Posted 08/04/09 at 06:44:30 PM by The Maximum PC Staff

I recall that Maximum PC advises against defragmenting flash drives, such as the ones in an iPod. Does that include solid state drives, like in the Eee PC?

Read on to see the answer to Aaron's question.

Read More

Posted 12/13/08 at 07:26:35 PM by Justin Kerr

eSATA ports are starting to become more mainstream in mid to low end motherboards, and OCZ thinks the time is right to start adding on non hard drive based peripherals. Its new lineup of memory sticks will do just that and come in 8, 16, and 32GB capacities. The new drives will both communicate and receive their power from the eSATA port. To ensure backwards compatibility they have also included a rear mounted mini USB connection which will allow users to plug the device into laptops or other USB only machines.

No official benchmarks are have been taken by us, but the company is reportedly boasting read speeds of up to 90MB/s, and writes speeds as fast as 30MB/s. No comment has yet been made on pricing, but it will likely be in the same ballpark as its USB brethren.

It certainly is an interesting idea, but I can’t help but wonder if this type of device is really necessary with USB 3.0 right around the corner. USB 3.0 has a maximum theoretical throughput of 4.8Gbps which would easily max out most flash memory keys several times over.

Would you be interested in an eSATA flash drive? Hit the jump and let us know.

Read More

Posted 10/24/06 at 05:47:56 PM by Josh Norem

We’ve been waiting several years for eSATA (external SATA, that is) to show up. This month we’re happy to see the first eSATA drive actually arrive to market. If you’re looking for an external backup drive that’s much faster than a standard USB or FireWire drive, Christmas has come early.

Click Read More for more. 

Read More

Posted 10/02/06 at 05:40:37 PM by Josh Norem

Maxtor has downsized its awesome One Touch Turbo desktop backup drive into this 100GB Mini model. It looks exactly the same as the Turbo, and it comes with the same excellent software.

Click Read More for more. 

Read More

Posted 09/20/06 at 05:46:50 PM by The Maximum PC Staff

WD’s Passport is an all-around decent product, with a lot of storage and handy software, but fails to distinguish itself from similar Maxtor and Seagate products in any meaningful way.

Click Read More for more. 

Read More

Posted 07/15/06 at 02:00:01 AM by Josh Norem

Big companies rarely take chances, and Seagate—the world’s largest drive maker—is no exception. It has always played second fiddle to Hitachi when it comes to the 7,200rpm hard drive capacity war, and even though Seagate drives are reliable and semi-speedy, they’ve never delivered industry-leading or even outstanding performance. Well, those days are over.

Click Read More for more. 

Read More

Posted 06/16/06 at 02:45:02 PM by Josh Norem

Most people don’t keep up with the backup drive game, and we don’t blame them. It’s about as exciting as a “You’ll never believe what happened to me last night in Oblivion” story. The Cliff Notes overview is that WD’s Dual-Option Media Center drive has ruled the roost for a long time. We loved its high capacity and somewhat-easy-to-use software, but what really set it apart from the competition was its front-mounted USB port and 8-in-1 media reader.

Click Read More for more. 

Read More

Posted 06/06/06 at 04:00:48 PM by Michael Brown

What invaluable data is on your hard drive? Wedding photos? Financial records? Your saved games from Oblivion? Here’s how to preserve and recover those files in the wake of a disaster.

Click Read More for more.

Read More