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Get a 500GB external drive for $55 (after rebate)

I'm eagerly anticipating the day when I can show you a 1-terabyte hard drive for under $100. (Be patient, it'll happen.)

In the meantime, eCost has the 500GB Vox V1 external USB/eSata drive for just $55. There's a rebate, yes, and shipping will run you about 10 bucks. But, lordy, that's a lotta storage for notta lotta cash.

Drives like this are ideal for making full-system backups, storing massive video libraries, and just expanding your available storage in general. CNET loved the V1's ease of setup and speedy performance, but wasn't wild about the bundled backup software. … Read more

Super Talent offers two new solid-state drives

Tuesday, Super Talent Technology introduced two "dangerously fast" solid-state hard drives, the MasterDrive OX and the MasterDrive PX.

The budget MasterDrive OX uses multilevel cell NAND flash and has data speeds of up to 150MB per second in sequential read and 100B per second in sequential write, according to the company. The MasterDrive OX comes in capacities up to 128GB and has a 1-year warranty.

The higher-end MasterDrive PX, on other hand, uses single-level cell NAND flash and focuses on the reliability and endurance, rather than capacity. It, too, is supposed to have lightning-fast sequential read and write … Read more

Supermediastore.com has the Seagate Barracuda 1TB SATA-300 Hard Drive for $225.99, after $67.80 Instant savings.

Supermediastore.com has Seagate Barracuda 1TB SATA-300 Hard Drive for $225.99, after $67.80 Instant savings. >> Regular price is $293.79 >> Sale price is $225.99 >> Savings $67.80 (23.08%) >> Click here for deal

Intel finally delivers a SATA solid-state drive

Intel finally announced its own SATA solid-state drive for notebook and desktop clients, and our secured lab has become a feeding frenzy of folks geeking out on the X25-M, just one of the SSD drives Intel introduced Tuesday at its Developer Forum in San Francisco.

The mainstream SSDs will come in 1.8-inch and 2.5-inch models and both will use standard multilevel cell NAND flash memory that will hopefully translate to a lower cost-per-bit for the consumer.

As of the time of this announcement, Intel hasn't released pricing. We're crossing our fingers that the company will eventually … Read more

eSATA comes to a pocket-size external hard drive

I asked for it a few blogs ago and now I've got it: the first pocket-size external hard drive that features an eSATA connection, the eSATA OWC Mercury On-The-Go. eSATA is the external interface for SATA, currently the most popular interface for internal hard drives.

A while ago, OWC introduced the world's largest small external had drive and has now become the first vendor to put eSATA on a compact external hard drive. The eSATA OWC Mercury On-The-Go also supports USB 2.0 and features a 320GB internal hard drive from Hitachi that spins at 7200rpm (as opposed … Read more

Store everything and then some with blazing 750GB external hard drive, $99 (after rebate)

Wow, I thought the 500GB Cavalry drive for $79.99 was a good deal, but now comes the Vox V1 750GB external eSATA/USB drive for $99. That's an after-rebate price that doesn't include shipping (about $11), but it's still an amazing deal.

The Vox V1 can connect to either an external SATA or USB 2.0 port. CNET reviewed it with the latter and called it "the fastest USB 2.0 external hard drive we've ever tested." If your machine happens to have an eSATA port, the 7,200-rpm drive has the potential … Read more

LaCie releases external hard drive with eSATA

LaCie has put another Triple Interface external hard drive on the market today, and although it looks very similar to the rest of their line (Neil Poulton also designed this one), there's one striking difference: they've included an eSATA port in addition to Firewire 400 and USB 2.0.

External Serial Advanced Technology Attachment eliminates the need to translate data between the computer and the storage drive which speeds up the process to almost triple the speed of Firewire 400 and USB 2.0. We're hoping it'll usher in a new era of hard drives featuring … Read more

Samsung defends flash reliability in solid-state drives

Samsung is touting the reliability of solid-state drives, while citing an explosive market for the devices in server computers.

SSDs are based on flash memory chip technology and have no moving parts. Hard-disk drives (HDDs), in contrast, use read-write heads that hover over spinning platters to access and record data. With no moving parts, SSDs avoid both the risk of mechanical failure and the mechanical delays of HDDs. Therefore, SSDs are generally faster and more reliable. The catch is the cost: SSDs are currently much more expensive than HDDs.

There are also concerns about wear. That is, flash has the … Read more

New Samsung flash drives going to Dell, Alienware

Samsung Electronics has begun mass producing 64GB solid state drives (SSDs) with a new high-performance interface and will begin shipping the drive to major notebook PC suppliers, the company announced Friday. This follows last month's announcement of plans to bring out a 128GB SSD.

The new Serial ATA (SATA)-II SSD is able to read data at 100 megabytes per second (MB/sec) and write it at 80MB/sec, 60 percent faster than SATA I drives, Samsung said.

Dell will be one of the first takers. "Today, I wanted to let our customers know that in the coming … Read more