Seagate launched a new FreeAgent DockStar Network Adapter on Wednesday, a device that connects to the company's FreeAgent drives and adds both NAS and online backup functionality.
The $99.99 DockStar network adapter will be complemented by an expanded lineup of FreeAgent drives, now available in 750-Gbyte, 880-GB, and 1-terabyte capacities. Seagate did not release pricing for the new drives, which currently ship at capacity points from 250 to 640 Gbytes.
EDIT 9:06 AM PDT: The new 750-Gbyte hard drive is priced at $199.99, while the 880-GB and 1-TB drives are $209.99 and $249.99, respectively, according to a Seagate spokeswoman.
On the surface, the FreeAgent Network Adapter seems similar to the Hitachi SimpleNet NAS adapter the company announced this past summer. However, Seagate's offering is also combined with technology from PogoPlug, which backs up the data into the cloud. The first year of the backup solution is free; after that, however, PogoPlug will charge $29.99 per year for unlimited sharing and remote access.
It's still a challenge to enjoy your computer's music, photos, and movies on your TV, but Seagate hopes to change that with the FreeAgent Theater+ HD. It's a home theater docking system that works with Seagate's FreeAgent Go portable drives.
The idea is that you connect your FreeAgent Go drive to your computer and load it up with all the media you want to share: all your home movies, family photos, and favorite songs. Then, plug the drive into the FreeAgent Theater+ HD, which is connected to your television. You'll be able to browse through that material with the included remote.
The FreeAgent Theater+ HD includes two USB ports for attaching other storage devices, and an Ethernet port so you can access it from your home network. The company will release a USB wireless adapter in October. The system works with both Windows and Macintosh computers. Get it as a standalone product for $149.99 or bundled with a 500GB FreeAgent Go drive for $289.99.
Sorry, Sandisk: Samsung has moved on with its life. The Korean electronic company has backed away from plans to acquire the Northern Californian chipmaker; the two companies have had a working relationship for some time. Last year, Samsung announced plans to buy the company for $5.85 billion, an offer that Sandisk believed undervalued its worth.
"We are no longer planning to pursue the acquisition as there has been no progress since we withdrew our offer as of Oct. 22, 2008," Samsung said in a recent filing with the Korea exchange. Samsung has largely remained silent since first announcing its intentions late last year.
Toshiba today announced that it had pushed the limits of the 2.5-inch hard drive even further with the introduction of a 640GB drive the "industry's largest" hard disk drive in that capacity. The MK6465GSX runs at 5,400 RPM and features an areal density of 528.5 Gbit/in2.
The MK6465GSX is part of a larger line of drives that also includes 500GB, 320GB, 250GB, and 160GB models. According to Toshiba, the drives are also 28-percent more energy efficient than their predecessors. They will begin shipping to manufacturers later this month.
Richard Egan, the 73-year-old co-founder of tech company EMC Corp., was found dead in his Boston-area home late last week. According to various reports, Egan died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, after a long battle with lung cancer. Egan also suffered from a number of other ailments, including diabetes, emphysema, and high blood pressure.
This week marks the 30th anniversary of Egan's founding of EMC along with partner Roger Marino. Egan served as the storage technology company's CEO until 1992. Egan had also served as a Marine Corps helicopter pilot and worked for a number of high profile companies such as Intel.
Another former EMC CEO, Michael Ruettgers issued a statement reading, in part,
I personally learned a great deal from working with him and always enjoyed our working relationship. He will be deeply missed by those of us who were fortunate enough to know him and call him a friend.
It's amazing the number of things that can be pimped, isn't it? I remember a day when pimping had a more literal and less positive meaning. But now rides, online profiles, and laptops are all routinely pimped. There's even a site called Pimp My Barbie, which apparently has not received a cease-and-desist letter from Mattel.
Adding to this great new world of pimping is Seagate, which launches its Pimp my Drive promotion today. Seagate has partnered with MusicSkins to offer a variety of vinyl skins that can dress up your external hard drive. You can either buy a skin from Seagate when purchasing a FreeAgent Go drive or visit MusicSkins' Seagate page to buy a skin for a drive you already own. In a limited time offer, Seagate is offering 20 percent off a MusicSkin (and 35 free songs from eMusic) when you register your FreeAgent Go drive at Seagate.com. So get pimping, kids.
Some of you must be carrying highly sensitive files around, because there's a lot of interest in making flash drives secure. July saw the IronKey S200 announced, a drive that offers 256-bit hardware encryption and a tamper-resistant design (pricing still not announced).
Yesterday, Apricorn, Inc., unveiled the Aegis Padlock, a drive that offers password protection with a built-in keypad. You can choose from 128-bit or 256-bit models in several storage sizes. The entry price is $99 for 250GB at 128-bit protection.
The drive has a fold-away USB cable and works with Windows, Macintosh, or Linux computers. There's no software installation required, so you can begin using it right away. You can even share it with other people, since it lets you create administrator and sub-user accounts.
The Padlock is built with shock-mounting, so your data should survive a few buttterfinger drops, and in ships with a travel pouch. If secrecy is a concern in your office, give the Padlock a try.
Apple has posted Hard Drive Firmware Update 2.0, which will apparently solve the odd "infrequent" noises that some users had experienced with the June 2009 release of the MacBook Pro, according to Apple. The drive noises were only experienced with the 7,200-RPM version of the hard drives.
The noises were described as short beeps, according to reports.
