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Western Digital Black2 drive packs both solid-state and spinning storage
Performance-minded PC users frequently want both a fast solid-state drive for crucial apps and a regular hard disk for everything else, but that's not always feasible in the tight space of a laptop. Western Digital is making that two-drive option a practical reality through its new Black2. The design puts both a 120GB SSD and a 1TB spinning disk into a single 2.5-inch SATA enclosure, offering more speed and capacity than you'd find in a typical hybrid drive. It's potentially an ideal blend for gamers and small form factor PC builders, although they'll pay for the privilege -- WD is shipping the Black2 today for $300, or roughly as much as the two drives by themselves. [Thanks, Metayoshi]
Backblaze answers the question 'How long do hard drives last?'
Backblaze knows storage. The online backup company uses more than 25,000 spinning hard drives at any one time, stuffed into the proprietary Storage Pods it developed and made an open-source design. Well, with that many hard drives working away, the company has been able to keep track of failure rates and Backblaze's Brian Beach wrote a wonderful post on the life cycle of hard drives for the company blog. There are some interesting tidbits in the post. For example, all hard drives exhibit three different failure rates during their lifetimes. Early on, there are failures due to infant mortality -- those drives that might have made it through testing but had some fault that caused them to fail shortly after installation. That failure rate is about 5.1 percent of all drives per year during the first year and a half. After that period, the failure rate flattens out to about 1.4 percent for the next year and a half, and then diving to an 11.8 percent annual failure rate after three years. On average, 80 percent of all hard drives are still in use after four years. Through extrapolation, Beach posits that the median life span of a hard drive -- the point at which 50 percent of drives will have failed -- is about six years. The important thing about the Backblaze study is that it doesn't look at specialized data center-grade hard drives. Instead, the company uses consumer-grade drives just like you and I would purchase. Why does Backblaze use these cheap drives? It allows the company to store 75 petabytes of data at extremely low cost through the use of these drives in racks full of RAID Storage Pods. More than anything, the numbers prove what we've said all along -- if your hard drive hasn't failed yet, it probably will soon. Be sure to back up early and often.
First helium-filled 6TB hard drive launched, just not for you
At first glance, an enterprise-class hard drive with unparalleled areal density sounds like a pretty dull affair, right? While the new Ultrastar He6 drive from Western Digital's HGST subsidiary does fit that nap-inducing description, it's also got a couple of exclusive honors to boast about. You see, not only is this the first sealed, helium-filled HDD, but also the largest in a standard 3.5-inch footprint, packing 6TB over seven stacks. We learned during the drive's development that helium's lower density compared with air allows for this storage bump, as well as making it lighter and more energy efficient. It's destined for data centers and the like, with outfits like HP, Netflix, Huawei and CERN already registering their interest. You'd think these HDDs are pretty pricey currently, but let's hope HGST can dial its costs down and do the noble thing of bringing it to consumer rigs in the future.
Seagate unveils 500GB Ultra Mobile hard drive for Android tablets
Seagate's 5mm hard drives already have a home in slender laptops; today, they're coming to to Android tablets through the company's new Ultra Mobile HDD. The 500GB disk augments the existing 5mm design with a speedy 8GB flash cache, a tougher enclosure and firmware that improves both the energy consumption and shock tolerance. In theory, the Ultra Mobile HDD gives Android slates the capacity of a laptop drive without giving up the speed or resilience of flash storage. It will be a while before anyone can verify those claims, as Seagate hasn't mentioned any customers or ship dates. The company does have something to tide us over, though -- it's previewing a Rescue and Replace service that will offer both data recovery and drive replacements later this year, starting at $30 for two years. Check out details of both the Ultra Mobile HDD and the recovery service in the press releases after the break.
WD upgrades NAS-friendly Red drives with 2.5-inch versions and 4TB desktop model
If you're looking for hard drives built to withstand the rigors of network-attached storage, Western Digital has a treat in store for you. The company just expanded its Red line of NAS-ready drives to include 2.5-inch models in 750GB and 1TB capacities; both disks fit into smaller enclosures while maintaining the Red series' power and speed optimizations for always-on media servers. WD is offering a few perks for desktop users, too. The existing 3.5-inch range now includes a high-capacity 4TB drive, and every new Red model ships with NASware 2.0 technology that should improve reliability. All three Red variants are shipping today; the compact 750GB and 1TB disks respectively sell for $79 and $99, while the 4TB behemoth costs $229.
