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Lexar Media issues 64GB, 128GB and 256GB Crucial M225 SSDs
It's been a long, long while since we've seen a new Crucial-branded SSD, but we'd argue that Lexar Media couldn't have picked a better time to end the hiatus. The M225 solid state drive family is the fastest, most capacious Crucial SSD line to date, and while they still lag behind OCZ's new Vertex Turbo SSD drives, they don't lag by much. The 2.5-inch SATA units can hit read speeds of up to 250MBps and write speeds of up to 200MBps, and the whole lot features MLC NAND flash memory and a SATA 2.0 (3Gbps) interface. Available in 64GB, 128GB and 256GB models, the trio is also fully compatible with the Crucial SK01 external drive storage kit, and unlike so many competitors, Lexar decided to go rouge and actually announce prices for the now-available units: $169.99, $329.99 and $599.99 in order of mention. Not too shabby, wouldn't you agree?
Engadget's recession antidote: win an OCZ Summit Series 60GB SSD!
This whole global economic crisis, and its resulting massive loss of jobs got us thinking. We here at Engadget didn't want to stand helplessly by, announcing every new round of misery without giving anything back -- so we decided to take the opportunity to spread a little positivity. We'll be handing out a new gadget every day to lucky readers until we run out of stuff or companies stop sending things. Today we've got an OCZ Technology Summit Series SATA II 2.5-inch 60GB SSD on offer, which ought to make your aging laptop quite happy. Read the rules below (no skimming -- we're omniscient and can tell when you've skimmed) and get commenting! Hooray for free stuff!Huge thanks to OCZ Technology for providing the gear!The rules: Leave a comment below. Any comment will do, but if you want to share your proposal for "fixing" the world economy, that'd be sweet too. You may only enter this specific giveaway once. If you enter this giveaway more than once you'll be automatically disqualified, etc. (Yes, we have robots that thoroughly check to ensure fairness.) If you enter more than once, only activate one comment. This is pretty self explanatory. Just be careful and you'll be fine. Contest is open to anyone in the 50 States, 18 or older! Sorry, we don't make this rule (we hate excluding anyone), so be mad at our lawyers and contest laws if you have to be mad. Winner will be chosen randomly. The winner will receive one (1) OCZ Technology Summit Series SATA II 2.5-inch 60GB SSD. Approximate retail value is $239. If you are chosen, you will be notified by email. Winners must respond within three days of the end of the contest. If you do not respond within that period, another winner will be chosen. Entries can be submitted until Tuesday, July 17th, at 11:59PM ET. Good luck! Full rules can be found here.
Marshal's DVD Power Up Dock includes room for HDD, Bugs Bunny jokes
If you're still waiting for NU's DVD/HDD docking station to make its appearance at your local purveyor of flimsy-feeling netbook accessories, perhaps you'd instead prefer to wait for this new, less wedge-shaped one from Marshal. Called the DVD Power Up Dock, it sports a DVD drive with the requisite plethora of reading and writing options plus a 2.5-inch SATA HDD and, finally, a USB hub with the least possible number of ports: two. It's listed as being compatible with Windows and naturally there's no mention of price or availability, but that would ruin the surprise.