"To complete the firmware update process, please follow the instructions
in the updater application (/Applications/Utilities/Hard Drive
Update.app)," Apple says.
The new hard drive firmware is listed as "0007APM2".
Are the current batch of SD cards not doing it for you? Have no fear, Toshiba announced today that it's a got a new batch of faster cards set for release in the first half of next year. Based on the SD Memory Standard 3.0, the first sample batch of cards will ship to OEMs this November.
According to PC World, the standard itself was announced in January of last year, offering transfer speeds of up to 104MB per second. The Toshiba cards will be available in 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB sizes. The new XC spec can be used on cards up to 2TB. That's a lot of photos.
But for Sonic's CinemaNow, the answer is more traditional USB keys. Bundled together with WideVine's digital-rights-management technology, the pre-loaded keys will begin showing up at retail nationwide later this year. Sonic is also targeting bundling agreements with mobile phone manufacturers and netbook PC makers, the company said.
Here's how it works: "Once consumers connect to the Internet, the title on the USB Movie Drive is added to their Roxio CinemaNow Digital Locker where it can then be viewed on as many as four additional CinemaNow-compatible devices," Sonic said in a statement. "Rather than delivering the same file used for USB playback, a unique file is delivered that has been optimized for the capabilities and display characteristics of the selected device."
No word yet on how many movies will be sold on this format, or which studios will sign on -- Sonic has content relationships with most of the premier studios, however, so a wide breadth of content should be there. And, of course, there's the price, which has yet to be disclosed.
Now here's a reason to visit the San Diego Comic Con that doesn't involve some old 3D movie: the Bossy Bear Mimobot is debuting there, and creator David Horvath will be on hand for a signing.
Bossy Bear, a demanding little ruler given to saying things like "Mine!" and "Now!," was created by the same mind that gave us the Uglydolls. The Bossy Bear Mimobot comes in 1GB to 8GB sizes, and is bundled with Bossy Bear-themed wallpapers, icons, avatars, and screensavers, and Mimoco's mimoByte sound software.
But there's more, true believers: Horvath will be at the Con on Saturday, July 25, at 5:30 for a signing. Look for him at Mimoco's booth, # 4938, in the Toy Growers/Cult Yard section. He'll be the guy at the head of the shockingly long line. Brian, could you get me a signed one? Thanks a bunch.
Today's external storage options lets you back up everything on your computer, and take all your files with you easily.
Yesterday, Hitachi announced some extra-tough portable hard drives. Today, Verbatim announced a line of SureFire external drives that offer both FireWire 800 and USB 2.0 connections and don't need a power cord. They get all the juice they need over the FireWire or USB connection, so that's one less thing you need to pack when taking your files with you. The package does come with a power cord, however, for systems that won't charge devices over USB.
The SureFire line comes in 500GB ($179.99), 320GB ($139.99), and 250GB ($109.99) capacities. They have durable aluminum shells, yet are still light enough to carry (under a half-pound). All three models come with a black carrying case and work with Windows and Macintosh computers.
On Monday, Hitachi announced several new external storage products, capitalizing on the company's acquisition of Fabrik in February.
By far the most interesting product is the SimpleNet, a USB adapter that transforms a traditional USB drive into a NAS product. At $79, the SimpleNet is designed for consumers who own a USB drive and an existing router, and want to share the drive over the network. Several routers already include USB connections for doing this, but it also requires the purchase of this new, more expensive router.
According to Ken Higgins, Hitachi's vice president of worldwide branded sales, the SimpleNet also has another advantage: it doesn't require a consumer to reformat his or her hard drive. The SimpleNet is compatible with FAT32 and NTFS formatted drives, as well as the HFS+ used by Mac OS X. Apple's Time Machine is also compatible with the SimpleNet device.
Hitachi also unveiled a series of rugged SimpleTough drives, each containing a 2.5-inch drive from 250-Gbytes to 320-Gbytes to 500-Gbytes in capacity. The SimpleTough line ranges in price from $99.99 to $149.99. A less rugged SimpleDrive Mini is roughly identical, minus the tough exterior: prices in that family range from $89.99 to $139.99, Hitachi said. Both drives are bus-powered.
"Cute" is a term applied more to babies and panda bears than file servers. That was before the arrival this month of the Synology DS409slim network attached storage (NAS) device that measures about 5 inches in each dimension, thanks to the use of 2.5-inch laptop drives, yet has a capacity of 2TB, or 1.5TB of redundant RAID 5 storage that will survive the loss of a drive. The unit costs about $400 street and a configuration with four 500GB drives, the current top capacity for 2.5-inch drives, would be just over $800.
We all love the convenience of Flash drives, but they're not exactly secure--most don't even offer password protection. We looked at IronKey's personal flash drive solution last year, which offers military-grade security for a not-terrible starting price of $79. Now the company has introduced the IronKey S200, which ups the security level and is meant for high-level needs.
The S200 keeps your data safe in an impressive variety of ways. It offers AES 256-bit hardware encryption and is wrapped in a tamper-resistant and tamper-evident design. It's covered in a waterproof aluminum one-piece case, and the chips are encased in a hardened epoxy potting compound. I love that it comes with remote management software, so that an admin can enforce security policies remotely or even destroy all the saved data from afar.
The S200 comes in a 16GB model and works with Windows, Macintosh, and Linux PCs. The company isn't divulging the price yet, but you can sign up on this page to reserve a drive.
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