Researchers exploring twisted magnetic fields for miniature hard drives
Bet you wouldn't have guessed that the answer to more efficient storage might exist in a Chubby Checker song. Yep, by doing the twist, scientists are thinking it'll be possible to store up to 20 times more data in the same space, which could lead to much smaller (or vastly more spacious) hard drives for consumers. The work revolves around twisted magnetic fields known as skyrmions, which can retain their structure even when packed very densely. In the latest development, Kristen von Bergmann and her team at the University of Hamburg have figured out how to deliberately write and erase skyrmions, which is a first for the scientific community. The method relies on a scanning tunneling microscope, which applies spin polarization to a current of electrons that are stored on a magnetic surface. The technology is nowhere near ready for consumer use -- it's currently around 60 percent reliable, and requires an ambient temperature that's on par with liquid helium -- but it's worth keeping an eye on as development progresses. After all, few scientific breakthroughs pair so nicely with classics of the dance floor.
Switched On: Hard drives face hard truths
Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology. The PlayStation 4's is upgradeable; the Xbox One's is not. For at least the second consecutive generation (the third for the Xbox), hard drives will be offered as part of the gaming experience for two of the home video game powerhouses: Microsoft and Sony. For the Xbox line, which offered a model without a hard drive in the last generation, the inclusion of an internal HDD represents, along with its x86 processor, a return to the approach Microsoft took with the original Xbox. Indeed, the Xbox One will load disc-based games onto the hard drive automatically. Both Sony and Microsoft will also offer access via the cloud. In fact, following up on its purchase of Gaikai, Sony plans to offer a range of gaming from the cloud to multiple platforms. This may include older titles that it cannot support on the PlayStation 4 due to a lack of native backward compatibility. If such capability is expected to work, why bother to have hard drives in these consoles at all? Indeed, hardware makers of many stripes are starting to ask that question.
Western Digital ships 7mm WD Blue, world's thinnest 1TB hard drive
Move over, Seagate -- there's a new sheriff in slimtown. Not content to introduce the first 5mm thick 500GB HDD, Western Digital just announced that it's shipping the world's thinnest 1TB hard drive, the 7mm WD Blue. It features StableTrack which secures the motor shaft at both ends to reduce vibration and improve tracking, plus dual-stage actuators -- electromagnetic for coarse displacement and piezo for fine movement. SecurePark keeps the heads clear of the disk surface and increases shock resistance. It's the same HDD we caught in prototype form at IDF 2012 and we reckon the 7mm WD Black (hybrid) version we saw at CES 2013 can't be far behind. The 1TB model (WD10SPCXX) is priced at $139 with a two year warranty and is available to OEMs, integrators and consumers right now. We fully expect this drive to appear in one of the laptops / tablets launching at Computex this week, so don't miss our coverage.
Seagate ships 5mm Laptop Ultrathin hard drive to ASUS, Dell and more
Western Digital may have been quick to release a 5mm hard drive, but it doesn't have a lock on the category: Seagate is entering the fray by shipping its own slim disk, the Laptop Ultrathin. Like its rival, the drive stuffs as much as 500GB of conventional, rotating storage into SSD-like dimensions ideal for Ultrabooks and some tablets. It even costs the same $89 as its WD counterpart, although we're more likely to find the disk built into our next PC than pick one up as an upgrade. Both ASUS and Dell have chosen the Laptop Ultrathin for new models, and we suspect they won't be alone.
Mac 101: Upgrade to SSD
If you are looking for a way to get more out of your MacBook or MacBook Pro, consider a solid-state drive (SSD). SSDs offer faster data read and write speeds, fast file transfers, speedier boot times and will save you some battery life. In the past, SSDs were considered somewhat pricey upgrades and out of reach for many users. Today, prices are dropping and quality drives can be had for a song through retailers like Amazon and OWC. Today I will show you how to install an SSD, specifically the Samsung 840 series into a June 2012 MacBook Pro. The proceedure in this tutorial video will work for any SATA-based Mac notebook with a few monior adjustments to the physical installation of the disc. Keys to Success Remember: before doing a full hard-disc transplant, make a full backup of your computer. Rather than restoring from a backup to a new drive, I used Carbon Copy Cloner and a Seagate Thunderbolt Adapter to clone my internal drive's contents before installing the new SSD. If you don't have a Seagate Backup Plus drive you can pick up a universal drive dock or Notebook Hard Drive Upgrade Kit for about US$30. They're nice to have around anyway. This whole upgrade process is super easy and you should be able to complete it in a few hours depending on how much data you need to transfer. Now go forth and do yourself a solid. Disclaimer: Note that opening a new MacBook Pro won't void your warranty, but replacing stock parts with your own third-party parts will void the standard Apple warranty.
