Tag: HDD
PS4 nearly didn’t get a built-in hard drive
CES 2013: Lacie Blade Runner 4TB Hard Drive protects from backups lost like tears in rain
External hard drive design is, for the most part, as boring as tech comes. Nondescript black oblongs tucked aside your monitor or laptop, they're nothing much to write home about. Designer Philippe Starck doesn't do nondescript though, and his new…
Seagate pushes for HDD dominance with finalised Samsung acquisition
Seagate has taken another step on their climb towards the top of the HDD pile by finalising its purchase of Samsung's hard disk drive arm. The move sees Seagate gain control of select assets, infrastructure and employees, while both companies…
When is a 1TB hard-drive not a 1TB hard-drive? When it's a $5m art installation
How much is a 1TB hard-drive worth? £50, £60? How about $5 million? That's exactly the price of the "5 Million Dollars, 1 Terabyte" art installation at the Art 404 gallery. The piece is made up of a 1TB…
Samsung to release Michael Jackson "This Is It" hard drive
The King of Pop Michael Jackson may have left this earthly realm, but that's not to say we can't have a string of baffling Jackson branded products to remember him by does it? Take for instance this Samsung Michael Jackson…
The LG HR400 – Blu-ray, Freeview HDD and YouTube all-in-one
LG has announced that the HR400 will be available at the end of this month. The HR400 is a Blu-ray DVD player, a Freeview receiver with recording onto a built-in HDD and it also streams YouTube videos without the need for a PC.
The Blu-ray is 1080p full HD and will also upscale your old DVDs. The Freeview element includes a 160GB HDD.
This really does do the job of two separate boxes and the YouTube feature is just a nice little bonus.
It will cost around £350 – which is fairly cheap considering the functionality. Find out more from LG.
(via T3)
Related posts: LG to launch 15-inch OLED in 2010 | REVIEW: LG 42LH5000 – 200Hz 42-inch LCD TV
Emtec P800 multimedia HDD recorder out for £279
So, you know what it’s called and you know how much it costs but the question is, what exactly is a multimedia HDD box and what can it do for me/you/anyone?
Everything and nothing is the answer. On the surface, it’s an excellent product. It’s small, it’s portable, the 250GB HDD detaches while the flash drive in the main body of the unit will keep on recording regardless. You can connected it via just about any cable you’ve got to whatever kind of screen you like and you can plug in all manner of USBs and SD cards to play off or record onto.
The trouble with the Emtec P800, though, is the detail but, then, that is reflected in the very reasonable price. It’s not perfect yet and they admit it. It doesn’t play as many file types as it should. There’s no support for MP4 and AAC which wipes out a lot of people’s audio and video files in one stroke. The EPG allows you to set recordings of live TV onto whichever disc you like but there’s no series linking possible.
Worst of all, though, is the music dump that is just that. There’s no cataloguing function and the tracks are listed by whatever weird and wonderful names you Kazaad them under back in the day. It’s not the most user friendly box in the world.
On the plus side it offers web radio via Wi-Fi, twin tuners – digital and analogue – and you can even use it to “back up” your DVDs. Nice.
From first inspection, I’d say you’re getting good value for money here but a few pence more might source something that doesn’t bug. At the same time, I fully expect Emtec to get it right in time for the next generation.
Buy it here
Guide: The difference between SSDs and HDDs
This guide outlines the main differences between solid state drives (SSDs) and hard disk drives (HDDs).
There are two major types of SSD in current production — NAND and DRAM. This guide focuses on the more common one: NAND.
It’s worth noting that advances are being made all the time on both types of drive and that these differences are generalisations. Individual performance will vary from manufacturer to manufacturer.
1. Speed
Most solid state drives, except ones made using cheaper components, are significantly faster at reading data than a hard drive.
This is because there are no moving mechanical parts on a SSD and so the “seek time” is significantly reduced. Incidentally, DRAM drives are faster still.
Writing large files is also generally quicker on a SSD, though at present there are often performance problems when trying to write a lot of small files to a SSD. It’s possible to overcome this through improved system design.
In general, though, SSDs are faster than HDDs.
(PS: SSDs are generally quieter than HDDs because they don’t have any moving parts and are usually fanless)
Toshiba Store HDDs – the kind of storage that gets me hot
I’m not sure why I get excited about external storage solutions. I think it’s the computer equivalent of shelving and anyone out there can understand people getting pleasure out of talking about that, right?
So, that given, you can basically double my levels of manly excitement when I see that these things look as good as the latest range of external drives from Toshiba. If you like them gloss, then go for the Toshiba Store Art which come in 1.8″, 2.5″ and 3.5″ depending upon how large your collection of illegal downloads is – 160GB, 500GB or a whole fat 1TB.
Panasonic brings HD Blu-ray recording to UK with the DMR-BS850 & BS750
Panasonic launched not one but two dual-tuner Freesat HD Blu-ray PVRs yesterday at their shindig over in Amsterdam, making the DMR-BS850 and BS750 the first of their kind in the UK.
No prices as yet – something pretty hefty, I’d imagine – but in May you can expect a pair of machines that’ll allow you to watch and record satellite content, HD channels and record onto Blu-ray discs
