Posted 10/19/09 at 12:00:00 PM by Gordon Mah Ung

Don’t be fooled by the Vantec ezShare’s unassuming looks. This simple six-foot white cable with its Type A USB plugs on either end is actually one of the easiest ways to quickly moves files between two computers. Just plug one end into an available USB port on a box running Windows (XP and up), and plug the other end into the second box.

A Windows Explorer–like app will auto-launch on each machine, letting you drag and drop folders and files between the two PCs. If this sounds an awful lot like Data Drive Thru’s Tornado (reviewed November 2007), that’s because the two products are pretty similar. The file-explorer UI and software functionality of both products are virtually the same. It’s close enough that we have a pretty strong suspicion that the underlying chipsets and software come from the same factory in China. There are a few key differences, though.

Continue reading this review after the jump!

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Posted 09/23/09 at 09:24:28 PM by Ryan Whitwam

If you thought USB 3.0 was going to be fast, just wait for Intel’s Light Peak technology. The new optical interconnect standard was just shown off at IDF. Light Peak is capable of 10Gbps of bandwidth, with a theoretical upper limit of 100Gbps. At the initial offering of 10Gbps, you could transfer an entire Blu-Ray movie in about 30 seconds.

The standard would also be capable of multiple operations on a single cable. This is all possible over a cable that can be up to 100 meters long. The Light Peak technology consists of a controller chip, and an optical module that converts light to electricity and vice versa. Intel claims that current electrical cabling is reaching the limits of speed and cable length, something Light Peak can circumvent.

Intel hopes to see the technology adopted for use in PC’s as well as handheld devices. They believe adoption could happen quickly, as Light Peak is complementary to existing technologies. As for a shipping date, Intel claims components could be going out as soon as 2010.

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Posted 08/18/08 at 11:45:00 AM by Norman Chan

No doubt you’re familiar with the Universal Serial Bus – we ranked it as our top PC innovation of all time. But what do you know about the next version of this ubiquitous interface? USB 2.0 (otherwise known as USB Hi-Speed) boosted the original 12Mbps data rate to 480Mmb/s over eight years ago, and now USB 3.0 (dubbed USB Superspeed) is set to multiply that bandwidth tenfold. The USB Implementers Forum (led by Intel) released the USB 3.0 spec to hardware partners last week after some reported disputes with AMD and Nvidia (who, afraid Intel would have a jump start in incorporating the tech in chipsets, threatened to develop their own USB standard). But how does this affect you? We dug up some new information about USB 3.0, got our hands on the new connectors, and even took a look inside the new cables.

Click through for the five reasons why we’re excited about USB 3.0

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Posted 11/14/07 at 07:33:39 PM by Gordon Mah Ung

We’ve seen various USB transfer devices over the years, and for the most part they’ve been clunky and sloooow. Not so with Data Drive Thru’s Tornado, which blew into our Lab and impressed the hell out of us. Essentially a coiled, flat USB 2.0 cable that retracts into a plastic housing, the Tornado works by plugging into the Hi-Speed USB ports of two PCs running a newer Windows OS (Millennium, 2000, XP, or Vista). A basic file-transfer application executes from a bit of flash memory in the device, which allows you to simply drag and drop files between the two rigs. Similar cables from other companies force you to install software to transfer files.

Click Read More for more. 

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