Toshiba Canvio Connect drive backs up mobile devices through Pogoplug
While we're used to connected hard drives that share their contents with phones and tablets, the reverse isn't common -- why don't many of these drives safeguard our mobile content from the start? Toshiba is as baffled as we are, so it's launching its Canvio Connect portable drive with handheld access in mind. While the USB 3.0 disk has no built-in networking of its own, a software bundle for Macs and PCs (we've confirmed that it's Pogoplug) lets travelers back up photos and videos from their Android and iOS devices, reach the drive's files through the internet and partake in 10GB of free cloud storage. The new Canvio can also serve as a traditional external drive for computers, although it's still improved in that space when the enclosure is about a third shorter than that of its predecessors. Toshiba expects the mobile-savvy Connect to arrive in mid-May at prices ranging from $99 for a 500GB model through to $190 for a 2TB version.
WD ships 5mm Blue UltraSlim drive, enables thinner budget Ultrabooks
We were intrigued with the prospects of Western Digital's 5mm Blue drive when we saw it last summer: finally, a 2.5-inch spinning disk thin enough to rival slimmer SSDs without the price premium of a hybrid like the WD Black SSHD. If you shared the same curiosity, you'll be glad to hear that the finished product is shipping as the WD Blue UltraSlim. Device builders can now stuff 500GB into spaces that would exclude 7mm disks, yet pay just $89 for the privilege -- a price low enough to let even frugal Ultrabooks shed some bulk. The 5mm disk reaches its miniscule dimensions through the use of a tiny edge connector that mates both power and a SATA interface, leaving more room for the drive machinery. We can't guarantee that you'll find a Blue UltraSlim in your next PC or set-top box when Western Digital hasn't named any of its customers, but we wouldn't be surprised if the wafer-like drive is commonplace in the near future.
Seagate ships two billion hard drives, sold half of them in the last four years
Seagate might have been selling hard drives since 1980, but it's seen a huge increase in demand in the last few years, allowing it to double its total sales since 2008, crossing the two billion unit milestone in the process. It's thanking everyone's unabated desire for streaming video, online shopping and other heavy-lifting data services for the uptick, with the company predicting that hunger for storage is likely to quadruple in the next two years. Thanks a lot, Ultra High Definition.
Seagate ships its first desktop hybrid drive, third-gen laptop models
Seagate has had some skin in the hybrid hard drive game for some time, but always in 2.5-inch wide versions -- great for your laptop, not so much the cavernous spaces of a gaming tower. Its just-shipping Desktop SSHD fills that gap in a nearly literal sense. Along with slotting neatly into a 3.5-inch bay, the larger SSHD carries both 2TB of spinning storage and 8GB of flash to speed up disk-intensive tasks without throwing away capacity (or money) on a pure solid-state drive. It should be as much as four times faster than conventional desktop drives, Seagate claims. Whether or not that's true, the firm isn't neglecting its portable-owning friends: it's shipping a new 1TB, regular-height Laptop SSHD and a 500GB, 7mm (0.28-inch) Laptop Thin SSHD, either of which is up to 40 percent faster than its predecessor. Seagate hasn't mentioned pricing for any of the drives at this stage, although it's safe to presume they'll undercut SSDs with equivalent space.
