The single-PC version of Replica doesn't come with a dock.
(Credit: Seagate)It's not often you review a product that some folks will find too limiting and almost worthless, while others will find it suits their needs perfectly. But that's the conclusion we came to with Seagate's Replica external storage drive, which continuously backs up your entire Windows PC--OS and all.
The single-PC version of Replica doesn't come with a dock.
(Credit: Seagate)Seagate's new Replica drives are designed to do one thing and do it simply: back up your entire Windows PC. They literally make a replica of your system, operating system and all.
The Replica comes in two configurations. The entry-level $130 Replica (250GB) is geared to single PC backup, while the $200 version (500GB) comes with a dock and is capable of backing up multiple PCs.
We have the multi-PC model in our labs now and we're putting it through its paces. There isn't much to test because all the Replica does is make a copy of your PC. If your hard drive goes down, you can then reinstall the copy on a new drive. Initial backup takes at least 40 minutes, depending on how much junk you have on your PC. But after that the Replica incrementally backs up your system as you add or change files.
The one drawback to the system is that you can't drag and drop select files to the drive. To reiterate, this thing does one thing--copy your Windows PC (sorry, no Macs, which feature built-in Time Machine backup software)--and that's it.
We'll have our full review up later this week. In the meantime, you can view complete specs here.
(Credit:
NewerTech)
If you do a lot of work that involves transferring data from one hard drive to another, you'll probably love the NewerTech Voyager hard drive dock.
This the first quad-interface hard drive docking station that supports FireWire 800/400, USB 2.0, and eSATA. The device can turn any 2.5-inch or 3.5-inch SATA hard drive, up to 2.0TB, into a fully bootable and hot-swappable external drive solution.
NewerTech Voyager is compatible with both Macs and PC and features plug-and-plug installation with no software or driver needed. All you need to do is plug in a new hard drive, and format it if need be. You can of course--and I believe this is the main use of the device--put in an old hard drive to access data from it.
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(Credit:
OWC)
Sony released a new internal Blu-ray recorder, the BWU-300S, a while ago. But if your computer doesn't have an empty bay to take it, you'll appreciate what Other World Computing announced Wednesday: an all new external Blu-ray recorder, called Mercury Pro, that features all four interfaces, including FireWire 800, FireWire 400, USB 2.0, and eSATA.
The new OWC Mercury Pro drive supports 4x Blu-ray write speed (or 150MB per second). At this speed it can finish a single-layer Blu-ray disc (25GB) in 30 minutes or a double-layer disc (50GB) in an hour. While this is only half the write speed of the Sony internal drive, the new OWC Mercury Pro is still twice the speed of its predecessor and for now rated the fastest external Blu-ray recorder.
The drive is compatible with both PCs and Macs, and OWC says it's been tested with third-party recording/playing software, including Apple iTunes, EMC Retrospect Express, NTI DragonBurn, Roxio Toast, Roxio Easy Media Creator, and Nero Burning ROM.
The new OWC Mercury Pro supports reading and recording virtually all optical media, including Blu-ray, DVD-RAM, DVD-R/W, DVD+R/W, and CD-R/W. It also reads HD DVDs, which the Sony BWU-300S can't. This is rather significant as there are still a lot of HD DVD movies on the market, though the format war ended at the beginning of the year.
The new OWC Mercury Pro Blu-ray drive comes in two models: the SW-5583 and the SW-5583T, which cost $499.99 and $579.99, respectively. They are identical and come with all connections' cables plus starter media, with one exception. The SW-5583T also comes with a full retail version of Roxio Toast 9 Titanium for Mac OS X.
The StoreJet 25M will now come with a storage capacity of 500GB.
(Credit: Transcend)Transcend is kicking up its pocket-size external hard drives to 500GB, the company announced Tuesday. This is the second vendor I've run into that now offers compact external hard drives of this storage size. The first was OWC, with its Mercury On-The-Go, which came out awhile ago.
The new hard drives include two models: the StoreJet 25C and the StoreJet 25M, both of which are the company's most popular external storage products.
Both models are based on 2.5-inch 5400rpm SATA internal hard drives and feature USB-only connection interfaces with bus-powered capability. These drives are compact enough. However, the StoreJet 25M is a little less compact than the StoreJet 25C, due to the fact that it features an advanced dual-stage antishock technology and meets U.S. military drop-test standards to help protect your data against accidental bumps or falls.
The new drives ship with a two-year warranty and the StoreJet elite software package, which includes Web site auto log-in, mobile favorites with no-trace Internet browsing, Secret-Zip 256-bit AES file encryption, mobile e-mail, online updates, and an intelligent backup feature that offers to schedule security file-compression functions.
You can buy the new 500GB StoreJet 25C and StoreJet 25M directly from Transcend now for around $220.
X-bit Labs is not only reporting that Microsoft is still planning on releasing an external Blu-ray drive, but also that the company already has the device ready to go.
According to the article, Toshiba (yes, you read that correctly) and Samsung have been asked to come up with the external Blu-ray solution for the Xbox 360. Rumors are also floating around claiming a $100-to-$150 price point.
With Blu-ray playback remaining as one of the few advantages the PlayStation 3 has over the Xbox 360, one would imagine Microsoft would want to release this immediately to level the Blu-ray bragging rights issue.
If this information is accurate, we're left wondering how Microsoft will play this. Do they try and get this out in time for the holidays? Or do they wait to debut it at a show (like CES) where we're likely to see standalone Blu-ray players fall in price anyway?
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