drives

TrekStor's thumb drive for the thirsty

USB thumb drives are going the Swiss Army way in their all-in-one multiple offerings, and this latest gives Victorinox a run for its tools. Who'd have thought a TrekStor can not only store digital files (up to 16GB), but also pop that beer bottle cap off anytime you fancy a tipple?

Bottoms up to a very nice combination for press launches or office retreats: data and drinking. What's more, this makes for a pretty nifty keychain add-on, with its solid brushed-aluminum finish and snazzy bottle opener at the end. TrekStor has slated this product for October at $12-$… Read more

Pocket an 8GB flash drive for $16.99 shipped

It wasn't too long ago that a 4GB flash drive for under 20 bucks was worth crowing about, but now you can get an A-DATA 8GB PD9 MyFlash drive for $16.99 shipped. It's a new, retail unit with no rebates in sight.

As you might expect, this is a pretty no-frills drive. It has...get ready...an LED indicator! And it's driverless! Hey, for $16.99, don't expect the thing to be spitting out Pez.

Needless to say, with 8GB of storage, you can carry plenty of data back and forth between your home and … Read more

Seagate announces new FreeAgent external hard drives

Seagate announced on Monday its fall 2008 lineup of FreeAgent external hard drives, including desktop and laptop models. They come preformatted for either Mac or PC file systems.

The laptop models, dubbed FreeAgent Go, come in four colors for PC users--silver, black, red, and blue--and only silver for Mac users. The Mac version, however, features both USB 2.0 and FireWire connections, while the PC version has only USB 2.0. The new drives also feature a docking station for easily connecting to a computer.

The FreeAgent Go drives feature Seagate's latest 2.5-inch 5400RPM internal hard drives that … Read more

Western Digital gives you another reason to kick your desktop to the curb

Solid-state drives might have weight, speed, and physical size working in their favor for portable use, but hard-disk drives still win in capacity and price. The Western Digital Scorpio Blue HDD is proof, now going clear up to 500GB in size at an MSRP of $219.99 (and likely found for less soon).

It only spins at 5,400rpm, but uses WD's WhisperDrive algorithms to find your data with less searching, translating into less noise and better battery life.

The 500GB Scorpio Blue drive would make a nice portable external drive as well. Just pop into an enclosure and … Read more

'Cutting-edge' MacBook Air silicon getting old

The cutting-edge MacBook Air is not so cutting-edge these days. The high-profile, ultraslim notebook still comes with the same hardware that was offered initially by Apple nine months ago.

The sleek silver 3-pound notebook was announced with great fanfare back on January 15 with configurations that sported older Merom-class Intel low-voltage processors and a 64GB Samsung solid-state drive.

"I think everyone had widely anticipated that there would be some other product announcements in Steve Jobs' address (on Monday) on the notebook or computing side," said Patrick Wilkison, vice president of marketing and business development at STEC, a … Read more

Toshiba 1.8-inch hard drive hits the 240GB mark

Toshiba announced on Tuesday two new 1.8-inch hard drives, including the single-platter 120GB (MKxx31GAL series) and the world's first dual-platter 240GB (MK2431GAH) internal hard drives. The single-platter version also includes an 80GB offering.

Generally speaking, 1.8-inch hard drives are small form factor portable hard drives, where the regular size is 2.5-inch--and used mostly in portable media players, camcorders and compact ultramobile PCs.

These two new hard drives use the Parallel ATA interface and feature the industry's highest area density at 344 gigabits per square inch. They incorporate the fourth-generation perpendicular magnetic recording technology, which Toshiba … Read more

Intel releases pricing, details on solid-state drives

Less than a month ago, Intel announced its line of solid-state hard drives. We didn't have much information at the time, other than a model number and a few benchmarks provided by Intel, but we're pleased to officially announce the X25-M, or the Intel Mainstream SATA Solid-State Drive.

The drive uses NAND flash technology specifically built for computing with 10 parallel channels and optimized firmware. As stated previously, the drive will come in both 2.5 inch (X25-M) and 1.8 inch (X18-M) sizes that will fit in both desktops and laptops with the same performance specifications.

The … Read more

Amazon.com has the Tripp Lite U239-000-R USB2.0 SATA Hard Drive Cradle for $49.11, after $50.88 savings.

Amazon.com has Tripp Lite U239-000-R USB2.0 SATA Hard Drive Cradle for $49.11, after $50.88 savings. >> Regular price is $99.99 >> Sale price is $49.11 >> Savings $50.88 (50.89%) >> Click here for deal

SanDisk stock surges on buyout rumors

Updated at 5:00 p.m. with closing share price.

SanDisk for Sale? The stock price says so.

The world's largest maker of flash memory cards for digital cameras jumped 31 percent, or 4.18 points, Friday on rumors that Samsung would buy the company.

This follows a recent spate of rumors including one that said Seagate was interested in SanDisk. While Samsung already makes flash memory and is a leader in the emerging solid state drive market, Seagate does not sell SSDs and is looking to get into the market.

Samsung doesn't need SanDisk to grow; the … Read more