hard

The other day I asked if it still made sense to buy a mammoth hard drive. For my money, the smarter buy is a compact, portable, smaller-capacity drive that's fast, affordable, and USB-powered.

Like this one: While supplies last, TigerDirect has the Western Digital Elements SE 1TB USB 3.0 hard drive for $59.99, plus around $4 for shipping. That's after redeeming a $10 mail-in rebate (PDF). It sells elsewhere (Newegg, Staples, etc.) for at least $80.

Compatible with Windows and Mac systems alike (though you'll need to reformat it for use with the latter), the … Read more

Today only, over at Rakuten.com, you can buy a Seagate Expansion 4TB USB 3.0 hard drive for $139.99 shipped when you apply coupon code 5419C15 at checkout.

Four terabytes. For $140. That's quite possibly the best storage deal I've ever seen, at least in terms of price per terabyte.

On the other hand, what on earth would a person do with that much space? Sure, if you use your PC as a media center and record a lot of high-def TV shows and movies, this would be great. (Flip side: If you're hoarding 4TB … Read more

When you attach an external drive or other secondary drive to a Mac, the volume on it will mount and become available in the Finder and the Finder sidebar for your various uses. To eject the drive, you simply need to click the eject button next to the drive's name in the sidebar, or select the drive and press Command-E, choosing the option to do so from the contextual menu, or even drag it to the trash.

These actions can be performed on one or more selected volumes; once it's ejected, you can safely remove the drive from … Read more

Western Digital announced today the WD Se SATA 3.5-inch standard hard drive, which offers up to 4TB of storage space.

While it's not the first hard drive with this top capacity -- both WD and Seagate have had other 4TB hard drives -- WD says that the new WD Se is the first that's designed for scale-out data center deployments, yet is still affordable. The hard drive supports the latest SATA 3 (6Gbps) standard, comes with 64MB of cache memory, and spins at 7,200rpm.

According to WD, the new hard drive uses enterprise components and technologies … Read more

MacFixIt Answers is a feature in which I answer Mac-related questions e-mailed in by our readers.

This week, readers asked about how to batch-edit files to add missing file extensions so they can be read in an applicable program, the options for adding more space to a MacBook Pro system with fixed flash memory, and the possibilities for secure-erasing e-mail messages from within Apple's Mail program.

I welcome contributions from readers, so if you have any suggestions or alternative approaches to these problems, please post them in the comments!

Question: Batch-addition of file extensions to unreadable files. MacFixIt reader … Read more

Encrypting data is a convenient method for keeping your data secure, especially when using external hard drives and thumbdrives that may be stolen or lost. While it might be easiest to encrypt an entire drive, sometimes doing so may be a touch inconvenient, especially if the drive is used for more than one purpose.

For instance, if you keep sensitive files on your drive, you may wish to keep it encrypted; however, this prevents you from sharing the drive with others. Therefore, if you want to use the drive to transfer files to another system, you will have to authenticate … Read more

MacFixIt Answers is a feature in which I answer Mac-related questions e-mailed in by our readers.

This week, readers wrote in with questions on the locations of the various libraries in OS X, the options for using an old internal hard drive from a MacBook as an external hard drive, and the options for managing Wi-Fi networks that span greater distances than their radios can cover.

I welcome contributions from readers, so if you have any suggestions or alternative approaches to these problems, please post them in the comments!

Question: The location of various libraries in OS X MacFixIt reader &… Read more

There's more to digital storage than you might be aware of, and your needs often require devices across the entire spectrum. Start with the internal drive, then get an external drive, then a portable drive, then something you can access remotely or stream content from. Or just maybe, you might find you need something that works both as a portable drive and a media streamer, even when you're out and about. Yes, you could just realize that you want too much!

But no worries, you won't need to spend too much time on your search. The six … Read more

If you were wondering where the solid-state part in WD's new solid-state hybrid drive, the WD Black, comes from, the answer is SanDisk.

The two storage vendors today announced their collaboration in creating solid-state hybrid drives, with the first being the WD Black.

According to both parties, SanDisk is supplying a SanDisk iSSD storage device for the WD Black SSHD. The WD Black comes with up to 32GB of iSSD storage and currently offers a total of 500GB mixed iSSD and platter-based storage.

The drive is superslim, being just 5mm thick while still retaining the 2.5-inch laptop-standard design. … Read more