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Tag: hard-drive

  • Verbatim Releases 500 GB "Gold" 2.5-inch Portable Hard Drive For 40th anniversary


    Verbatim is to mark its 40th anniversary by releasing a limited edition ´gold` portable external hard drive.

    The gold-coloured UV coating of the special Anniversary Edition, houses a 500 GB 2.5" hard drive that includes easy-to-use backup and synchronization software.

    The Dmailer backup software makes backing up very quick and easy for professionals and novices alike.

    The Verbatim Sync software – also pre-loaded – supports users with reliable synchronisation of files and folders, from Microsoft Outlook or Windows mail contacts and calendar entries to documents, photos and videos.

    Users can take their PC’s content wherever they go and work on other devices while safe in the knowledge that Verbatim’s Sync software will synchronise new content to their own PC on returning to base.

    Complete with a USB 2.0 port that supplies the power and ensures data transfer at up to 480 Mbit/sec, the Anniversary Edition HDD is lightweight – only 161 grammes – optimizing it for mobility.

    Gary Milner, president of Verbatim EUMEA, said that forty years on, Verbatim has entered its anniversary year as the third-largest brand overall in the European digital storage market and the world leader in optical storage media.

    "From our early years in tape and floppy disks to our current broad product range of Optical, Flash Memory, External Hard Drives and Accessory Products, the Verbatim brand has always been associated with quality and reliability," he said.

    "This has been the foundation of our success and will always to be at our core as we celebrate our 40th anniversary and continue to innovate and market popular consumer and professional products into the future."

    The drive is compatible for PCs and Macs and is available for a limited period only at GBP £79.99 (RRP).

  • WD Ships 2 TB Hard Drives With Greenpower Technology


    WD has expanded its enterprise family of hard drives to include the next-generation 2 TB capacity.

    The company says it is the largest and only 2 TB enterprise-class hard drive shipping today. Combining 64 MB cache, dual processors, and increased areal density, the RE4-GP hard drives yield twice the processing power – and produce a 25 per cent performance improvement – over the previous generation.

    Tom McDorman, vice president and general manager of WD’s enterprise storage solutions business unit, said its GreenPower technology platform is the first 3.5-inch hard drive platform designed with power savings as the primary attribute.

    He said the drives reduce average drive power consumption by up to 50 per cent over currently available competitors’ drives and are ultra-cool and quiet, all while delivering solid performance.

    "Energy efficiency is a primary concern for our customers who continue to look for ways to reduce their carbon footprint without compromising reliability or performance," he said.

    "WD’s RE-GP drives enable them to meet their customer’s system requirements for storage capacity, reliability, performance and cost by integrating an enterprise-class drive that simply consumes less power than traditional hard drives."

    The new WD RE4-GP 2 TB hard drive are intended for use with storage-hungry applications, such as:

    • cloud-computing infrastructure
    • large-scale data centres
    • data archive and tape replacement systems
    • commercial video surveillance
    • digital video editing houses

  • Panasonic's Dash-mountable Devices Offer In-car Blu-ray


    Blu-Ray may still be absent from most people’s living rooms – but Panasonic is offering a pair of dash-mountable devices for those who need their high-def fix in the car.

    The CN-HX3000D Windows-powered device, with a 7-inch, 1280 x 720 display offering GPS, Bluetooth, a 40GB hard drive, and iPod/iPhone compatibility.

    Use in conjunction with the CY-BB1000D in-car Blu-ray player and the results are no doubt impressive.

    At what cost, though, Panasonic has still to release, though the pair are expected to hit stores by the end of the summer.

  • WD Launches 2TB Hard Drive


    WD has announced the first 2 terabyte (TB) hard drive – the world’s highest capacity drive.

    The device is the latest addition to WD’s environmentally friendly Caviar Green hard drive family.

    This new 3.5-inch platform is based on WD’s 500 GB/platter technology (with 400 Gb/in2 areal density) with 32 MB cache, producing drives with capacities of up to 2 TB.

    Mark Geenen, president of Trend Focus, said there were some in the industry who wondered if the end consumer would buy a 1 TB drive.

    He said that already some 10 per cent of 3.5-inch hard drive sales are at the 1 TB level or higher.

    They served demand from video applications and expanding consumer media libraries.

    "The 2 TB hard drives will continue to satisfy end user’s insatiable desire to store more data on ever larger hard drives," he said.

    External storage solutions are a common place for extreme-capacity drives to help consumers manage these media libraries.
    The WD Caviar Green 2 TB will be available later this month at select resellers and distributors for Euro 299.00.