Samsung goes miniscule with netbook-bound mini-card SSD
With the likes of SanDisk, OCZ Technology and RunCore (just to name a few) already grabbing a foothold in the mini SSD market, you just knew that Samsung couldn't sit around and watch an opportunity pass it by. Now, the company's is branching out from its vivaciously colored Mini S2 HDDs to introduce a new SATA-interface mini-card solid state drive. The diminutive drive is aimed squarely at the netbook crowd, but its size makes it a beautiful candidate for a UMPC, MID or smartbook upgrade. In fact, the drive checks in at some 80 percent smaller than the average 2.5-inch HDD, and it'll be made available in 16GB, 32GB and 64GB densities. We're told to expect respectable transfer rates of 200MBps (down) and 100MBps (up), while power consumption sits at just 0.3 watts. Look for these to pop up in your next favorite mobile device late this year or in early 2010.[Via HotHardware]
MacBook Pro EFI Firmware Update addresses SATA interface speeds
While most of the focus of WWDC fell on the iPhone 3GS, the MacBook Pro line got some love from Apple last week as well, with several upgraded features on the 15" model and a re-branding of the 13" model from MacBook to MacBook Pro.The Achilles' heel of the new upgrades, as reported last week, was that the MacBook Pro's SATA interface was limited to 1.5 Gbps in the latest models, down from 3.0 Gbps in previous models. Although this wasn't likely to be an issue unless you replaced the hard drive with a high-speed SSD, it still seemed like somewhat of a boneheaded move to downgrade the SATA interface without sufficient cause.Today Apple has released MacBook Pro EFI Firmware Update 1.7, which makes the issue moot. The update allows the SATA interface to work at full speed once again.If you have one of the affected models of MacBook Pro, grab this update either via Software Update, or else go here (requires OS X 10.5.7). More info on the firmware update can be found on its support page.Thanks to reader Joachim Bean for sending this in.
Western Digital recants, announces its SiliconDrive III range of SSDs
What a difference six months makes. Back before Christmas, one of the VPs at Western Digital was saying that the company only "enters markets that exist," meaning, of course, that we had to take all the tales of SSDs that we heard (in product spec sheets and reviews) on faith alone. Since then the company's acquired SiliconSystems and -- a short trip down the road to Damascus later -- it's announcing the SiliconDrive III product range. SiliconSystems' meat and potatoes were heavy hitters in such industries as communications, aerospace, and military, and it seems that WD's new range will continue to target these markets. According to The Register, the range sports SiSMART (which keeps tabs on the drive's status in real-time, notifying the user when it needs to be replaced) and includes 2.5-inch (SATA and PATA) and 1.8-inch Micro SATA devices, featuring native SATA 3Gb/s or ATA-7 interfaces with up to 100MB/s read speeds write speeds up to 80MB/s. Max available capacity is 120GB. No word yet on specific products or prices, but you'll know as soon as we do.
New MacBook Pros shipped with HDDs only have 1.5Gbps SATA enabled
Apple might have bumped the 13-inch unibody MacBook to Pro status at WWDC last week, but it looks like all the shuffling around to reduce costs has had an unfortunate side effect: new MacBook Pros that ship with HDDs only have a 1.5GBps SATA enabled, while SSD configs are apparently getting the full 3.0GBps SATA II experience that used to be standard. For most people this won't make too much difference since traditional hard drives can't move data that fast, but it's something to keep in mind if you're hoping to buy an HDD unit and swap in a speedier SSD, since your max performance will be bottlenecked. We've verified that our review units with HDDs all have the slower settings, but we've put in a call to Apple to get some more answers on this -- stay tuned.[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
OCZ intros 2.5-inch Agility SSD line: 120GB for $349.99
OCZ Technology seems to always be toiling away on new solid state drives, but it's rare to find any from the company that are priced for the average Joe / Jane. Rather than aiming specifically for the fat-walleted enthusiast crowd, the Agility series is hoping to make a decent sized splash in the mainstream market. These 2.5-inch SATA II SSDs promise 230MB/sec read and 135MB/sec write speeds, along with 64MB of cache and a two-year warranty. We pinged OCZ for details surrounding pricing and availability, so here's the dirt: the trio of models will be available in a fortnight or so for $129.99 (30GB), $219.99 (60GB) and $349.99 (120GB).
Ask TUAW: Switcher questions, WiFi stumbling, dual-band WiFi, hard drive upgrading, and more
We're back with another shot of Ask TUAW! This time we've got a couple of common switcher issues, as well as questions about upgrading a hard drive, using WiFi stumbler software, setting up a dual-band WiFi network, and more. As always, your suggestions are welcome. Questions for next week should be left in the comments. When asking a question please include which machine you're running and which version of Mac OS X (we'll assume you're running Leopard on an Intel Mac if you don't specify). And now, on to the questions!
