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Engadget Primed: SSDs and you
Primed goes in-depth on the technobabble you hear on Engadget every day -- we dig deep into each topic's history and how it benefits our lives. You can follow the series here. Looking to suggest a piece of technology for us to break down? Drop us a line at primed *at* engadget *dawt* com. If you're a storage aficionado -- and who here isn't? -- you've probably heard a lot about SSDs, those friendly solid-state disks promising dramatically improved performance over their magnetically inclined brethren. No doubt you've heard about the advantages, thanks to NAND storage that makes them silent, shock resistant, energy efficient and lightning quick. Yet you've also heard the horror stories: drive slowdowns, controller failures and manufacturer recalls. And adding to all those anxiety-producing headlines, there's the price premium. While most magnetic drives average around a nickel or dime per gigabyte, even consumer-grade SSDs still run $1-2 per gigabyte, often for drastically smaller-capacity drives. Three years ago, Intel launched its X25-M and X18-M: the "M" stood for "mainstream," and the pair of drives were designed to reintroduce solid-state storage to a cost-conscious consumer market. (Perhaps more importantly, they were also meant to solidify Intel's standing in the nascent SSD realm, up to that point a chaotic, Wild West-style domain. But we'll get to that.) For most users magnetic drives still remain king, with solid states appealing primarily to a niche of enterprise IT professionals and modding enthusiasts. How did that happen -- and should it be different? After the break we'll look at how and why SSDs haven't (yet) conquered the storage world, and examine whether they're poised to do just that.
Seagate rolls out 1TB Maxtor Central Axis NAS
There may be bigger NASs out there, but there are few more impressively named than Seagate's new Maxtor Central Axis -- a name that's all the more imposing when combined with the drive's monolithic appearance. If that's not enough to sell you on it, however, you may be slightly more impressed with its 1TB 7,200 rpm drive with 32MB of cache, or its support for DLNA and UPnP media streaming, dual USB ports, and magical auto-sorting software, not to mention all the expected security features. $330 and it's yours this July, with folks in Europe and Asia set to get theirs later this year.
Mac 101: External HDs
More Mac 101, our series of basic tips for new and returning Mac users. Since most Mac models don't offer extra drive bays, external hard disks are the way to go for adding vast storage capacity to your computer. External HDs are great for storing large projects, moving huge amounts of data from place to place, or backing up via Time Machine. Hard disks are a commodity product nowadays: the market is flooded with a cornucopia of options, most of them cheap and easy to install. So which is right for you? The trick is this: find out who makes the actual hard drive inside the external enclosure (that is, inside the nicely-designed plastic or metal box that sits on or under your desk).It's what's inside that counts, and we'll explore after the jump.
Did you give the gift of a hacked account this Christmas?
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/pc_games/Did_you_get_the_gift_of_a_hacked_account_this_holiday'; Do you even know? Many digital photo frames sold at Best Buy, Target, Costco and Sam's Club have a particularly insidious trojan embedded in them - one designed to thieve your account information for a variety of online games. One of the primo geek gifts of 2007, variations of these devices were bundled with darn near everything gadgety during the holidays. Some percentage of these contain a professionally written and very stealthy little gremlin that Computer Associates has dubbed Mocmex that is apparently capable of robustly concealing itself from many detection engines. This isn't an amateur-night special, by all reports. This is professional nastiness, with multiple variants.
Hands-on with Seagate's BlackArmor
Hey look, a shiny black box. Not just any box though, that's the 160GB BlackArmor portable hard drive with built-in AES encryption. Sorry, no way we could think of to photograph all that security, but we've got a few more glowing shots of overlapping rectangles in the gallery for you geometry types. If nothing else, at least you get a feel for the size of the little guy.%Gallery-12826%
Seagate shuts the gate
The horse has bolted. Do be a dear and go out and shut the gate. You may remember that news broke earlier this week that Maxtor/Seagate drives were coming out rigged to thieve your World of Warcraft account credentials, fresh from the factory. Seagate responded with a notice that is hard to find, unless you know exactly where to look - no mention of the debacle appears to be on their front page, news, or press-releases.
