Servers and business storage

Microsoft Surface Pro software devours disk space

Microsoft's Surface RT tablet was knocked for the dearth of storage on the low-end version. Surface Pro isn't faring much better.

The 64GB version of the upcoming Surface Pro -- due for release February 9 -- will offer only 23GB of available storage space for user files, according to a statement CNET received from Microsoft.

"The 128GB version of Surface Pro has 83GB of free storage out of the box. The 64GB version of Surface Pro has 23GB of free storage out of the box," a Microsoft representative said in a statement.

(Note that a report … Read more

Whoa. I should have upgraded to an SSD last year

Today I transformed my 2009 laptop into a machine that feels like it's from 2012.

All I did was rip out its 500GB spinning-rust hard drive from Seagate and popped in a 256GB Vertex 4 solid-state drive from OCZ. Now I'm kicking myself for not upgrading to an SSD a year ago.

If you're not up to speed on your PC components, here's the technical background on SSDs vs. HDs. For decades, hard drives handled storage chores by writing data as tiny magnetized patches on spinning platters. SSDs use flash memory chips instead, a design that … Read more

Akamai: A third of cyberattacks come from China

A third of all cyberattacks in the third quarter of 2012 came from China, a new report from Akamai said, double the percentage in the second period.

Akamai, one of the world's largest globally distributed networks, released its State of the Internet report today that found a steep increase in the percentage of attacks originating in China. In the second quarter of 2012, only 16 percent of attacks came from the country, but that rose to 33 percent in the period ended in September. The U.S. came in at No. 2 with 13 percent, up sequentially from 12 … Read more

Microsoft may invest $1B-$3B in Dell buyout -- CNBC

Microsoft may contribute $1 billion to $3 billion to help take Dell private, according to a new report.

CNBC's David Faber, citing sources, said the Redmond, Wash., software giant is in talks with Dell CEO Michael Dell and Silver Lake Partners, the private equity firm eyeing a Dell buyout. He noted the investment wouldn't necessarily give Microsoft a significant equity stake in the company, but would help raise the funding needed to complete a deal.

Dell declined to comment, as did Microsoft.

Bloomberg initially reported last week that Dell was looking to go private. The Wall Street Journal later followed with its own report … Read more

Box aims to package up IPO for 2014

Box is poised to go public as soon as next year, following in the footsteps of other recent and successful Wall Street debuts for enterprise software companies.

The company's co-founder and CEO, Aaron Levie, told Bloomberg in an interview that Box is aiming to declare an initial public offering in 2014. He hinted that 2013 is still a possibility, but he described it as a "long shot."

Levie added that Box will "have to go public" as company leaders have no intention to be acquired by a larger competitor, perhaps Google or even Microsoft.

Expectations … Read more

Dell in talks with private-equity firms to go private, report says

Dell is in buyout talks with at least two private-equity firms, Bloomberg reported today.

The talks, which would take the computer hardware maker private, are still preliminary and could fall apart because the firms may not be able to line up financing or resolve how to exit the investment in the future, Bloomberg said, citing two people with knowledge of the matter. One of the people told the publication that several large banks have been contacted about financing a buyout.

A Dell spokesman told CNET that the company doesn't comment on rumor and speculation.

Dell, which has long been … Read more

Micron's new terabyte-class SSD is under $600

Micron Technology today announced a terabyte-class solid-state drive for under $600.

The 2.5-inch 960GB Crucial M500 SSD will be initially priced under $600, Micron said today.

The M500 solid-state drive uses a SATA 6-gigabit-per-second controller to deliver up to 80,000 input/output operations per second (IOPS).

The drive's sequential read and write speeds reach up to 500 megabytes per second (MB/s) and 400 MB/s, respectively.

Drives in the 2.5-inch form factor will be available in 120GB, 240GB, 480GB and 960GB capacities. The smaller M.2 and mSATA form factors will be available in 120GB, … Read more

Nvidia Grid pushes gaming to the cloud

LAS VEGAS--Nvidia took the wraps off Nvidia Grid, the company's first fully integrated system to enable customers to access their games via the cloud.

Launched tonight at CES, Nvidia Grid pushes the limits of cloud gaming in a server stack that's designed to optimize computer graphics. In the works for five years, the stacks, which are packed full of GPUs, or graphics processing units, enable 3D gaming that can render graphics directly to the cloud.

The upshot is that you'll be able to start playing a game on one device, like a tablet, and pick it up … Read more

Huawei linked to plan to sell restricted equipment to Iran

Already considered a potential threat to U.S. national security, Huawei is again finding itself under scrutiny, linked to an offer to sell embargoed computer equipment to Iran.

A major partner of the Chinese telecommunications gear maker offered to provide 1.3 million euros ($1.7 million) of Hewlett-Packard computer equipment to Iran in 2010, according to documents reviewed by Reuters. However, Huawei says neither it nor Hong Kong-based Skycom, its privately owned partner, provided the equipment to Mobile Telecommunication Co of Iran, known as MCI.

The proposal focused on expanding MCI's subscriber billing system and included at least … Read more