The new Momentus Thin laptop hard drive.
(Credit: Seagate)At only 9.5mm, the regular 2.5-inch laptop hard drive is already very thin compared with the 25.4mm of the 3.5-inch desktop hard drive. But Seagate, one of the bigger hard-drive makers around, just decided to go even slimmer.
The company announced Monday the Momentus Thin, a new 2.5-inch-based laptop hard drive that's 25 percent thinner, at only 7mm. This reduction in thickness makes the new hard drive comparable, in physical size, to that of most solid state drives (SSDs) used in Netbooks and ultraportable computers. However, it retains the advantages of regular hard drives, which include much higher capacities and, most importantly, a much lower cost per gigabyte.
The Momentus Thin offers the same performance as a regular SATA 2.5-inch hard drive, which is faster than most low-end SSD used in Netbooks. The new drive comes in two capacities (250GB and 160GB); sports 8MB of cache memory, supports a SATA 3Gbps interface, and spins at 5400rpm.
The Mometus Thin uses the same type of cable and ports as a regular SATA 2.5-inch hard drive. This means it will also fit in any application where a 9.5mm hard drive is used. This makes it possible for users to upgrade their existing storage by themselves.
The new Momentus Thin 2.5-inch SATA hard drives will be available in January, with the 250GB version costing only $55. It's unclear how much the 160GB version will cost, but it will obviously be cheaper than its larger counterpart.
The biggest consumer electronics event of the year is around the corner, and by that we of course mean CES 2010. We'll all be there in Vegas scouting out the best of what's new, but you may find yourself asking: after Windows 7 and the launch of Core i7 laptops, what else is there to look forward to? Plenty, by our measure. Here are the trends we're expecting to see.
New Atom processors, new Netbooks
The star of the show will likely be Intel's new line of Atom processors for Netbooks. Previously codenamed Pine Trail, these new CPUs will give the Netbooks platform a performance push, we hope, making these popular laptops even more ubiquitous. Currently, Netbooks are great for some tasks, but can be frustrating to use if you need them for all-around computing. Look for added graphics and HD video performance in particular.
On a related note, hardware manufacturers will continue to try to "upscale" Netbooks, by adding features such as discrete graphics, touch screens, and HD displays--all in an effort to move prices past the low-margin $299 mark. We'll see increased stratification in Netbooks--a category previously notable for its commodity nature.
(Credit:
Qualcomm)
Here come the Smartbooks
If you don't know the term already, get ready to know it, as this will be one of the hot product trends of 2010. Consider them even cheaper and smaller Netbooks toting smartphone-level processors and a pared-down OS. Small CPUs such as the Nvidia Tegra and the Qualcomm Snapdragon are what will power this next generation of devices, and almost none of them will have an operating system that will be Windows or Mac.
Expect to see most of these hybrid devices with 3G antennas, sold in cellphone stores, and subsidized by mobile phone providers, much like some Netbooks already are. Economic realities have pushed computer makers to favor value over flash in designing new systems, and at CES 2010, we're likely to see a bigger focus on Netbooks and other low-cost PCs over the extravagant showstoppers of previous years. Smartbooks could help define a new low-end pricing zone, but it remains to be seen whether they'll offer enough computing power.
... Read more
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Lexar)
The market for consumer solid-state drives just got slightly more diverse.
Lexar Media announced Monday its latest line of solid-state drives (SSDs), the Crucial M225 SSDs. Lexar has been a known flash storage device maker, while Crucial is a known brand for computer system memory, or RAM.
The M225 SSDs come in three versions, 256GB, 128GB, and 64GB, and offer throughput speeds up to 250MBps in reading and 200MBps in writing.
These drives utilize a SATA 2.0 (3Gbps) interface and feature MLC NAND flash components housed in an industry-standard 2.5-inch drive enclosure. This means they are compatible with all laptops and applications where traditional 2.5 SATA hard drives are used.
For non-traditional applications, together with the M225 SSDs, Lexar also introduced the $30 Crucial SK01 External Drive Storage Kit that turns an M225 SSD into a portable storage device via a USB port or makes it compatible with desktop computers. The kit includes a 2.5-inch USB 2.0 external enclosure, a 3.5-inch SATA 3Gbps hot-swappable drive bay, and ... Read more
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SanDisk)
Flash-memory manufacturer SanDisk announced Tuesday an SDHC card aimed at new Netbook owners disappointed with the skimpy internal storage the micro laptops may come with. On the surface--in the middle and on the bottom, too--it seems SanDisk took a bunch of old, slow Class 2 8GB and 16GB SDHC cards, rebranded them as Netbook SDHC Cards, and doubled the price of the cards to $44.99 and $88.99, respectively; the street prices are a little lower.
On the product page, SanDisk points out that this is a fast way to add more lightweight storage for videos, music, and photos that is also "hidden out-of-sight" since it'll be jammed into your Netbook's card slot. I guess this is good if you don't want to use a thumb drive or external hard drive, but it's also something that can be done with any SDHC card. (I wouldn't want personal photos and videos hanging out unprotected on removable storage regardless of type, but maybe that's just me.)