Sentry and Maxtor team up for SentrySafe FIRE-SAFE/Waterproof safe and drives
When most people express concern and worry about data loss, it's usually due to the more common cases: drive failure, accidental deletion, power surges from lightning storms, etc. Not so often do drive companies cater to those with paranoia of fire / flood / acts of God, etc. crowd, but for that crowd SentrySafe and Maxtor have teamed up on the FIRE-SAFE/Waterproof safe and drive. The drive is essentially a OneTouch 4 Mini decked with backup, restore, and recovery software (like Maxtor SafetyDrill) and a tank-like shell that's rated for 30 minutes of fire protection up to 1,500°F; the safe is merely, well, a safe with a driveless USB passthrough and fire protection up to two hours at 1,800°F. You'll have to plunk down a fairly crazy $320 for the 160GB and $260 for the 80GB drives though, and $420 for the safe, so be forewarned: this is only useful data protection if you're fearful of what happens when bits meet the elements. The drives are single disk enclosures -- not RAID -- and thus have no redundancy themselves should an old fashioned drive crash occur.%Gallery-10234%
Virus on Maxtor HDDs targets MMO players
Buyer beware, Seagate had released a notice saying that a sizable number of Maxtor Basics Personal Storage 3200 harddrives manufactured since August of this year may be infected with a virus known as "Virus.Win32.AutoRun.ah." The virus is known to probe drive data looking for passwords, and sends them to a central server located somewhere in China. Evidently, the problem stemmed from a specific sub-contractor, and while the issue has already been resolved on their end, the infected harddrives are still floating around in circulation.What makes this story of particular interest to us is that the virus seems to be looking specifically for passwords for games popular with Chinese MMO players, most notably WSGame, Perfect World, and World of Warcraft. In the announcement on their website, Seagate, which owns the Maxtor brand, describes the effects of the virus as "minimal." If it was our WoW account that were hacked because of their oversight, that's hardly the word choice we'd use. If you've picked up a new harddrive from Maxtor since August, it might be worth checking your specific model number and calling customer service just to hedge your bets. Here's hoping this is only an isolated case and we don't see anything like this in the future.
Some Maxtor Personal Storage 3200s shipped with virus
How convenient -- your shiny new Maxtor Basics Personal Storage 3200 may have come preloaded with a nasty virus right out of the box. That's right folks, you may not even need to open any suspicious emails or surf over to dodgy websites, as an undisclosed amount of drives produced by a company sub-contract manufacturer located in China were reportedly sent out with the Virus.Win32.AutoRun.ah program already loaded. Apparently, the molar virus is one that get its kicks by searching for passwords to online games (World of Warcraft included) and sending them back to a "server located in China," and as if that wasn't enough, it can also disable virus detection software and delete other molar viruses without breaking a sweat. In order to determine whether your drive is one of the lucky (or unlucky) ones, feel free to phone up Seagate with the serial number in hand, and if you haven't already updated your anti-virus software, now would probably be a splendid time to do so.[Thanks, overseatrader]
Seagate intros Maxtor OneTouch 4 line
Seagate has updated its line of Maxtor OneTouch external drives, making the new set the fourth iteration of its cheapo hard drive solution. The new models heading out are the OneTouch 4, OneTouch 4 Plus, and OneTouch Mini, all wrapped in black plastic and metal (which Seagate likes to refer to as "vault-like"). The OneTouch 4 can rock your storage world in 250GB, 500GB , or 750GB varieties, ranging in price from $99.99 to $269.99, the OneTouch 4 Plus is available in 250GB, 500GB, 750GB, or 1TB, from $129.99 to $359.99, and the OneTouch Mini comes 80GB, 120GB, and 160GB, running you an affordable $99.99 to $149.99. All of the drives offer the famous OneTouch backup, which should give you at least a sliver of peace of mind. The whole line is available right this second, so get the credit card out.[Via Crave]
Weekend project - DIY cheap 500GB external drive
Ah, the weekend; it stretches out before you like an open field, waiting to be plowed into furrows of laundry, errands, home improvements and recreation. Of course, for us, recreation = new stuff for our beloved Macintoshes! Ready to load up that shiny new Airport Extreme with some capacious shared storage to hold your iTunes library? Let's see... mix one part Staples $140 closeout deal on 500GB Maxtor PATA internal drive, add in one part external FW/USB enclosure with wicked flame graphics for $30... result: one excellent drive that wouldn't look out of place alongside the Mystery Machine. If you prefer the MacAlly cases (rugged!), there's a free shipping deal on those too.Now, for only $20 more you can have these guys assemble the USB-only case and drive for you, or these guys I've never heard of for only $145... but no pretty flames. Of course, if you want it to actually look good under the base station, then the Newer MiniStack is probably a better bet: the empty USB enclosure is only $60/$40 for an open-box unit, so add that Maxtor for some storage that's both functional AND stylish. Happy shopping!Update: The trend of the comments is decidedly unfavorable towards the reliability of both the Maxtor drive and the Metal Gear case, so: message received. Here's a deal on a cheaper DiabloTek enclosure, which makes up for the extra you'll spend on a Seagate or WD drive. If you'd prefer a SATA drive, there is a Maxtor out there for a strangely low $127, as pointed out by Trojan below.
Maxtor OneTouch III Mini Mac Compatibility
Lots of news coming out of Macworld, of course, but this one caught my eye: Seagate has announced Mac compatibility with the software for its OneTouch III Mini line of portable USB hard drives. The software offers security (password protection) and standard Backup features -- i.e. schedule backups or utilize the OneTouch button -- but also a great-looking folder-based Sync option: select your Music folder, for instance, on one Mac, back it up on the drive and sync it with the Music folder on another. It's even possible to modify the files on the drive directly, and sync the changes back to your machine.The drives come in 80GB ($129), 120GB ($169), and 160GB ($229) capacities and are available now. Check out their website for more details, and check TUAW in the near future for a full review.
