Storage
Seagate sets new magnetic recording density record of 421 Gbits Per Square Inch
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September 19, 2006 Seagate Technology has claimed a world magnetic recording density record of 421 Gbits per square inch (421 Gbit/in2) using perpendicular recording heads and media created with currently available production equipment. Dr. Mark Kryder of Seagate unveiled the findings during his keynote presentation at the IDEMA DISKCON show in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the hard drive. We are very fortunate to be able to include Dr. Kryder’s entire slide presentation in our image library – some remarkable information and insights into the past, present and future of the hard disk drive – including forecasts that by 2014 we’ll have 200GB one inch drives and 12 terabyte 3.5 inch drives. Read More
The Hard Disk Drive turns 50
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September 14, 2006 Awww shucks – we missed another birthday. Yesterday was the big FIVE OH of the hard disk drive, as on September 13, 1956, IBM shipped the 305 RAMAC. The 305 was the first magnetic hard disk for data storage, and RAMAC (Random Access Method of Accounting and Control) technology became the industry standard in short order. The storage capacity of the 305's 50 two-foot diameter disks was 5 megabytes of data, cost tens of thousands of dollars a year to lease and weighed in at more than a ton (that's it pictured with the girl on top). Just to put it all in perspective, the modern computer is 60 (born February 14, 1946), the colour television is also 50 (born July, 1954), the digital camera is 30 (born October 7, 1975), the Apple II that became the first successful mass-produced PC is 29 (born April 17, 1977), the Sony Walkman (arguably the first identifiable forefather of the MP3 player) is 27 (born July 1, 1979), the IBM PC that started the whole IBM PC-compatible boom is 25 (born August 12, 1981), the computer virus is 20 (first known occurrence January, 1986), the MP3 is just 11 (born July 14, 1995) and the banner advert is 11 (born October 25, 1994). The first computer? Try 184 years old, for Charles Babbage’s programmable, steam-powered, “difference engine” and the world’s first computer programmer (Babbage's assistant and daughter of English poet Lord Byron, Augusta Ada King, the Countess of Lovelace) would be 191. Some excellent piccies in the image library with this story. Read More
Ultra-compact, 12GB USB drive for US$169
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September 14, 2006 We’re not sure what Freud would say about our fascination with small things, but PNY Technologies new MaxFile Attache has really got us excited. Just how much data can you fit into something so small it'd be easy to lose? The tiny USB 2.0 hard drive offers 12GB of storage space and it’s so small that three of them will sit on a standard-sized business card and still only rise 1cm above the desk. That’s 2.4 x 1.25 x 0.4 inches or 6.1 x 3.1 x 1.00 cm and that really is small. Clearly designed to offer portability to all that must-have data at all times, the Attache includes backup and synchronization software so users can sync everything from their e-mail, documents, favorites and settings wherever they go. PNY's MaxFile Attache goes on sale tomorrow with an MSRP of US$169. Read More
TrekStor introduces 8GB USB Stick
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August 18, 2006 German storage manufacturer TrekStor has introduced a USB stick with eight gigabytes of storage. Measuring about twice the width of current USB sticks, though thinner and shorter, the new TrekStor Model CS-D stick is available in six (US$140) and eight (US$180) gigabyte models. The CS-D is 1.25 inches wide, 0.375 inches thick, and 2.5 inches long including the cover but does NOT use flash memory, employing a miniature shock-mounted one-inch hard drive. The CS-D weighs less than an ounce and is intended for same daily use as flash-technology memory products. Read More
Bite-sized Micro Vault USB Drive
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July 17, 2006 Personal storage devices continue to get smaller as can be seen from this picture of Sony’s "byte-sized" Micro Vault Tiny drive family. We’re fascinated by the continued evolution of the personal solid state drive in its many forms and wonder where it might lead given a few years. About the thickness of a quarter, Micro Vault Tiny differs from its peers on several fronts, the most obvious being its tiny size, and five color-coded capacities -- 256MB (orange), 512MB (violet), 1GB (blue), 2GB (green) and 4GB (purple). Measuring roughly 1/2 inch wide and just over one inch long, the unit comes packaged in a clip-on carry case that can be worn as an accessory, attaching to a cell phone case, purse strap, key chain, or clipped onto a notebook cover. Read More