    This week, WD also reported revenue of USD $1.8 billion, on shipments of approximately 35.5 million units and net income of USD $14 million, or $0.06 per share, for its fiscal second quarter ended 26 December, 2008.

    The company’s results include charges of USD $113 million associated with the restructuring plan announced on 17 December.

    Excluding the restructuring charges and the related tax benefit of USD $4 million, non-GAAP net income was USD $123 million or $0.55 per share.

  • Western Digital Makes Cut-backs As Demand Weakens


    Western Digital is to cut 2,500 jobs, or about 5 per cent of its global work force, and will reduce executive pay as a result of the global economic situation.

    Citing weakening demand for its products, the hard drive maker the company now expects fiscal second-quarter sales of USD $1.7 billion to $1.8 billion, with a "consequent reduction in operating results."

    Western Digital said demand for the current quarter is "significantly below" what it expected when it issued revenue guidance in October.

    Previously it sales outlook was USD $2.03 billion to $2.15 billion.

    The company plans to reduce compensation by an unspecified amount for its executive officers, board of directors and senior management.

    Manufacturing operations will cease from December 20 through January 1 and manufacturing hours will be reduced by 20 per cent through employee attrition and reduction in the use of temporary workers and overtime shifts.

    It is also closing one of its three hard drive factories in Thailand and will close or sell one of two facilities in Malaysia.

    The measures, expected to be completed by the end of March, are expected to save about USD $150 million a year. Western Digital expects to take related charges of USD $150 million in the fiscal second and third quarters.

  • Lenovo Promises Desktop PC Breakthrough


    Lenovo has launched a desktop computing solution that can dramatically help businesses reduce IT costs and security risks by turning off hard drives and storing all data in a non-server remote location.

    Called Secure Managed Client (SMC), the company claims it is the first solution to do all this while still offering users the flexibility and performance of a traditional desktop PC.

    It consists of a client, a hard drive-less ThinkCentre desktop PC Intel vPro technology, a Lenovo co-developed software stack and a centralized Lenovo Storage Array, powered by Intel.

    Peter Schrady, vice president, general manager, software and peripherals Relevant Products/Services, Lenovo, said SMC was the rarest of gems – a breakthrough technology in desktop computing.

    "We’ve all seen the rapid-fire advances in mobile Relevant Products/Services computing such as batteries, connectivity, and the like, but this is the desktop PC’s turn to shine," he said.

    "SMC is an exceptionally engineered innovation designed for better manageability, better security, better performance and a better balance sheet."

    Shrady said SMC offers several significant benefits over current server-based computing options such as blade PCs, thin clients or desktop virtualization Relevant Products/Services.

    Most notably, these include:

    • Preserves PC fidelity — SMC gives the end user a full Windows experience
    • Avoids IT complexity — SMC works with and enhances current IT process and tools
    • Safe and flexible investment — An SMC ThinkCentre can easily be converted back to a traditional desktop PC by re-enabling the hard drives
    • Energy efficient — An SMC ThinkCentre uses less energy Relevant Products/Services than a traditional desktop PC
    • Security — Information from all desktops in an SMC fleet is stored in a safe, single location, significantly reducing the threat of on-site theft of data

    Lenovo said some of its large enterprise customers have already recorded significant results from SMC pilot deployments.

    The company estimates that using the SMC solution can potentially reduce the expense of fully managing a PC from USD $120 per month to as low as $70 per PC.

    This is based on expense estimates for large enterprise customers in North America that take into account such things as deskside IT visits, call center support Relevant Products/Services, and management costs.

    The SMC solution is currently being offered on the ThinkCentre M57p(1) desktop PC, and can also be offered on the ThinkCentre M58p(2 )in early 2009.

  • Service Offers Camcorder Storage Solution


    The Photo Archival Company has launched a new archiving service that stores digital camcorder footage to Blu-ray Disc or DVD.

    Charles Laughlin, president and founder of The Photo Archival Company, said it would unlock millions of hours of video trapped inside today’s generation of no-tape camcorders that record to internal hard drive, external USB hard drive or flash memory.

    He said video footage could be preserved to produce long-lasting DVDs or Blu-ray Discs.

    "The recurring theme from a typical customer is that it is impractical for them to archive their digital footage first hand," he said.

    "For the average household, it can be a daunting task to spend the necessary time to tend to the successful creation of several DVDs or Blu-ray Discs just to continue filming."