storage

Wrapping up CES 2013: Wi-Fi going strong, SSHD emerges

LAS VEGAS--Finally, CES 2013 has come to an end.

It's pretty much impossible for one person to experience the entire show, but from the perspective of my beat, which is networking and storage, here are the highlights.

802.11ac Wi-Fi made a strong appearance 802.11ac has been on the market for just about a year, starting with CES 2012. At this year's show, virtually all networking vendors, including but not limited to Cisco, Netgear, D-Link, Trendnet, and TP-Link, presented at least one networking product that supports this new and faster standard.

Furthermore, Netgear introduced at this year'… Read more

Plextor unveils various SSD-based products at CES 2013

LAS VEGAS--Plextor has more news in regard to its SSD development to share at CES 2013, in addition to introducing the M5 Pro Xtreme drive.

The storage vendor unveiled a few new solid-state storage devices today, including the M5M mSATA SSD, a Next Generation Form Factor (NGFF) SSD, and its new embedded multimedia card (eMCC).

The M5M mSATA is a 6Gbps SSD. The new drive has no outer casing and is just one-eighth the size of a standard 2.5-inch drive, designed especially for ultrabooks with limited space. It features the new Marvell 88SS9187 controller, and Toshiba's new 19nm … Read more

Plextor M5 Pro SSD goes Xtreme

LAS VEGAS--Plextor just added a touch of "extreme" to its existing M5 Pro solid-state drive.

The storage vendor demoed the M5 Pro Xtreme SSD at CES 2013, as a replacement for the M5 Pro that was released just five months ago. The new drive is on the same lines as the previous model, from the housing to the available capacities, which are 128GB, 256GB, and 512GB.

The only thing that's different, which is also the most important thing, is the performance. The new drive now offers, for the first time among consumer-grade SSDs, random read and write … Read more

Plextor M5 Pro Xtreme makes performance affordable

Fans of the Plextor M5 Pro, prepare to fall in love again! Showcased at CES 2013, its successor, the Plextor M5 Pro Xtreme, is not just faster, it also costs slightly less.

Other than the fact there's no included USB-SATA adapter, which very few SSDs come with, the new M5 Pro Xtreme has nothing else for me to complain about.

If you're looking to replace your computer's existing main storage device, be it a hard drive or a budget SSD, the Plextor M5 Pro Xtreme is an excellent buy, ranking near the top among the best internal drives to date.… Read more

Microsoft beefs up SkyDrive with more features

Microsoft has kicked off 2013 with a few helpful additions to your SkyDrive Web site.

As detailed in yesterday's Inside SkyDrive blog, you can now move files within SkyDrive to other folders by dragging and dropping them to a specific location on the breadcrumb bar.

For example, to move a file from your Documents subfolder to the root of your SkyDrive storage, simply drag the file onto the SkyDrive breadcrumb with your name. Previously, you'd have to right-click on a file, select the Move to command, and then choose a target folder in order to move it.

Those … Read more

G-Tech soups up external storage with 7,200rpm hard drives

LAS VEGAS--Call it a minor upgrade, but that's what G-Technology has to offer this year at CES.

The storage vendor, which is now part of Western Digital, announced at CES 2013 that it now ships all of its popular G-Technology G-Drive Mini and G-RAID Mini external storage products with high-speed 1TB, 2.5-inch 7,200rpm hard drives.

Thanks to this, the G-Drive Mini, a compact single-volume external drive, now offers up to 136MBps performance speed. The drive offers both USB 3.0 and FireWire 8000 connection types and is bus-powered. It's preformatted for Mac and is now available … Read more

Seagate Wireless Plus: A totally new mobile storage experience made from an old concept

Unveiled at CES 2013, Seagate's Wireless Plus won CNET's Best of CES for Networking and Storage category for a reason: it's a big step up from its predecessor, the Seagate GoFlex Satellite.

The drive now combines 1TB of storage space, 10-hour-and-then-some battery life, and a built-in Wi-Fi network that supports up to eight concurrent clients in one compact package about the size of a regular USB 3.0 portable drive. Connected clients can stream digital content from it and you can also back up content to it, using a mobile app or a network browser.

And, when … Read more

Dropbox snaps up cloud-based photo organizer Snapjoy

Dropbox is continuing to reveal its interest in getting into the online photo sharing space. The latest piece of evidence is the acquisition of Snapjoy, a startup that provides a cloud-based photo library.

For reference, Snapjoy's platform can be used to collect photos from a multiude of online and offline sources (i.e., Flickr, desktops, an iPhone, etc.) to be stored in a cloud-based account. Users can elect to share some or all photos, either via invite to select friends or on social networks.

One of the differences that Snapjoy aimed to convey is that its elegant photo stream … Read more

Get a 32GB USB 3.0 flash drive for $19.99 shipped

Regular readers know that flash-drive prices have plummeted in the past year. But you know what all those dirt-cheap drives have had in common? A USB 2.0 interface.

What is this, 2001? USB 2.0 is over, man. It's the digital equivalent of the horse and buggy. And yet it's still pretty rare to find flash drives that support the newer, faster USB 3.0 spec.

That's why I'm jazzed about today's deal. While supplies last, Ice Monkey has the Super Talent ST3U32ST1K 32GB USB 3.0 flash drive for $19.99 shipped. Elsewhere … Read more

Samsung acquires Nvelo, maker of SSD tech

Samsung Electronics has agreed to purchase storage software firm Nvelo.

The Korean firm announced the purchase of Santa Clara, Calif.-based Nvelo on Friday. The company develops next-generation SSD storage solutions, and works to manage and optimize the use of solid state drives within subsystems. This kind of "SSD caching" is used in both consumer and enterprise platforms, increasing the speed of retrieving data in a number of devices, including desktops and smartphones, from both hard drives and SSDs.

The acquisition of 2-year-old Nvelo, albeit low-key, means that Samsung will increase its storage space portfolio, and will potentially … Read more