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VidaBox Magnum HTPC gets priced out of our league
Hey, we all knew good and well VidaBox was sparing no luxury when crafting the CableCARD-ready, HD DVD / Blu-ray supporting HTPC it affectionately dubs the Magnum, but even the well prepared may be a tad taken aback by the price. While the vendor's website still requests that you swallow a chill pill and calmly call for any pricing inquiries, AudioJunkies has apparently done us all the favor. Wrapped up in what appears to be OrigenAE's oh-so-sexy aluminum chassis, the VidaBox Magnum reportedly starts at a dollar under eight grand, and while we're sure the base configuration is more than plenty, why not throw in an extra stick of RAM and a few terabytes of HDD space to ensure your next media PC costs more than a new Kia Rio?
Hitachi showcases internal GGW-H20N Blu-ray burner / HD DVD reader
Ah, the sweet aroma of competition in the air. That's what we've gotten a whiff of after catching an (admittedly grainy) shot of what appears to be an internal Blu-ray writing / HD DVD reading combo drive from Hitachi. The GGW-H20N should have no issues playing your favorite high-definition films on either format, and it can also burn 50GB dual-layer Blu-ray discs, BD-R, BD-RW, and the typical flavors of writable DVDs and CDs. Reportedly, the drive will also boast a speedy SATA interface and will posses a read rate of up to 6x and burn rate of 4x, but the most important detail (read: worldwide release details) was unsurprisingly omitted. Bring on the price drops.[Via FormatWarCentral]
Hard disk makers form Hybrid Storage Alliance
With the format wars going on in one part of the tech world, it is good to know that some companies can still see the benefit of coming together. Putting aside their competitive differences, hard disk makers Hitachi, Seagate, Toshiba, and Samsung, have joined forces to form the Hybrid Storage Alliance, a group advocating -- you guessed it -- the use of hybrid drives. As you may or may not remember, these new storage devices combine the capacity of conventional platter drives with the speed of flash memory. Put that together with Microsoft's Windows ReadyDrive, and now you have longer battery life and faster boot-up times. While we appreciate the push the "Alliance" is making for the adoption of anything that makes laptop usage more enjoyable, we would rather see them create a group with SanDisk and push SSD prices down even more. Plus, where's Western Digital up in this piece?
Seagate announces bevy of new drives
Seagate's not holding out on us today, people. They've launched a whole slew of new drives, such as: the Momentus 5400 PSD (Power-Saving Drive), a 5,400RPM drive with 256MB non-volatile memory -- also known as a hybrid drive (which we've been hearing oh so much about); the Momentus 5400.2 FDE, their latest mobile drive, now with full disc AES encryption; the Momentus 5400.3, the largest yet laptop drive with 160GB of storage space on those tiny 2.5-inch platters; the Momentus 7200.2, a 160GB 7,200RPM 2.5-inch drive; the Savvio 10K.2 146GB 10k RPM 2.5-inch drive (small enough for a laptop, designed for a blade server); the ST18 1.8-inch 60GB perpendicular media-device drive; and, of course, a new 8GB Pocket Drive. Expect those to trickle out throughout the year, but we'll be paying especially close attention to our 160GB laptop drive (or, preferably, the 200GB Toshiba), oh yes we will.[Via TG Daily]
