredible unlimited cloud storage service | Google adds tube map to Google Maps
Seagate Fail part two: firmware fix breaks other drives
Poor Seagate. Late last week, the news broke that their Barracuda 7200.11 1TB drives were failing en masse. Admirably, the company’s already published a firmware fix, but maybe they pushed it out a little too fast because it’s causing 500GB drive owners’ discs to fail en masse.
The update has been taken offline for the moment, and users of 1TB and 750GB drives are reporting successful updates, but if you’re on a 500GB drive and you’ve downloaded but not installed the update, then I certainly don’t recommend doing so just yet.
Seagate Forum (via Tom’s Hardware)
Related posts: Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 hard drives: Epic Fail | If it’s not working, don’t smash it!
Rumours of Google planning an incredible unlimited cloud storage service
Whispers around the intertubes would have you believe that Google has something very special planned for this year – unlimited cloud storage. It would mean that if you’ve got a fast enough broadband connection, then you’d no longer need more than a tiny hard drive – everything else could be stored online.
For the record, I don’t think Google’s quite there yet. Even their email product is officially limited, when its competitors’ products aren’t. There’s every chance that we’ll see some sort of limited storage product released by the Goog in 2009 but, well, the ‘unlimited’ label – I just don’t think it can happen yet.
(via ShinyShiny)
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Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 hard drives: Epic Fail
Hard drives crash from time to time, that’s a fact, but it seems that one particular type of Seagate drive is failing en masse, according to online accounts from annoyed customers.
The Barracuda 7200.11 1TB drive fails at boot time with a firmware error that locks the drive and makes in inoperable. Laughably, when the unit is returned, Seagate replaces it with the same model. The Register also suggests that you could pay Seagate twice by using its i365 company to recover the data before replacing the unit.
Computer Aid isn't a big fan of smashing up hard drives, either
It would be an understatement to say that I wasn’t a big fan of Which?’s suggestion that you safeguard your personal data by hitting it with a big hammer, and it turns out that Computer Aid agrees. Computer Aid is a charity which refurbishes old and unwanted computer equipment for the third world.
Instead, the charity wants you to opt for safe, environmentally-friendly alternatives when disposing of IT equipment. They also recommend a data erasing program over total destruction, though it’s the paid-for Blancco.
Of course, what they really want you to do is give the old equipment to them, promising that any data you leave will be wiped clean before it’s reused. A much better solution than a claw hammer, I’m sure you’ll agree.
Related posts: Which? magazine’s solution to data privacy – a big hammer | Security watchdog the ICO is currently looking at 277 “data breaches” in the UK
Which? magazine's solution to data privacy – a big hammer
Most people, when selling on a computer second-hand, wipe the data by just deleting it. That’s not quite enough. A simple delete just removes the references to the data on the disk – rather than wiping it clean. Software available free on the net can recover it relatively easily, as long as it hasn’t been overwritten.
Which? bought eight computers on eBay and recovered 22,000 ‘deleted’ files from them in this way. Some of those files contained personal data, which could be used by identity thieves to steal your… etc etc. Yawn. You know all this.
Of course, there’s programs that’ll hard-delete data, too, but Which? prefers another solution. A big hammer. They recommend pulling it out of the PC and whacking it very very hard, until the thing’s in pieces. While I don’t doubt the effectiveness of that method, it’s a lot easier to use a program like SuperShredder to accomplish the same thing. Plus you won’t get bits of disk platter in your eye. Bonus.
Related posts: Which? takes on Davenport-Lyons for “excessive bullying” | Which? Computing names high street shops selling violent games to 15 year-old girls