Maxtor expands options in Shared Storage, OneTouch lineup
It looks like Western Digital isn't the only hard drive firm broadening the horizons of its oh-so-popular external lineup, as Maxtor has announced today a trio of revamped devices sporting the same technologies (and less-than-sexy enclosures) we've come to expect, but also gain welcome upgrades in the file space department. The company's flagship unit, the OneTouch III Turbo Edition, now tips the scales at 1.5TB, and still touts the same "user-configurable RAID," automatic backup scheduling, "System Rollback," USB 2.0 connectivity, and DriveLock software to protect your precious information (or priceless game saves) from the grimey hands of data thieves; meanwhile, the non-Turbo edition now comes in a 750GB single-drive flavor, while the Mini tops out at 160GB. Rather than cramming more space into its Shared Storage II drives, Maxtor now offers single-drive versions in 320GB and half-terabyte sizes, and includes software to facilitate "easy backup scheduling between networked computers," detailed storage status to all connected users, and a pair of USB 2.0 ports. If you're just too occupied to schedule your own backups, or just need a less expensive alternative to an in-home NAS, Maxtor's refreshed offerings will have you covered later this month.[Via eHomeUpgrade]
Maxtor Fusion personal media hub launched
Remember Project Fusion? Well that effort to consolidate, then turn your media loose on the web via Fabrik's software and Maxtor's disks is now product. Seagate's Maxtor Fusion personal media hub holds up to 500GBs of your digital content which can be shared both privately and publicly via a web browser. Fabrik's so-called "webtop" interface makes use of AJAX and tags to provide the responsiveness and drag-n-drop flexibility generally associated with desktop apps and supports browser plug-ins for both Windows Media Player and QuickTime for seamless access to slideshows, videos, and music independent of platform. Kind of like your own You Tube and Flickr service in a box, eh? The Maxtor Fusion features a 7200RPM 500GB disk, Gigabit Ethernet, and 2 x USB 2.0 ports. Available now for $799 exclusively from J&R Music in NYC with more retailers on deck for the summer.
Maxtor's Shared Storage Plus NAS device reviewed
Reg Hardware seems to agree with our own astute pundit Ross Rubin that Maxtor's Shared Storage Plus Network Attached Storage device is a winner as a solid backup solution while doing double-duty as a capacious media server. Testing the 500GB version of the SSP, El Reg found the device easy to setup and share among several users, with software that provides a simple way to set up incremental backups, network printing, or media streaming to compatible uPnP devices. There do seem to be a few downsides here, most notably the irritating fan whine and skimpy one year warranty, and less importantly, the fact that it tags the icons of folders selected for backup with a little tick mark. If tick marks and fan noise don't bother you, though, the $465-as-tested SSP sounds like a pretty good way to backup data for small offices and homes with multiple computers, while giving you a little extra functionality to boot
Maxtor shows new storage products
We're still trying to cut through the jargon in Maxtor's latest press release (which may be the first we've seen that actually manages to fit "Web 2.0" and "tipping point" into a single sentence), but once you manage to pare it down, it turns out the company is announcing one new product, teasing about another, and providing some more info about a deal we checked out earlier. The new product is the Maxtor Shared Storage II, a NAS for home and office users, offering RAID storage, gigabit Ethernet and up to 1TB of space. The teased product is the One Touch III Mini Edition (pictured), a one-inch thick drive that can hold up to 100GB of data and which will, according to Maxtor, include "an industry first." Details, including that "first," will be available later this month. Oh, and the deal? As we previously noted, Maxtor's working with Fabrik on something called "Project Fusion," which sounds like an online backup service that will take advantage of Maxtor's One Touch interface to make it easier to store and share files on a hosted server. Pricing is expected to range from a free service to one costing about $50 a year, depending on storage and feature needs. We're looking forward to it; we need something that will, in Maxtor's words, help us "truly harness [our] content."
Maxtor teams up with Fabrik on personal server
So Maxtor and Valley startup Fabrik are up to something together, which they're calling Project Fusion. It sounds very cloak and dagger and whatnot, but it's actually pretty transparent and literal: they're building a personal server (i.e. a big external hard drive) that connects up to the Internet with Fabrik's service and allows you to access your data with a web-accessible frontend. There's even a new buzzword to describe the package: "personal media portal." Ok then. According to Maxtor the device could go for as much as $799 for a 500GB, which leaves a bit of a bad taste in our mouths (especially when there's, you know, about ten thousand companies out there trying to get your files online for you), but Om likes Fabrik, and you can't really argue with Om.
