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Well, this is interesting: physicists have reportedly discovered a new method of recording data onto hard drives, where the fruits of their labor could see mechanical-based hard drives jump in speeds, up to hundreds of times faster. Heat is the key.
A hard disk drive is a magnetic storage device, which, unlike magnetic tapes, allows random access. The recording surface of a hard drive consists of hundreds of billions of tiny portions that can be magnetized in a particular polar direction to represent 0s or 1s. Recording data flips the direction, which is currently done using an external magnetic field.
A team of researchers led by Thomas Ostler at the University of York, UK have discovered that a short burst of heat can do the job much faster. This is where things get karazay. Up until now, it was thought that heat could only assist in remagnetisation when used in conjunction with a magnetic field. This knowledge base has changed: zapping a magnet with a laser for less than one trillionth of a second, momentarily raising the temperature by over 800-degrees Celcius, can have the same effect.
It is said that using this new method could lead to hard drives that are capable of recording terabytes of information per second, which is hundreds of times faster than today's technology.
RunCore have just debuted some new solid-state drives (SSDs) today, which sport the SATA 6Gbps interface. The new series are the Pro-V MAX series and are based on SandForce's SF-2281 controller with the optimized firmware (the Golden FW).
Read and write transfer rates are at 560MB/sec and 520MB/sec, respectively, as well as burst IOPS at 87K while sustained IOPS over 60K. The Pro-V MAX is said to be ideal for use in gaming machines, HPC & datacenter servers, and with those specs, I definitely agree.
The Pro-V MAX series also sports RAISE technology for enhanced reliability and DuraWrite technology. On top of the SATA 6Gbps support, it is of course backwards compatible with SATA 3Gbps and 1.5Gbps. The RunCore Pro-V MAX also supports NCQ, and SMART Command and OS's such as Windows, Linux, Unix, Solaris, and Mac OS.
Deal of the Day: Newegg - 80GB Intel 320 Series SSD Drive for $69.99 after $50 Rebate, with FREE Shipping!
Today's Deal of the Day is Newegg - 80GB Intel 320 Series SSD Drive for $69.99 after $50 Rebate, with FREE Shipping!
Newegg has a great deal on Intel's 320 Series SSD drive at just $69.99 after $50 mail in rebate (expiring 2/3/12). This 80GB 2.5" solid state drive includes a 5 year warranty, and FREE shipping.
Hitachi Global Storage Technologies have just started to ship its 4TB HDD with 7200RPM spindle speed. The new drive is called the 'Deskstar 7K4000' and sports the insane 4TB storage, as well as the snappy 7200RPM speed.
The new Hitachi Deskstar 7K4000 (HDS724040ALE640, to be exact) sports 4TB capacity, where it uses five previous-generation 800GB platters with 446Gb/square inch areal density, a SATA 6Gbps interface, 64MB cache as well as the previously mentioned 7200RPM spindle speed. The new drive also uses the advanced 4K format.
It's currently unknown why Hitachi tapped the previous-gen 800GB platters, and not 1TB platters, but it could be because Hitachi were unsure of the stability of the latest platters with a single 4TB drive.
Hitachi's 7K4000 drive is available in Japan for ¥28800 ($377), which whilst a premium, is not too bad considering its a single 4TB drive. Pricing should get better with the Thailand flood situation hopefully settling in the near future.
Deal of the Day: Newegg - 16GB Patriot Holiday USB 2.0 Flash Drive for $6.99 after Rebate with FREE Shipping!
Our Deal of the Day is Newegg - 16GB Patriot Holiday USB 2.0 Flash Drive for $6.99 after Rebate with FREE Shipping!
Newegg has this funky looking festively tardy 16GB Patriot Holiday USB 2.0 flash drive for just $6.99 after $7 rebate, with FREE shipping. Ends 1/31/12.
Victorinox is no stranger to modding Swiss Army knives, by adding modern-day technology such as flash storage to the already handy tools. Two years ago, Victorinox made one of its multi-purpose knives with an "unhackable" drive that featured 256-bit AES encryption, and a thermal fingerprint reader.