HGST unites nanoimprints, self-assembling molecules to double hard drive space
Hard drive makers are in a race to boost capacities and keep spinning disks at least a beat ahead of flash drives on the value curve. We've seen some exotic developments as a result, but HGST wants to go the extra mile by relying on two breakthroughs at once. Its future storage primarily takes advantage of self-assembling polymer molecules that align themselves into rows. By first splitting the molecules into very small lines and then using an equally rare nanoimprinting technology to put them into circular tracks, HGST can create platters with a 10 nanometer-wide bit pattern that's twice as dense as current hard drives. The technique should hold up in the real world despite ditching typical photolithography, the company says: the nanoimprinting remains useful in the error-prone world of storage, and it should scale as the patterns get smaller. If only the drive designer had a roadmap -- while the company has a tendency to bring its research to market, the lack of a timetable hints that we won't see these nanoimprinted drives very soon.
Toshiba unveils 2TB Canvio Basics and Special Edition portable drives
It's still not all that easy to track down a 2TB portable drive. Thankfully, Toshiba is making that extra-large capacity more ubiquitous by shipping an upgrade to its Canvio line of USB 3.0 disks. Both the no-frills Canvio Basics 3.0 and a Canvio Special Edition with a backup software bundle now carry 2TB inside, up from 1.5TB half a year ago. Not satisfied with just the storage boost? You might be with the price: the 2TB Canvio Basics' $190 starting point is lower than what its WD competition reached when new, and the $220 official price for a Special Edition (we're already seeing $190 at Best Buy) isn't that much of a stretch.
LaCie Blade Runner drive now available, offers stand-out storage for $300
LaCie teased us at CES with the prospect of a rare high-concept hard drive design in the Blade Runner, but it left out the rather important matter of when we could buy the Philippe Starck-designed storage. As we've discovered, we didn't have to wait long -- the Blade Runner has just become available. Plunk down $300 and you'll get a 4TB, USB 3.0-based external drive that melds a blob-like disk shell with aluminum blades that both cool the main body and create a (minor) conversation piece. Just be sure to hurry if you're looking for a dash of art with your extra drive space, as it's doubtful that the Blade Runner's 9,999-unit production run will last.
Western Digital ships upcoming WD Black hybrid drives to OEMs
As devices get thinner and thinner, there's no place in the world for chunky hard drives, and to that end Western Digital has been talking about bringing ultra-thin 5mm hybrid drive technology to the market. We just got a look at the new drives here at CES, which will be branded WD Black -- two 2.5-inch models consisting of a 500GB, 5mm thick (or thin) unit with 24GB of NAND memory, along with a 1TB, 7mm drive that also has 24GB of NAND. A spokesperson said that NAND could eventually go up to 32GB. There's no performance figures or pricing available yet, but WD has already started shipping copies of the new models to OEMs, and expects that they'll land in the laps of consumers within the next 6 months. %Gallery-175646%
Rocstor unveils three ruggedized pocket drives at CES: Amphibious X5, Hawker HX and Lancer LX
We've seen quite a few external enclosures trotted out at CES already and now Rocstor's looking to reveal its cards. The company has announced three ruggedized pocket drives: the Amphibious X5, Hawker HX and Lancer LX. Following up last year's X7, this year's Amphibious model casts off the Smart Card while keeping the AES-256 encryption and both FIPS and NIST Cryptographic Engine validation with single-factor authentication. USB and FireWire connections return for the key-code unlocking unit in 64GB to 512GB SSD options and HDD varieties ranging from 250GB to 1TB. The Hawker HX keeps all of the above listed specs except for the FireWire connections and the pass code access. Finally, the Lancer LX scraps the super secure internals, but brings back FireWire -- adding a second port to boot -- and touts 64GB to 256GB SDD and 500GB to 1TB HDD models. All three offerings sport aluminum-clad, shock-absorbing ruggedized frames and will arrive this month. No word on pricing for any of the trio yet, though.
Corsair outs Voyager Air with WiFi storage, NAS, USB 3.0 and repeater all in one
Corsair is very much associated with devices that need a physical connection to work, whether they're thumb drives or memory sticks. It's looking to cut the cord in style through its new Voyager Air. You'll have seen some of what it does with a predecessor like Kingston's Wi-Drive, with media streaming to Android and iOS devices, a WiFi repeater mode and USB 3.0 support, but Corsair's drive goes the extra mile by serving as network attached storage through a gigabit Ethernet link. The 7-hour battery life when completely wireless certainly helps its prospects, at least among its immediate rivals. Corsair plans to ship the Voyager Air by early February in a 500GB version for $180 and 1TB for $220; either price sounds reasonable for a home media server that ultimately doesn't have to stay at home.
