Storage

Generally, Mac users have been missing out on USB 3.0, instead, they have had Thunderbolt from the beginning of the new standard. Now that's about to change, thanks to Belkin.

The company announced yesterday a new docking device called Thunderbolt Express Dock, model F4U055, which allows for adding three USB 3.0 ports to a Mac via the computer's Thunderbolt port. In addition, it also offers one port of the following connection types: FireWire 800, Gigabit Eithernet, and eSATA, as well as one audio in and one audio out. Similar to most Thunderbolt devices, the dock comes … Read more

If CNET's sterling review of the Samsung 830 series solid-state drive isn't convincing enough, here's another incentive.

Samsung announced today that its 830 series SSDs will include a downloadable version of Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Future Soldier PC game with a purchase of the 128GB, 256GB, or 512GB model. … Read more

If you've been following my reviews of Thunderbolt devices, which you should, you can't help but notice how I've been lamenting about the cable.

There are a couple of things about the Thunderbolt cable from Apple that thins my hair: none of the devices comes with one; it's expensive at $50; it has a ridiculous single-size length (video); and you can only get one from Apple.

Now things have changed a bit, but the future doesn't seem much brighter.

Kanex, the maker of the first MHL-HDMI cable for Android phones, announced today that it's … Read more

More than a year after it was first launched exclusively for Macs, the Thunderbolt standard is now officially available for PCs, too. And by "officially," I mean you can literally buy a motherboard and build a system on your own that supports Thunderbolt.

There's been a lot of talk about Thunderbolt getting to PCs since the standard was first launched. Rumor had it Intel would show off PC motherboards that supported Thunderbolt at CES 2012 (which it didn't). On Monday, however, Intel quietly launched the standard for the PC platform, and today I have in my hand the Intel Desktop Board DZ77RE-75K, the first Thunderbolt-certified motherboard that comes with a built-in Thunderbolt port. The wait is finally over.… Read more

While there have been many new 2.5-inch-standard solid-state drives (SSDs) being introduced to the market in the last two years, it's not every day that you run into one that comes in the new low-profile 7mm thickness. The first one was introduced a few months back by Intel, the 520 series, and now we have the second: The RunCore Pro V 2.5" 7mm Ultra SSD.

The purpose of the new 7mm thickness is so that the drive can fit in an ultrabook, or other ultraportable laptop, without changing the standard SATA port configuration. This means that … Read more

Ever wonder why USB 3.0 hasn't really caught on? Most flash drives and external hard drives are still chugging along on USB 2.0, and most of the latest laptops have just one USB 3.0 port. Some have none at all. (I'm looking at you, brand-new Toshiba Satellite C655D-S5511.)

That's a shame, because in real-world tests, USB 3.0 has proven to be around 3.5 times faster than USB 2.0. That means a full-system backup that previously took an hour should get done in less than 20 minutes.

Maybe things will change now … Read more

Asking me not to post a killer deal is like asking me not to draw breath -- even when it's a product I know most of you already have.

Yep, I'm talking flash drives. They've dipped to amazingly low prices of late, which is why I just can't pass them up. Therefore, without further ado:

1. Staples has the Kingston DataTraveler 101 G2 8GB flash drive for $4.99. Shipping adds a hilariously ridiculous $9.95, but you can avoid that charge by opting for in-store pickup. (You'll still have to pay sales tax, natch.)… Read more

Netgear today teamed up with Broadcom to announce and demonstrate a new line of wireless networking products that use Broadcom's 802.11ac chips. These are the chips that Broadcom showed off in preparation for and during CES 2012.

These devices include two routers, the Netgear R6300 WiFi and the R6300 WiFi, and one USB adapter, the A6200 WiFi.

All of these devices are based on the new 802.11ac Wi-Fi standard (or 5G Wi-Fi, as Broadcom calls it). The Netgear R6300 is the top of the line and supports the three-stream 802.11ac standard that offers up to 1.… Read more

Toshiba announced today that its Canvio 3.0 and Canvio Basics 3.0 portable hard drives now offer up to 1.5TB of storage space, the second largest capacity on the market for portable external hard drives.

These two drives both support USB 3.0 (and are compatible with USB 2.0). The Canvio 3.0 also comes in a very sleek-looking chassis and now includes software drivers to make Macs support the NTFS file system.

NTFS is the native file system of Windows in which the Canvio drives are preformatted and generally can only be read by Macs. The … Read more