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Iomega Offers 1TB Network Storage for "Ridiculously Cheap" $300 Price

Paul Lilly — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 14:00:58 -0500

EMC earlier this year acquired storage and network security solutions company Iomega Corporation, who is perhaps best known for its line of Zip and Jaz drives. Today Iomega announces the first co-produced storage drive between the two companies, resulting in the StorCenter ix2. For $300, consumers get a network storage solution the company describes as being "smaller than a large dictionary." The price point works out to $0.30 per gigabyte.

"These are market-based prices," Iomega division president Jonathan Huberman said. "It's ridiculous how cheap these things are, but it is what it is. A great value for the consumer."

Upping the bang for buck factor, a 2TB version is also being made available for $479, or about $0.24 per gigabyte. Of course, the StorCenter ix2 offers more than raw hard drive space. The unit comes with EMC's Retrospect backup software, virus encryption technology, and RAID 1. A bult in media server and Bluetooth, UPnP (Universal Plug and Play), and DLNA (Digital Living Netwrok Alliance) media device capabilities also come part of the package.

Western Digital Caviar 1TB Drive Goes Green, But at a Cost

Paul Lilly — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 16:05:59 -0500

Western Digital's making a plea to those who are concerned about the environment yet still need oodles of hard drive space. The company's new 1TB Caviar Green drive delivers on both fronts. WD stuffs three 333GB platters in its new drive along with a beefy 32MB of cache, the most currently available on any consumer desktop drive. The company says the platter density and large cache help reduce the power draw by up to 20 percent while increasing performance by 10 percent.

But it's the performance that will have power users feeling the wrong kind of green. The new Caviar checks in with a poky 5400RPM spindle speed, trading off raw performance for noise management and power savings. Price becomes another trade off with WD setting the MSRP to $219, a good chunk higher than what many other 1TB drives are commanding on Newegg. Whether or not the new Green Caviar falls more in line with the competition on the street remains to be seen.

Western Digital Adds New 750GB and 1TB 3.5" Hard Drives to Enterprise Lineup

Paul Lilly — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 12:16:03 -0500

Western Digital today announced the addition of 750GB and 1TB RE3 SATA hard drives to its enterprise lineup. The new drives boast a beefy 32MB cache buffer, enhanced vibration and shock tolerance, and what the company claims are "new electronics to increase performance approximately 20 percent and by as much as 60 percent in high-vibration environments."

Rounding out the feature-set are a several marketing buzzwords, including StableTrac (reduces system-induced vibration and stabilizes platters), dual processor (better processing power), RAFF technology (corrects linear and rotational vibrations), IntelliSeek technology (calculates optimum seek speeds to lower power consumption, noise, and vibration), and several more.

Western Digital has the MSRP on the 750GB and 1TB models at $199 and $249 respectively. The drives are available now and carry a five-year limited warranty.

Hitachi to Harvest 5TB Hard Drive by 2010

Paul Lilly — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 09:49:21 -0500

While SSDs continue to come down in price and up in performance, hard disk drives keep ballooning in size. And just when we thought we were becoming spoiled with storage space, Hitachi hits us with a humdinger by announcing plans to release a 5TB hard drive by 2010. That's FIVE freaking terabytes in a single 3.5" drive, or half the storage capacity of the human brain, claims Dr. Yoshihiro Shiroishi from Hitachi. In more concrete terms, 5TB equates to about 5,000 hours of video, or more than a million songs. Throw two drives together and you could store a human brain's worth of porn!

Hitachi's pledge trumps an earlier prediction the company made back in October 2007 when it said 4TB of storage would be likely by 2011. Instead, Hitachi will employ Current-Perpendicular-to-Plant Giant Magnetoresistance (CPP-GMR) magnetic read heads to pack an additional terabyte than initially anticipated, and a year sooner than predicted. CPP-GMR will make it possible to achieve data densities of 1TB or more per square inch, paving the way for even larger hard drives.

Home theater buffs will undoubtedly herald Hitachi's announcement, but what about everyone else? Are we reaching the point of diminishing returns in terms of hard drive space? Post your thoughts in the comments section.

Seagate Barracuda 7200.11

David Murphy — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 15:25:08 -0600

With new teams entering the terabyte storage market, it was only a matter of time before one smacked down the great Hitachi 7K1000 1TB drive. That distinction goes to Seagate’s 1TB Barracuda 7200.11 drive.

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