Vanadium Redox Energy Storage System
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April 20, 2006 In a significant development, Magnetek and VRB have announced a significant new multi-purpose 5kW energy storage as an alternative to traditional lead-acid battery backup systems. Housed in a ZONE-4 certified NEMA 3R type enclosure, Magnetek's 5kW Vanadium Redox Battery Energy Storage System (VRB-ESS) backup power system is comprised of a storage tank containing a vanadium-based electrolyte, flow-cell stacks, and pump system and provides cost effective, reliable and environmentally friendly backup power. Virtually maintenance-free, it affords substantially lower cost of ownership than lead-acid battery-based systems and provides unprecedented security-of-supply to meet the energy needs of a variety of applications. Read More
Holographic storage demonstrates 515 Gigabits Per Square Inch Data Density
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April 16, 2006 Holographic data storage pioneer InPhase Technologies, has announced that it has demonstrated the highest data density of any commercial technology by recording 515 gigabits of data per square inch. Holographic storage is a departure from existing recording methods because it takes advantage of volumetric efficiencies rather than only recording on the surface of the material and the industry’s first holographic drive will reach market later this year. The first generation drive will have a capacity of 300 gigabytes on a single disk with a 20 megabyte per second transfer rate. The first product will be followed by a family ranging from 800GB to 1.6 TB capacity. Read More
The ezVue Storage System
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March 31, 2006 The ezVue is a storage system designed to capitalise on limited space by creating multiple shelves within a single drawer – it’s a bit hard to exp-lain without seeing it, but we hope these diagrams make it clear – it’s actually a very clever and effective storage and organisation product with great potential for the office products market. The clever bit is the patented hinge system and the inventor is currently seeking investors or potential licensees to deliver the product to market. Read More
New flash drive with scrollable display of stored files plus SD Card Reader/Writer
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March 28, 2006 More innovative thought is being focussed on the flash drive than we thought possible, because every week or so, we seem to run another story about an important new design feature incorporated into a flash drive. This week it’s a USB 2.0 Flash/Jump drive with a scrollable window display enabling consumers to view stored file names without a computer connection. The Royal EZVue Vista Drive will be available in of 256MB (US$50), 512MB (US$80) and 1GB (US$100) memory sizes plus there’s what we think will be a killer app – a US$30 SD Card Reader/Writer with the same scrolling display, offering a wide-range of really useful applications including digital photography and music storage. On-the-go consumers can now easily find the files they want in a muddle of SD cards. Read More
World’s largest flash drive – 16GB
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March 11, 2006 Iocell Korea released the world’s largest flash drive at CeBIT this week – a 16GB version of the company’s Celldisk. The drive is the same size as other flash drives, though the drive is USB 2.0 compliant. There’s no indication of the availability or price just yet. Read More
Developments in convenient personal storage continue
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February 27, 2006 Just how many different form factors can personal storage take? We’re often amazed at the ingenuity of storage manufacturers in striving for bigger, faster, more convenient and simply devilishly clever new form factors, and we saw a few of them at this weekend’s PMA show in sunny Florida. Not new (but bigger) is the US$134.99 SanDisk 2 GB Ultra II SD Plus card, that looks and functions like a typical SD card but folds in half to reveal a high-speed USB 2.0 connector. Going one better was Pretec, which offered the first look at the both the world’s fastest CF Card and a flash drive with built-in card reader. The Pretec 133X CF Card is capable of running at up to 20MB/sec and 14MB/sec of access speed in read & write. The Pretec e-Disk II+ is an expandable USB flash drive with an embedded 512MB flash memory (default) which can be expanded to 4.5GB by simply inserting an optional SD/MMC card Read More
Infrant Technologies Releases new ReadyNAS NV Network Attached Storage Product.