SATA Revision 3.0 specification completed and released
Well, it sure took 'em long enough. In August of last year, the Serial ATA International Organization (SATA-IO) got us all hot and bothered when it introduced the SATA Revision 3.0 specification to double transfer speeds to 6Gbps. It's taken until today, however, for that very specification to be completed and released. Thankfully for those who love to relish in the past, the new spec is backward compatible with earlier SATA implementations, and for those looking forward to new innovations, you'll appreciate the new streaming commands for isochronous data transfers between audio and video applications and the Low Insertion Force (LIF) connector for more compact 1.8-inch storage devices. We're told to expect SATA Revision 3.0 demonstrations next month at Computex, but who knows how long it'll be before this stuff seeps into shipping products.
Century's all-in-one dock gives your netbook a greater sense of value
For those who need a little something more from their netbooks, at least while at home, Century's all-in-one dock should help out in that department. It fits just under the little laptop and features a pop-up fan to help with cooling, 8x DVD-writer, and a slot for a 2.5-inch SATA HDD or SSD drive, because let's face it, your digitized copy of the complete Doctor Who series probably isn't gonna all fit on your portable. It's compatible with XP and Vista, but no word on how well it'll jibe with Linux. It looks to be on sale now in Japan for ￥9,980 (US $100), and if you're needing some more intimate shots, Akihabara's got a hands-on with it. [Via Everything USB] Read - Product page Read - Hands-on
Unitek's 3.5-inch SATA HDD bay / MicroSD card reader is more fun than it looks
Aside from his stunning portrayal as Col. Kurtz ("I swallowed a bug"), Brando is our go-to guy for drive bays and memory card readers. If you're not holding out for a dock that plays DivX movies (or tells the temperature in your cube) this device should be right up your proverbial alley. The Unitek 3.5-inch USB Multi-Functional Bay sports a 2.5-inch SATA HDD enclosure, SD(HC) and MicroSD(HC) card readers, and a four pin power port -- 'cos you can't have too many four pin power ports. Since this is Brando, we were hoping to see something with a little more kitsch appeal, but we suppose that we'll just have to hold out for something from the Happy-Kid line. If a sane and sober-looking approach to portable storage is what you're after, be sure to size this guy up in the gallery below.
Sonnet's Qio eSATA controller / all-in-one card reader
Sonnet's a fun little company -- when not hustling iPod chargers and transmitters, it's providing the world with more sober, serious hardware, such as its RAID storage solutions. Among the company's newest kit is Qio, a media card reader / writer that includes a E4P SATA host controller, four eSATA ports, and the usual array of P2, SxS and CompactFlash slots. If that weren't enough, this device also includes an adapter so that your SD and XF cards don't feel left out. Available for both desktop (PCIe) and laptop owners (ExpressCard), the HDD controller supports port multipliers allowing users to access up to 20 drives. Available sometime next month, pricing to be determined.
Corsair's ultra speedy 256GB SSD sneaks out, hits the bench
My, how fast the cutting edge becomes dull. Nary four months ago, we were introduced to Corsair's first SSD: a 2.5-inch 128GB slab of MLC NAND goodness that promised 90MB/sec read and 70MB/sec write speeds. Needless to say, those numbers weren't about to shatter any records, so the company went out and produced something that just might. The benchmarking fiends over at HotHardware managed to scoop up a 256GB S256 from the company and put it through the first of many tests. As for results? Early reports show average read speeds nailing the 200MB/sec mark, while average write rates hovered just under 170MB/sec. The only issue is the breathtaking $749 price tag (expected, anyway), but at least you've apparently got a few months to save up.
Brando's fun lovin' SATA HDD dock / stereo speaker / USB hub
Brando, known for its zany USB gadgets (and for playing Superman's father Jor-El) is back on the scene with a combination SATA HDD dock / stereo speaker / USB hub. This might not come with the laugh appeal of, say, the Buffalo USB speakers -- and it may not tell you the temperature at your desk -- but if you don't mind one of these ugmos cluttering up your workstation we're sure you'll be able to put it to good use. Features include: compatibility with both 2.5-inch and 3.5-inch SATA hard disks, two USB 2.0 ports, USB audio, three watt stereo speakers (with "rich timbre"), and volume control.Yours for a smooth $59.
