ssd

WD VelociRaptor high-end hard drive hits 1TB

Before solid-state drives (SSD), Western Digital's Raptor family of hard drives had always been the fastest internal drive for consumers. And spinning at 10,000 RPM, these drives are still very fast though offering less storage than other 7,200rpm hard drives.

That gap has just gotten narrower; the company announced today the latest VelociRaptor hard drive that caps at 1TB of storage space.

While 1TB seems small compared with other 3.5-inch hard drives that offer up to 4TB, the new VelociRaptor, like the previous two generations, actually comes in the 2.5-inch standard. However, it is extra thick and has an added metal frame to be as physically big as a regular 3.5-inch hard drive. … Read more

LaCie to demo Thunderbolt with Windows

If you've been wondering when Thunderbolt is available for Windows, the answer is now.

LaCie, one of the two storage companies that participated in the introduction of the Thunderbolt standard, told me today that it will be showing off two Thunderbolt devices, the Little Big Disk SSD and the 2big Thunderbolt, at NAB Show 2012.

While these two devices are not new, this is going to be the first time they are demoed on both platforms: Mac and Windows. Up to now, Thunderbolt has been available only to Macs, exclusively. LaCie also revealed that the support for Thunderbolt in … Read more

WD ships ultrabook-friendly Scorpio Blue hard drive

When it comes to ultrabooks, you have to pick between a solid-state drive (SSD) or a hard drive as the main storage drive. The former is generally limited in terms of capacity, expensive but very fast, while the latter offers much more storage space for a much lower cost.

If you're willing to go with a hard drive, WD now offers another option.

The company announced today the availability of the new single-platter WD Scorpio Blue hard drive. The drive still uses the 2.5-inch standard but is just 7mm thick, as opposed to 9.5mm in regular laptop hard drives. … Read more

Intel SSD to boost Windows 8 boot, wake times

New Intel solid-state drives are aimed at boosting Windows startup and wake times, making them a hardware feature that will be especially applicable to Windows 8.

The Intel SSD 313 Series offers what is in effect a solid-state drive cache, increasing the "responsiveness" of PCs that are based on hard disk drives -- that being a word Intel and Microsoft throw around a lot these days.

Responsiveness is code for the kind of instant-on experience you get on a tablet or smartphone.

And both Windows 8 PCs (think: ultrabooks) and tablets should offer that kind of responsiveness as … Read more

OCZ Vertex 4 review: Good deal

The 2.5-inch standard Vertex 4 solid-state drive (SSD) is a clear signal that OCZ wants to move to use its own Indilix Everest controllers rather than those from SandForce, which was used in the Vertex 3.

And that would be a good decision. The new Vertex 4 now uses the second generation (Everest 2) of the controller and offered great performance in my testing.

It's the first SSD I've seen that took just a second to be formatted and was immediately recognized by the system when used as a secondary drive.… Read more

Spring cleaning tips to revive your Windows PC

It's always exciting when you bring home a new computer. It feels so powerful and fast; you can't imagine ever needing to buy another one again. Unfortunately, neither your excitement nor your PC's performance lasts.

Whether your hard drive is running out of space or your system takes forever to run simple tasks, it might be worth your time to try and revive it before replacing it. Here are some spring cleaning tips to revive your Windows PC:

Free up disk space The enormous size of modern multimedia files can eat up your hard-drive storage quickly. What … Read more

PerfectDisk Free Defrag knows how to treat an SSD

Talk is cheap but bytes are cheaper: speed is the need with multiterabyte hard disks. It's too easy to leave high-capacity disks badly fragmented, robbing your system of critical performance advantages. There's one type of storage that delivers on speed, but at a high cost (as in money): SSDs (solid-state drives) don't use disks and should never be defragmented. But SSDs can be optimized, with care. PerfectDisk Free Defrag is a powerful disk defragmentation utility that can tell SSDs from HDDs. Its unique SSD Optimize feature consolidates the free space on SSDs with minimal impact, extending their … Read more

Get a 90GB internal SSD for $79.99

This is an update of a post from a few months ago.

For a long time I was a solid-state-drive naysayer. I'd heard mixed things about their performance and longevity, and I certainly wasn't a fan of their sky-high prices.

But SSDs have improved considerably over the years, to the point where they're now a highly desirable alternative to traditional hard drives.

Indeed, a good SSD is usually significantly faster, and it consumes less power -- a big consideration for battery-conscious laptop users. Also, because it has no moving parts, it's much less susceptible to damage.… Read more

Five things the next-gen MacBook Air needs to compete with ultrabooks

A new generation of slim, lightweight laptops has taken the PC world by storm. These ultrabooks (to use Intel's trademarked marketing term) are exactly what many laptop shoppers have been longing for, a PC version of Apple's MacBook Air that runs Windows.

But despite very strong showings from HP, Dell, Lenovo, and others, there still is not an ultrabook on the market right now that really beats the MacBook Air in a head-to-head shootout. That's not because of price, processing power, or features -- the Air is more expensive, has about the same CPU horsepower, and lacks … Read more