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February 6, 2006 Infrant Technologies has just released an new addition to their already excellent ReadyNAS line of small NAS servers, the ReadyNAS NV. As digital life requires ever more personal digital storage, maybe it’s time to look at one of the new Network Attached Storage (NAS) devices now available – think of these as personal and small business equivalents to the large files servers that corporations use. Of the devices that we've seen, Infrant Technologies' ReadyNAS 600/X6, and their new ReadyNAS NV have impressed us the most. Dave Weinstein had the chance to test the new NV device and found it was smaller than its predecessor with hot swappable drives and a faster processor. Infrant even supports UPNP-AV (universal plug-and-play audio visual extensions), so when you store all your music on your ReadyNAS, you'll be able to access it from your media PC or media center extender or any other device compatible with the standard. Read More
World’s first Petabyte storage array
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February 5, 2006 When boys get together and drink alcohol, the story often gets around to who has the biggest, fastest, etc and during a recent such session one of our number attended, the discussion got around to the size of our respective MP3 collections. As each successive person announced the size of their MP3 collection, your humble scribe, who shall remain nameless for good reason, felt his usual inadequate self. You see, three among the number had music collections in excess of 100 gigabytes and one of the people we all knew who wasn’t present was pronounced to have a collection larger than 500 gigabytes. Apparently, the world’s growing access to digital information is seeing storage needs growing dramatically in every area, from humble personal computers, to network enterprise storage - In 2005, data stored on disk arrays grew more than 70%. So if your MP3 collection is getting unwieldy, or you have another burgeoning digital archive you just positively need access to at all times, here’s the answer - the world’s largest storage array. Announced last week by information management and storage specialist EMC Corporation, is a new high-end configuration its flagship EMC Symmetrix DMX-3 storage array, which can scale beyond a petabyte (1,024 terabytes) of capacity. That's it at right - what a ripper heh? Read More
USB flash drive with e-paper capacity meter
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February 3, 2006 With flash memory and miniature hard drives proliferating, there are many new ideas coming to market for clever, differentiating features and compelling storage form factors. Storage specialist Lexar Media has released a preview of one of its products that we think will be a winner – a USB flash drive with a unique storage capacity meter to its popular drives by integrating an innovative electronic paper display from E Ink Corporation. The E Ink display is a paper-thin, shatter proof, easy-to-read meter that’s non-volatile in that it does not rely on power to show the capacity information when disconnected from the computer. The Lexar JumpDrive Mercury will be the first USB flash drive to feature the on-board non-volatile smart capacity meter that will let customers easily monitor their available storage capacity. Read More
I/OMagic GigaBank - matchbox-sized 8GB drive
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January 20, 2006 Okay, we’re obsessed with portable storage – but it does get more affordable and exciting every day. I/OMagic is set to ship a new GigaBank 8GB for just US$200. The GigaBank 8.0 is the same size as its existing 2.2 GB and 4 GB units (2"x0.5"x2.5"), lightweight (less than two ounces) and is powered through a USB 2.0 port (USB 1.1 compatible). When not in use, the USB connector can be tucked into the enclosure. Read More
World's Slimmest USB Flash Drive fits comfortably in a wallet
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January 19, 2006 A boy’s first wallet is unquestionably one of the male rights of passage – a step on the road to the status of manhood. At first, the problem is finding anything important enough to carry in the wallet, but as life becomes more complex with age, the problem soon becomes how to fit it all in. In recent times, the small size and growing importance of portable storage has already seen a lightning fast adoption rate leading to a remarkable diversity in the form factors of portable drives – wrist bands, key chains, and now a card holding up to 2GB that is designed to fit into a wallet and at the same time offer an advertising and promotional medium with substantial advertising space – the Walletex Wallet Flash 1.1, is the world's first credit card-sized wallet flash drive (the marketers have coined their own acronym – WFD – but we suspect this will not become part of everyday language). Read More
Wearable data storage market evolves
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January 7, 2006 One wonders what we might carry with us “digitally” a decade or two from now, with memory and storage capacity getting larger and much more affordable every day. Imation got us thinking about this by showing several interesting concepts for carrying digital files at the CES – the 256 Mb Flash Wristband and the 4Gb Micro Hard Drive. They’re interesting concepts, particularly the wristband, but just think that a decade from now the bang-per-buck factor will have improved by several orders of magnitude. Read More
Panasonic begins pilot production of 50-GIGABYTE Blu-ray Discs
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December 27, 2005 Last week it was the prospect of 5 terabyte drives, but the buzz of the Gizmag Christmas party was the news that Panasonic has modified its existing pilot production line for single-layer Blu-ray Discs, called BD-ROM, so that it is able to replicate dual-layer BD-ROM discs with 50 gigabytes (GB) of storage capacity. The 5 TB drives are still five years away, but the new pilot replication line is happening NOW at the Panasonic Disc Manufacturing Corporation of America, located in Torrance, California and is sure to be one of the talking points of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas next week (January 5-8, 2006). Single-layer Blu-ray Discs have 25 GB of storage capacity for holding video and other data, while current DVD discs have 8.5 GB of storage at most. Read More
Unlimited storage on the way.