Seagate demos world's first SATA 6Gbps hard disk as speed-freaks swoon
You read that right, 6Gbps. Seagate and AMD will be showing-off a prototype Barracuda hard disk drive with AMD prototype 6Gbps SATA chipset for the first time this week at the Everything Channel Xchange Conference in New Orleans. Yup, a world's first. Fortunately, the third generation SATA interface remains backward compatible with your old SATA 3Gbps and SATA 1.5Gbps disks and devices -- cables and connectors too. SATA revision 3.0 also brings enhanced power efficiency with improved Native Command Queuing for applications with heavy transactional workloads. No update to the official launch timeline was made so we'll assume that the first half of 2009 for retail devices is still in the bag. Hey, you weren't planning to purchase a new laptop or desktop before then anyway were you. Were you?[Via CNET]Read -- SATA 6Gbps demonstrationRead -- First half of 2009 launch
Buffalo intros SHD-NSUM series SSDs with USB and SATA-II interfaces
Internal SSD drives generally aren't the most exciting devices out there, apart from the fact they're SSDs, but Buffalo's new SHD-NSUM series of drives look to bit a bit of an exception, with each packing a microUSB port for some data transfers in a pinch in addition to the standard SATA-II interface. Otherwise, the drives are expectedly pretty standard fare, with Buffalo promising that they're 30% faster than a standard hard drive, and offering them in the usual 32GB, 64GB, and 128GB capacities. No word on a 'release round here just yet, but those in Japan should be able to pick 'em up in March for between $120 and $390.[Via SlashGear]
Matrix WiiZii mod hooks to external SATA HDD for speedy ISO loads
Though only a small fraction of Wii owners will ever mod their console, there's something strangely comforting to our status as a species that it's imminently doable. The latest in this long line of Wii hacks is the WiiZii, which is termed a "plug and play" no-solder method of playing Wii backups and other fun modchip-style stuff. WiiZii has an upgradable firmware, and is being touted as "future proof" against any forthcoming attempts by Nintendo to block it, but what's really exciting is the external SATA connector for extra-speedy ISO loads off of your favorite SATA hard drive -- no more dinky USB keys. Right now WiiZii is in prototype stage, but we're sure somebody will be hitting us up for cash for the mod in the near future -- if you're feeling a little stingy, just remember: hacking consoles that we've already paid money for to be able to do what we want with them is the only thing separating us from the apes. That and Hulu.
pureSilicon introduces world's first 1TB 2.5-inch SSD
Pretec may have laid claim to the title of world's fastest SATA SSD, but it looks like pureSilicon has a feather of its own to put in its cap, with it announcing what appears to be the world's first 1TB 2.5-inch SSD drive. You may want to think twice about holding out for one of these in your next laptop, however, as pureSilicon is apparently specifically pitching it as a more energy-efficient solution for servers, datacenters, and supercomputers, with four of the drives able to deliver 4TB in the same space as a standard 3.5-inch hard drive. According to pureSilicon's own benchmarks, the drives "approach" the maximum SATA II transfer speed of 300MB/s and, if 1TB is a bit excessive for your needs, the company also has drives ranging from 32GB to 512GB in its Nitro series. No word on price, naturally, but the drives will apparently be available sometime in the third quarter of this year.
Pretec debuts CFast storage card, proclaims it world's smallest SATA SSD
Pretec has already pushed standard CompactFlash cards pretty far, and it now looks to be branching out beyond the confines of the format, with it today announcing its new CompactFlash-sized (but apparently not CompactFlash-compatibile) CFast storage card. Helping the card earn that title is its use of a high-speed SATA interface, which boosts the maximum transfer speed to a blistering 375MB per second, or roughly 300% faster than the speediest CompactFlash card on the market today. In a bit of a twist to these usual announcements, Pretec says the the first 32GB cards are actually available starting today (albeit not directly to consumers), with some 64GB card promised to be following "soon."
