Performance

I've previously confessed to being a fan of Fanatec's series of racing wheels, I even use its original Porsche 911 Turbo styled wheel, pedal, and shifter combo as my daily digital driver when piloting the virtual cars 'round the tracks of my racing sim du jour.

But my now-discontinued Fanatec kit sits at the bottom of manufacturer's line of racing peripherals and leaves much to be desired.The plasticy buttons on the wheel's face feel cheap with vague tactile feedback; the pedals, while accurate throughout their travel, are too light and mushy for furious racing; and the H-pattern shifter's poorly defined gates have cost me more races than I can count. Most of these issues have been addressed with subsequent versions of Fanatec's Porsche wheels and at the core of this kit is a fantastically accurate 900-degree racing wheel with strong force feedback, great sensitivity, and the ability to be customized on-the-fly to the user's needs. I always wondered, what would happen if you took that awesome core steering wheel hardware and upgraded the components and build materials?

This is the point in our story where the Fanatec Forza Motorsport CSR wheel and shifter kit and CSR Elite pedal set landed at my desk. These components aim to address each of the issues that I have with my current setup.… Read more

If you've been contemplating getting an SSD for your laptop but can't justify the cost, the new 750GB Momentus XT hybrid drive is the answer.

Released just a few days ago, the second-generation hybrid drive from Seagate offers more storage space than the previous model, and its performance is even closer to that of an SSD. … Read more

Seagate today announced that it's now shipping the second generation of its popular hybrid drive, the Momentus XT.

The new drive is the upgrade to the original Momentus XT, the first and only mass-produced hybrid drive on the market, which was released more than a year ago and has been widely adopted by OEM system builders.

Similar to the first generation, the new Momentus XT combines both traditional platter-based hard drive and solid-state storage. The new drive, however, now offers up to 750GB of storage space (as opposed to 500GB of the previous version), which includes twice the amount … Read more

We finally have official specs and details about the production model of Toyota's FT-86 small sports car, one of which is its new name: the Toyota GT 86.

At least, it will be known as the GT 86 in the European market. In the Japanese market, it may be simply known as the Toyota 86 or Hachiroku in the Japanese tongue. And when the model reaches U.S. shores next year, it may do so wearing a Scion badge with an FR-S or similar nameplate.

We already knew that Toyota's small sports car would be motivated by a … Read more

As I accelerated out of the rain-slicked Turn 2 of Infineon Raceway, I could feel the rear end of the Lexus LFA begin to slip and spin. "Holy crap," I thought, "how am I going to be able to pay for this $375,000 Lexus?"

Fortunately, my moment of terror was, despite the slippery conditions, both brief and isolated. But before I get into that, let's discuss how I came to find myself on a wet racetrack behind the most exotic vehicle to ever come out of Japan.

Lexus LFA performance driving schoolThe day's … Read more

Since Intel's Apple-only Thunderbolt standard offers up to 10Gbps of bandwidth, it doesn't seem to make sense to use it in a single-volume external storage device. This is because the device's internal drive, which would currently cap at the 6Gbps of the latest SATA 3 standard, will be the bottleneck of the whole package's performance.

LaCie, however, believes otherwise. Case in point: the Little Big Disk SSD, the first single-volume Thunderbolt storage device that's also based on an internal solid-state drive. And for the most part, it's a success.

The new external drive is … Read more

LAS VEGAS--A letter F on a report card is usually a bad thing. However, when Lexus slaps an F-badge on the back of one of its vehicles, you should know that the automaker means fast and not fail.

Actually, the F stands for finesse, but let's not split hairs. The GS 350 sedan with F Sport package that Lexus debuted at the 2011 SEMA Show is no mere appearance upgrade, it should also be faster than the standard model.

However, the extra performance comes in the form of suspension, aerodynamic, and chassis upgrades, as the GS 350's 3.… Read more

Having up-to-date backups of your data is like insurance, we all need it and at the same time never want to have to resort to it.

Though backing up data is not required by law, the consequences of not doing it are often so huge that it's fair to call those who don't frequently back up their important data, well, reckless, irresponsible, or just simply foolish. The truth is, when you realize that the originals of your important documents or photos are gone because of a hard-drive crash or losing your laptop, being called names is the least of your worries.

Now there's an easy fix. Here's a list of our top portable hard drives that make backing up data a no-brainer. Take a look and get yourself one if you don't already have a backup solution in place. … Read more

OCZ yesterday announced a new lineup of solid-state drives called Octane that offer up to 1TB of storage space. The company says the top-capacity Octane model will cost just around $1,300, which is much cheaper than some 512GB SSDs on the market. Other Octane capacities, including 512GB, 256GB, and 128GB, are priced lower accordingly.

According to OCZ, the new SSDs are based on a next-generation controller called Indilinx Everest that offers better balance between capacity, physical size, and performance compared with previous controllers. The 2.5-inch-design SSDs support both SATA 3.0 (6Gbps) and SATA 2.0 (3Gbps) standards. … Read more