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December 21, 2005 Those of us who can just never have enough portable digital storage will be heartened to hear that Hitachi Global Storage Technologies is working on a 5 terabyte 3.5 inch hard drive aimed at the PC market. Though it’s not due until 2010 – less than five years from now – it’s a reminder that the technological bar is being raised significantly every day, regardless of the industry. Read More
FlashPoint M3 SharePlayer a new generation in MP3 Players/Flash Drives
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December 16, 2005 Given the culture of digital sharing which has evolved in a short period of time, we think the capabilities of the FlashPoint MP3 SharePlayer are significant and will certainly gain it a devoted following. The SharePlayer empowers the user with the ability to copy MP3 files, data files and folders from one MP3 Player to another by simply plugging the male USB connector into the female USB on the SharePlayer. With the MP3 SharePlayer users have the capability to upload and download files while mobile and away from laptop or desktop computers, but they also have the ability to share media whenever friends meet in person. Read More
Samsung Introduces Mobile Phone with 3GB Hard Disk Drive
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October 18, 2005 You don’t need to be a brain surgeon to figure out your mobile phone will have a memory capacity greater than the Three Gorges Dam within a few years and just to remind you how quickly we’re moving along that path, Samsung introduced a 3GB HDD embedded phone (model SPH-V7900) onto the Korean market yesterday. This is Samsung's latest model equipped with a hard disc drive and gazzumps its own record of having the world's first mobile phone equipped with 1.5GB hard disc drive (model SPH-V5400), which it introduced into its home market of Korea in September of last year. Makes you feel like moving to Korea with all that mobile activity going on and them clearly delivering what the rest of the world promises – maybe it’s time to drop a note to your local Member of Parliament or Congressman and ask why your country can’t be a progressive country like Korea. Read More
Ten million U.S. households will have a networked storage device by 2010
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September 16, 2005 The number of U.S. households with a networked storage device will grow from 300,000 at the end of 2004 to nearly 10 million by 2010, according to Storage and Management for the Connected Home, a new report from Parks Associates. A networked storage device connects to a router and allows shared access among multiple PCs and other networked devices, as defined in the report. The addressable market for these devices includes households with home networks and those with multiple PCs. By 2010, 17% of U.S. households with multiple PCs and one-fourth of those with a home network will have a networked storage device. Read More
4.0GB from Toshiba’s 0.85-Inch Hard Disk Drive
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September 8, 2005 Toshiba continues to push the envelope on small form factor storage with its latest market introduction, a multi-gigabyte hard drive that is 0.85 inches in diameter.It was in June that we announced Toshiba had cracked the 2 GB barrier with its .85 inch hard drive so we guess it was about time they announced another breakthrough – at IFA this week, the Japanese company announced that the same drive has now been increased to 4 gigabytes capacity.
