My Book Portable External Hard Disk From Western Digital

The USB 3.0 interface is the latest fashion in the storage device manufacturers’ street. After Seagate, it is now the turn of Western Digital to embrace the new specification.

Lake Forest, California-headquartered Western Digital Corporation has announced the release of its latest external storage technology in the market.

Christened “My Book”, the new storage device is an external hard disk. My Book interfaces with the desktop / laptop using USB 3.0 specifications, which, according to the company, makes it 10 times faster than the older interface of USB 2.0. My Book is available with capacity of 1 TB and 2 TB, and is capable of delivering data at the transfer rate of up to 5 gigabits per second.

The product is being offered as a standalone with a price tag of USD 179.99. The “My Book” kit comes with a price tag of USD 199.99 and includes a USB 3.0 PCIe adapter card. My Book comes with a two-year limited warranty.

With the worldwide market for superfast external hard disk drives expected to touch over 1 billion units in the next couple of years, hard disk manufacturers do not want to be left behind.

Read more about the latest external storage device launched by Western Digital, here.

BlackArmor Portable External Hard Disk From Seagate

Scotts Valley, California-headquartered Seagate Technology LLC used the opportunity of the Consumer Electronics Show concluded in Las Vegas to unveil its latest external data storage technology.

Christened “BlackArmor”, the new data storage is an external hard disk that is targeted for the notebook computer segment. The device has a capacity of 500GB, spins on its spindle at the speed of 7,200 RPM, and measures 0.49 inch (H) X 3.15 inch (W) X 5.12 inch (L), and weighs less than 180 grams. The device interfaces with a USB 3.0 interface.

The BlackArmor kit comes with the drive and a backup software preloaded on it that functions quite well on Windows. Other items in the kit include a quick-start guide, a USB 3.0 cable, USB power cable, and a USB 3.0 PC card adapter.

According to the company press release, the new USB 3.0 interface increases the speed of data transfer multifold, so that a 25GB HD movie can be transferred to the drive in just 4.2 minutes, which is three times faster than the time it used to take on a USB 2.0 interface.

Read more about the latest in external data storage technology from Seagate, here.

Seagate Launches Thinnest Hard Disk Drive

Scotts Valley, California-headquartered Seagate Technology LLC has announced the launch of what it terms is the world’s thinnest hard disk drive. The new storage device is called “Momentus Thin”.

Momentus Thin measures 7 mm (H) X 70.1 mm (W) X 100.55 mm (L), and weighs 92 grams typically, making it 25% slimmer than the traditional 2.5 inch laptop hard drives which measure 9.5 mm. The drive is targeted for ultra-portable and entry-level laptops, high-end netbooks, backup devices and consumer electronics. It is being positioned as a more affordable alternative to the solid-state and 1.8 inch hard drives.

The storage device comes in two capacities: 250GB and 160GB, with an 8MB cache. The drive works on serial ATA architecture with a 3GB/second interface and 5400 RPM spin speed. The average latency of the drive is 5.6 msec, with a random read seek time of 14 msec. The company estimates its annual failure rate to 0.48, and the probability of unrecoverable read errors to 1 in 10^14. The average seek power of 1.54 watts draws less energy from the batteries of the laptop / netbook.

Read more about the latest, the fastest and the slimmest introduction in the storage world, here.

Intel Launches 34 Nm SSD Products

Santa Clara, California-headquartered Intel Corporation has announced the launch of solid-state drive products that breach the 34-nanometer barrier for the first time. The earlier standard was 50nm. These drives are an alternative to the standard hard disk drives one finds in computer systems.

The new drive is called X25-M Mainstream SATA SSD, and is aimed at laptops and desktops. The drive has a capacity of 80Gb and 160Gb. The product is priced at USD 225 (for minimum quantity of 1,000 units, 80 Gb) and USD 440 (for minimum quantity of 1,000 units, 160Gb). The devices have a form factor of 2.5 inches.

Another version of 34-nm technology is X18-M, which too comes in capacities of 80Gb and 160Gb, and has a form factor of 1.8 inches.

A major attraction of the SSD is the absence in its functioning of any mechanically moving component. According to the company press release, the new X25-M operates at 65-microsecond latency, which compares very favorably against the 4,000-microsecond latency for an HDD. This translates into better throughput in read operations.

The devices are Windows-7-ready. A firmware update and an end-user tool are planned to be released around the time Windows 7 is launched, to enable users to optimize the performance of the SSD on the OS.

Read about the latest breakthrough in data storage technology achieved by Intel, here.

SSD Drives finally getting cheaper

A few month’s back I wrote about Intel’s new X-25 Solid state hard drives which were going to be faster cooler and just all around better. The only downside to them is the price! They are very expensive to make and therefore very expensive for you to buy so generally people don’t order them in their computers and not very many are upgrading either. Price is one of those reasons  the other is capacity.

Intel stepped up and is slowly fixing one of those problems and by reading the title I’m sure you have already guessed which one. Yes they are finally starting to drop in price. The 160GB version Intel has slashed prices by $100 USD, which is pretty significant in one shot. The drive should now retail for about $670 MSRP. The 80GB version received a more modest cut at about $50 USD and will now retail for about $320. That still sounds pretty expensive but hey it’s one big step in the right direction for customers. I know I wouldn’t really mind having one of these Intel drives when the price drops more and I’m sure others would too.

While they were at it Intel also increased production on these drives which is why I’m guessing they were able to lower price as much as they did in one shot. Apparently they were hard to get previously. So obviously someone is buying them.

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