If someone tried to break through the security, the device's tamper-proof design burned the memory chip to prevent data theft. How cool is that! The company unveiled some newer designs at CES 2012, and boy does it look cool.
The device is simply called "SSD," and the storage goes right up to 1TB, providing hard drive-like capacities in a USB flash drive-like size. It also comes in 64, 128 and 256GB sizes, with all devices sporting connection through USB/eSATA 3.0.
Samsung have today released two new firmware updates for their SSD 830 Series of solid-state drives. The first update, named CXM02B1Q, was released two weeks ago, but due to CES, no one really noticed it.
The release notes state that the update fixes a BSOD or hang issue when waking the computer up from hibernation mode. The 830 Series has been said to be one of the most reliable SATA 6Gb/s SSDs, with the issue not affecting all users, it still affects some. Samsung also claim that the update fixes partition issues with some enclosures and laptops.
The second update, named CXM03B1Q, was released last Thursday and it's identical to the earlier update, but sports improved compatibility and stability of the update tool. If you want to grab the latest firmware for the Samsung 830, download it here. As always, do so at your own risk and perform data backups beforehand.
Network Attached Storage heroes, Thecus have released the new V5.02.02 firmware which adds new features, protocol updates, and of course, the usual tweaking. The new update is available for all V5-compatible models.
Quick access models gets a nice upgrade, where there is now the possibility to add an extra button on the login screen where you can choose the desired module and login with the proper user account. Third-party developers can now set their own icon if they wish.
A handy feature included in V5.02.02 firmware is the ability to back up all local users, groups and permissions. You can save them on a RAID volume and restore when required. There's also the ability to export them to another NAS if required. General upgrades and tweaks are below:
NFS, Samba, SSL certificates, SNMP trap, AFP, Time Zone, and FTP: all those features have been upgraded to new versions and have more options.
The Web UI has been slightly tweaked to be faster and includes full translation
Network UPS function
Added "Read-only" function for public folders
Upgrade process slightly changed and is more detailed
And much more, check the release notes for more details.
It just got word from an old friend about a super deal going on at Tiger Direct for one of the most respected SSDs on the market. Tiger has managed to work the Intel 320 Series SSD down to 1 Dollar per GB in the 80GB capacity size. There are some instant and not so instant rebates involved but when all is said and done the 320 Series 80GB meets its mark.
The Intel SSDSA2CW080G3K5 320 80GB Solid-State Drive delivers leading performance for Serial Advanced Technology Attachment-based computers. By combining Intel's leading 25nm NAND flash memory technology with SATA 3Gb/s interface support, the Intel SSDSA2CW080G3K5 320 80GB Solid-State Drive delivers sequential read speeds of up to 270 MB/s and sequential write speeds of up to 220 MB/s. The industry-standard 1.8-inch and 2.5-inch form factors enable interchangeability with existing hard disk drives (HDDs) and native SATA HDD drop-in replacement with the enhanced performance, reliability, ruggedness, and power savings offered by an SSD. Purchase the Intel SSDSA2CW080G3K5 320 80GB Solid-State Drive today.
Hit the Source Link for the action.
We reported on this back in December, but now Thecus have released their HDMI-equipped NAS, the N4800. It should start flowing into retailers shortly, and if you're after a new NAS solution, this has some very nice features that might interest you.
Thecus' N4800 NAS sports HDMI output, which lets you connect your NAS directly to your TV for device management, web browsing with Flash support, and even HD video playback. Something that I did not expect was "Mini-UPS", which lets you quickly write unwritten data to the HDDs and safely shutdown, preserving the integrity of not only the unit, but your data.
N4800 sports USB 3.0 support, as well as Acronis True Image for your data backup needs.
Let's not forgot those tasty things we all want to know, specs. Thecus' N4800 features an Intel Atom D2700, 2GB of RAM, dual Gigabit Ethernet, a 2.8-inch OLED display, HDMI/VGA output, 4 x SATA bays, 1 x eSATA and dimensions are 192 x 172 x 250 (mm).