Only a quarter the size of a 1.8-inch hard disk drive and about the size of a postage stamp, the 0.85-inch HDD will boost the functionality of a new generation of products, including mobile phones, digital audio players, PDAs, digital still cameras, camcorders and more. Read More
More “Groundbreaking” Hard Disc Drives
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June 9, 2005 A travelling Martian could be excused for confusing the digital storage and construction industries as it seems not a month goes by without a number of significant “groundbreaking firsts” in both camps. Whatever problems humanity will face in the future, massive digital storage in a very small form factor will not be one of them. In an industry characterised by extreme competitiveness and a level of excellence that can be quantified, each new product range seems to hold a number of “groundbreaking firsts.” Seagate’s new range of disc drives was released yesterday and the product plans outlined point to a future where every one of our main possessions has its own specifically-designed disc drive. What began as home PC storage capacity has been supplemented by digital storage in PDAs, MP3 players, game consoles, digital cameras and personal video recorders (PVR) and will soon be added to in our automobiles and mobile phones. Yesterday’s Seagate announcement included a number of “groundbreaking storage firsts” designed to enable a range of consumer electronics and traditional applications, including the first 2.5-inch hard drive using perpendicular recording, the first hard drive with Full Disc Encryption, the first 8GB 1-inch hard drive for handhelds capacities and a ruggedised hard drive designed specifically for automotive applications. Read More
USB ShareDrive: the thumbdrive with a brain
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June 8, 2005 The FlashPoint ShareDrive is a new type of USB thumb drive that allows users to copy data stored in the FlashPoint flash memory to another flash drive or a USB device such as an MP3 player or digial camera WITHOUT a computer. The new FlashPoint ShareDrives have an integrated female USB connector so users can plug a cable or another device into the same USB port in which the FlashPoint ShareDrive is attached, chaining devices. Computerless copying to another sharedrive is compelling functionality and , arguably well worth the US$200 price for a 1GB drive – more than double that of a standard 1GB thumb drive. Read More
The Cruzer Titanium 2GB
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May 26, 2005 From the world of beautiful, tactile, exquisite objects that are satisfying simply to hold and look at comes the new Cruzer Titanium from SanDisk. With a street price below US$200, the new 2 GB Cruzer Titanium is manufactured using an advanced titanium alloy from Liquidmetal Technologies that is approximately 2.5 times the strength of titanium, extremely hard, light, and both wear and heat resistant. The USB 2.0 hi-speed Cruzer Titanium flash drive is claimed by the manufacturers to be “virtually indestructible” (yeah, sure) but all reasonable efforts to physically protect the data it contains have been met and it really does look the part cos it is drop-dead gorgeous! Read More
World's Highest Capacity, Highest Performance Flash Drive
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May 25, 2005 When you're a military or aerospace integrator and you've just gotta have a certain gadget, weight of dollars will win the day every time. Which is why flash-based data storage M-Systems has commenced mass production of its new FFD Ultra320 SCSI flash disk. The new FFD Ultra320 SCSI is specifically designed for mission critical systems required by the military, aerospace, telecommunication, video server, broadcasting and factory automation industries and is now available in capacities ranging from 1 to 176 gigabytes and SCSI interface speeds of 320 megabytes per second, all within in a standard 3.5" case. How much? As pricing is usually OEM, it's hard to get a retail price, but Engadget reported last year's 90GB model cost US$40,000. A sign of the times is that this year's 176GB version costs less than US$25,000. Read More
Hitachi lays groundwork for 20-GB Microdrive with century-old technology
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TOKYO – April 5, 2005 – It seems like once a month that we write about the promise of a radical new digital storage medium. Accordingly, it’s ironic that Hitachi Global Storage Technologies has announced new advancements to a century-old magnetic recording technology that will set the stage for ultra-high capacities such as a 20-gigabyte Microdrive or a one terabyte 3.5-inch hard drive. To achieve this, Hitachi has demonstrated the industry's highest data density at 230 gigabits per square inch (Gb/in2) on perpendicular recording. Hitachi believes 230 Gb/in2, which represents a doubling of today's highest longitudinal recording densities, will be implemented in commercial hard drive products in 2007. When fully realised over the next 5-7 years, perpendicular recording could enable a 10-fold increase in data densities over longitudinal recording, paving the way for new heights in capacity such as a 60 GB one-inch drive. Read More