The site ... Read more
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SanDisk)
The Computex trade show, which opens Tuesday in Taipei, Taiwan, could also be known as Netbook-pallooza. It seems as if every tech company has something related to the rapidly growing category of mini-notebooks to announce there.
SanDisk is one of them, and though the company doesn't make a Netbook, it is eager to hitch its wagon to this PC trend. On Monday afternoon, the company is preparing to launch two new Netbook-centric products at the show: an SD card sold specifically for Netbooks, and its second-generation pico SSD, or PSSD.
The SD card will be available in storage capacities of 8GB and 16GB. SanDisk went with the SD specification because "95 percent of Netbooks have an SD card slot," and this way portable storage wouldn't take up one of the few USB ports the devices usually have, senior product manager Susan Park said.
It's also another way to make Netbooks even less expensive that they already are, according to Don Barnetson, SanDisk's senior director of marketing, by making additional ... Read more
While it's now easy to get a desktop with a terabyte or more of storage, it's still pretty hard to find a laptop with even 300GB. That's why I am very impressed with the Portege R600-ST4203 laptop that Toshiba announced Thursday.
The Portege R600-ST4203 is one of world's first laptops with 512GB of storage and it's definitely the first with that much storage in the form of a solid-state drive (SSD). Until now, most SSDs for laptops have remained in the 32GB to 128GB capacity range.
A Protege R600 laptop from Toshiba.
(Credit: CNET)The Portege R600-ST4203 is the newest model in Toshiba's Portege R600 ultraportable series. It weighs just 2.4 pounds and is only 0.77 inch thin, which is about as thin as the Macbook Air. It has a durable, shock-absorbing chassis, and a 12.1-inch wide-screen LED display. The laptop includes Windows Vista Business and is powered by Intel's Ultra Low Voltage Core 2 Duo SU94005 processor.
The SSD used in the Portege R600-ST4203 ... Read more
Clickfree just announced its new Traveler external hard drive that uses the same file-based transfer software we reviewed in the Clickfree Portable Backup Drive back in January. The difference is that this device uses solid-state technology for faster transfers and increased durability.
Clickfree stresses that its file-based software is different from other backup solutions that only create an image of the host computer onto their drives. During this "total backup," the drive will restore operating systems and applications, but also winds up restoring viruses, malware, and corrupt files.
Clickfree's automatic backup software only restores your "irreplaceable data," including personal photos, music, video, documents, e-mails, etc...the restore wizard bundled with the drive puts these files back into their original location after a crash, and you can even backup NAS, DVDs, and other external drives.
Smaller is indeed better.
(Credit: Clickfree)Best of all, the drive uses solid-state technology, so it's much smaller than a normal hard drive, about the size of a hotel keycard. Unfortunately, solid-state ... Read more
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RipNAS)
RipNAS announced their latest network attached storage devices this week--the Statement series--in solid-state drive and hard-disk drive formats. The RipNAS Statement is purported as the first CD ripping NAS device to come equipped with the former.
Based on the Windows Home Server OS and housed in a silver aluminum casing (designed to eliminate noise pollution), the Statement is capable of CD ripping, media streaming, and networked storage on either the 500GB SSD configuration (2 x 250GB SSDs) or the 3TB HDD configuration (2 x 1.5TB HDDs). The entire case measures 10 x 43 x 38 cm and is powered by a dual-core Atom CPU, has 2GBs of memory, and 4 USB ports.
It looks like the UK will get first dibs on the RipNAS Statement SSD and HDD for now, but no pricing information has been announced, nor the date it will be available in the U.S.
You've heard that solid-state drives, such as the Intel X-25M, are significantly faster than traditional hard drives. However, they are still nowhere near as fast as the DDRdrive X1 introduced on Monday.
The DDRdrive X1
(Credit: DDRdrive)This is the first storage device I've seen that comes in the form of an expansion card. At a glance, it looks very much like a video card or a modem and it is compatible with any PCIe expansion slot.
Unlike other SSDs that use a flash memory called NAND, the X1 uses two types of memory: NAND and DRAM. The latter is commonly used as system memory. DRAM (or RAM in generally) is very fast; however, information stored in RAM is volatile and is destroyed when the computer is powered off. This is where the NAND part of the X1 comes into play by retaining the information when the computer is not in operation.
The drive has the same amount of DRAM as it has of NAND, which is only 4GB. This combination is designed ... Read more
Last December, I got to travel to Dell's facilities in Texas for the first time, where I joined a group of other tech journalists for a preview of Dell's CES lineup. Among the tech writers was Anand Lal Shimpi, founder of the tech-enthusiast site Anandtech.com. We were at Dell for only a day, and that night at dinner Anand and I got to talking about solid-state hard drives, particularly why we saw such a difference between Intel's X-25M and a competing drive from Patriot.
Anandtech looks deep into the heart of SSDs.
(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET)With the aid of a handful of multicolored sugar packets, Anand put on a clinic describing the process by which solid-state hard drives manage data reads and writes. He had the attention of every journalist at the table.
At the end of the lesson, Anand mentioned an investigation he had brewing into the long-term degradation of solid-state drive performance. With all the excitement about solid-state drives, particularly in the Macbook Air, and Dell's new ... Read more
