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Western Digital has announced its first external hard drive that uses the SuperSpeed USB 3.0 interface..
The whole thing costs carries a $179 MSRP and is available now. And yes, if you’ve been paying attention, Seagate’s 500GB drive is the same as WD’s 1TB option, although the BlackArmor PS 110 includes that ExpressCard adapter and its use is obviously a tad different.
What you get is a digital version of every issue, including the articles, pictures, maps, advertisements, everything that’s made NatGeo great over the years. It comes on a 160GB external hard drive, of which only 60GB is actually pre-loaded. Of course, you could probably pick up a 160GB drive for only $80, but it wouldn’t have all the NatGeo content. The package also comes with a DVD offering tips on better photography, a behind the scenes look at how National Geographic is produced and interviews with some of the photographers about their most famous pictures. It’ll set you back $199.95, but I think it’s totally worth it. Honestly, I’ll probably be ordering a copy for my personal library. [via Download Squad]
Most modern Macs--except for the MacBook Air and some MacBook models--offer both FireWire and USB connections. When shopping for an external hard drive, then...
(Image Caption: EZQuest 2TB Thunder Pro Quad A/V) On Tuesday, EZQuest released a 2TB version of its Thunder Pro Quad A/V external hard drive. The drive is also...
Features
Pros
Cons
Design Let’s get one thing out of the way first. This could be the best-looking external hard drive on the market. It looks amazing even if you don’t have a Mac Pro. It’s housed in an aluminum enclosure with a modestly-sized heat sink on the bottom and a very bright activity light that could double as a strobe on the front. At 2.6 lbs, it’s actually quite beefy, too. The backside houses the power rocker and all the ports: a Kensginton lock port, eSATA, twin FW800, USB2.0, and the power input. It’s just an external hard drive, folks. Really nothing fancy here.
Performance
A 6.7GB file
Those numbers are right on par with what a 7200RPM hard drive with a 32MB cache should do. Of course eSATA was the fastest but Firewire 800 isn’t a slouch either. For comparison, a USB 2.0 bus-powered drive transferred the same file in 4:48 @ 24MB/s.
Unlike a lot of other external hard drives, the G-Drive doesn’t make that much noise. I heard occasional clicks of the hard drive but it’s definitely one of the quieter drives I’ve heard. The solid aluminum enclosure and noise dampening feet are probably to thank for that. Features As the Mac-inspired design suggests, the drive is aimed at the OS X crowd, but it works just fine on PCs too. The hard drive comes HFS+ formatted and Time Machine ready, but the included software, or Windows’ Disk Management tool can easily reformat it to NTFS. Surprisingly, given the $349 price tag, there isn’t any included backup software. I guess Hitachi feels most buyers are probably Mac users and therefore will stick with Time Machine. Still, some users might appreciate and use a basic backup software program. Overall The 2TB G-Drive delivers. It can hold a crap-ton of data and manages to keep its transfer speeds up with the best thanks to the fast Hitachi hard drive. Plus, it looks great next to a Mac or a PC. Too bad the $349 MSRP sets it north of most other options and therefore out of sight for some potential buyers.
Reader Dustin Kuo is interested in locking down an external hard drive. He writes:
Imation today officially starts shipping "the world’s first Wireless USB external hard drive," the Imation Pro WX. It’s a 1.5TB hard drive with an MSRP of $450 — too rich for my blood but it may be able to find a home in small businesses or larger households. Seeing as though you’d need a special wireless USB connector attached to each computer, a network hard drive will still make a bit more sense for most people (no special equipment needed, longer range, etc.) until the prices of these wireless USB products start to fall. The data transfer rate is pegged by Imation at "up to 15MBs/second" and the drive boasts a wireless range of up to 30 feet.
Walmart’s Black Friday ad is here, packed full of holiday goodies. Stores open at 5AM Friday morning and doorbusters will be available until 11AM.