Play Multimedia On A TV With LaCie silverscreen Hard Drive
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January 24, 2005 One of the most interesting products slated for release in the next few weeks is the LaCie silverscreen, a portable USB hard drive with the ability to plug directly into multi-standard television sets for instant playback of stored movies, music or photos. LaCie silverscreen is ideal for travellers wanting to enjoy digital entertainment or professionals wanting to show clients corporate videos on larger TV screens without the need for a computer. Read More
Microdrives continue to get smaller in size and larger in capacity
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January 19, 2005 - Storage continues to get smaller in size, larger in capacity and cheaper seemingly every month. Hitachi continues to lead the way with the unveiling of a smaller one-inch Microdrive product and a slimmer 1.8-inch hard drive that will be available later this year. These two miniature drives are designed to meet the accelerating demand for ultra-portable handheld devices - such as mobile phones and digital music players - that don't compromise on storage capacity. Hitachi has re-engineered its one-inch Microdrive to create a 20-percent smaller version with a capacity of 8 to 10 GB and trimmed 30% off the size of its new 1.8-inch Travelstar drive to create the world's smallest and lightest 1.8-inch drive, beating the closest competitor by 10 percent in total volume. Read More
Hard Disk Drives Expected to Move Beyond the PC
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November 8, 2004 As the PC market matures and the amount of digital content available to the consumer and the desire to store it continues to increase, the number of devices integrating hard disk drives in consumers' homes will explode, according to In-Stat/MDR. As a result, the high-tech market research firm expects that, while hard drives in the CE segment represented about 5% of the total hard drive market in 2003, they will represent about 33% of the market by 2008. With this segment representing a variety of opportunities for storage companies, shipments of CE with integrated hard drives are expected to represent a very attractive 67.1% Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) over the 2003-2008 period. Read More
palmOne nearly doubles handheld storage to 256 MB
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October 23, 2004 Handheld computing benchmarks have nearly doubled with the introduction of the Tungsten T5 from palmOne, which has 256 MB of RAM and acts as a portable flash memory drive that keeps data protected even if it loses its charge. With an estimated retail value of AU $749, the next generation Tungsten T5 offers the ability to carry more data and applications on a handheld than ever before. Read More
1 terabyte storage from Sony home server TV/PC
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The Vaio Type X home server debuted recently at the CEATEC 2004 convention in Japan. For around US $5000 it offers an entire rolling digital media library at your fingertips. Equipped with the 1-terabyte hard disk, the Sony VAIO Type X performs as an "audiovisual recording server." A terabyte, in case you don't know, is 2^40 = 1,099,511,627,776 bytes or 1024 gigabytes, so memory isn't an issue. And with the liberation of space comes a change in the viewing and usage patterns of Vaio customers that will transform the way they interact with their media and the medium itself. The device can record six channels of terrestrial analog broadcasts simultaneously, and the dedicated recording disk has enough space for one week of viewing pleasure. It also has a "television time machine" viewing function, allowing users to watch programs that have been recorded. They can also use the remote control to go back in time and arrange programs by genre, as well as enter key words to find their desired shows. Read More
Nanotechnology promises massive data storage on a single disk
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A breakthrough invention and patent in nanotechnology will keep data storage technology in touch with its ever-increasing requirements of mass data storage well into this millennium. Michael E. Thomas, President of Colossal Storage Corporation, is the inventor of rewritable ferroelectric molecular optical storage nanotechnology which could become a pioneering development in the technology of mass data storage. Read More
Sony Memory Stick reachs 2GB capacity
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Sony has upped the size of its Memory Stick PRO to 2GB in the standard-size and 1GB in the Memory Stick PRO Duo size. In addition to the higher capacities, the new Memory Sticks and are high-speed read and write capable, and compatible with a vast array of current Memory Stick PRO devices. Read More