Here’s a list of gadget-related items. Doorbusters are marked with an asterisk. Computers Acer 17.3″ Blue Laptop w/4GB Memory, 320GB Hard Drive and Windows 7 Premium (Online Only) – $498.00 eMachines 15.6″ Notebook w/AMD Processor, 2GB Memory, 160GB Hard Drive (Model # EME627) – $198.00 * HP 15.6″ Notebook w/Intel Processor, 3GB Memory, 250GB Hard Drive (Model # G60-519WM) – $298.00 * HP 17″ Notebook w/4GB Memory, 320GB Hard Drive (Model # G71-329WM) – $398.00 HP Pavilion All-In-One 19″ Desktop w/4GB Memory, 500GB Hard Drive, MS213 AMD – $598.00 HP Pavilion Desktop w/AMD Processor, 3GB Memory, 320GB Hard Drive, w/20″ Monitor (Model # P6243w-b) – $398.00 * Digital Cameras Kodak C82 12.0 Megapixel Digital Camera – $69.00 Nikon CoolPix S230 10MP Digital Camera – $139.00 Sony Cyber-Shot DSCS930 10.0 Megapixel Digital Camera – $79.00 Digital Media Cards Sandisk 4GB SDHC Card – $8.00 Sony 4GB Memory Stick – $20.00 DVD Players Magnavox NB500 Blu-ray Disc Player – $78.00 * Samsung BD-P1590 Blu Ray Player (Saturday) – $148.00 Sony BDP-S369 Blu Ray Player – $148.00 Electronics 8″ LCD Digital Photo Frame – $29.00 Philips 6′ Gold HDMI Cable – $19.00 Philips 7″ Portable DVD Player – $49.00 Philips Earbuds – $10.00 Samsung MX20 Red Camcorder – $149.00 GPS Systems TomTom One 125-SE GPS – $59.00 TomTom XL325-SE GPS – $89.00 Hard Drives Western Digital 1TB 3.5″ External Hard Drive – $78.00 Western Digital My Passport Essential 320GB Hard Drive – $49.00 Miscellaneous Duracell UltraAdvanced AA/AAA 6-Pack – 2 For $5 Energizer Ultimate Lithium AA 2-Pack – 2 For $5 Rayovac AA/AAA 12-Pack – 2 For $5 MP3 Players Apple 8GB iPod Touch w/$50 iTunes GC – $195.00 Phillips 4GB MP3/Video Player – $29.00 Sony iPod Speaker – $69.00 Networking Belkin N 150 Router – $29.00 Portable USB Storage Sandisk Cruzer 4GB USB Flash Drive – $8.00 Printers HP Deskjet F2430 All-In-One Printer – $25.00 Kodak ESP5250LE Wireless Printer – $99.00 Televisions Emerson 32″ LC320EMFX LCD 720P HDTV – $248.00 * Emerson 42″ PL-P42W-10A Plasma 720P HDTV – $448.00 * Flat-Panel TV Stand – $89.00 Philips Large Fixed TV Mount – $69.00 RCA 46″ LCD 1080p HDTV (Online Only) – $688.00 Samsung 32″ LN328360 LCD 720P HDTV (Saturday) – $398.00 Samsung 42″ LN40B500 LCD 1080P HDTV (Saturday) – $598.00 Samsung 42″ PN42B400 Plasma 720P HDTV (Saturday) – $548.00 Samsung 46″ LN46B500 LCD 1080P HDTV (Saturday) – $848.00 Samsung 50″ PN50B400 Plasma 720P HDTV (Saturday) – $698.00 Sansui 19″ HDLCD1909 LCD HDTV – $128.00 Sayno 50″ DP50719 Plasma HDTV – $598.00 Sony Bravia 32″ KDL32L504 LCD 720P HDTV – $378.00 Sony Bravia 40″ KDL40S504 LCD 1080P HDTV – $598.00 Sony Bravia 46″ KDL465504 LCD 1080P HDTV – $798.00 * Video Games 2K Sports NBA 2K10 For Xbox 360 – $25.00 Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader For PS2 – $7.00 Bakugan For Nintendo Wii – $25.00 Big Beach Sports For Nintendo Wii – $10.00 Call Of Duty 4 Modern Warfare For PS3 – $25.00 Carnival Games For Nintendo Wii – $10.00 Celebrity Sports Showdown For Nintendo Wii – $7.00 Comand And Conquer Red Alert 3 For Xbox 360 – $7.00 EA Sports Madden 10 For PS2 – $25.00 Grand Theft Auto IV For Xbox 360 – $10.00 Lock’s Quest (Nintendo DS) – $7.00 Midnight Club Los Angeles (Xbox 360) – $10.00 MX Vs ATV Untaimed (Nintendo DS) – $10.00 Need For Speed Undercover (PS3) – $10.00 NeoPets Puzzle Adventure (Nintendo DS) – $7.00 Nintendo DS Lite – $98.00 * Nintendo DS Lite Starter Kit – $10.00 * Over 30 Games For $25 – $25.00 Over 40 Games For $10.00 – $10.00 Over 50 Video Games For $7.00 – $7.00 Playstation 3 Console w/Infamous & Batman Arkham Asylum Games + Dark Knight Blu-ray – $299.00 Rock Band Special Edition (PS3) – $50.00 Rock Band Special Edition (XBox 360) – $50.00 Suzuki TT Super Bikes (PS2) – $7.00 Tak And The Guardians Of Gross (Nintendo Wii) – $7.00 The Godfather II (PS3) – $10.00 The Sims 3 For PC/Mac – $25.00 Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 (Nintendo Wii) – $25.00 UFC 2009 Undisputed (Xbox 360) – $25.00 WWE Smackdown Vs Raw 2009 For PS3 – $25.00 Xbox 360 Arcade w/Madagascar 2 Game & w/Madagascar & w/Madagascar 2 Movie DVDs – $199.00 X Rocker Turbo Sound Gaming Chair – $35.00 Walmart Black Friday Ad [BlackFriday.info]
The redesigned SimpleDrive now sports a rather modest and somewhat boring aluminum enclosure. But who cares about the design when you know it’s packing a 2TB drive. The new design is available in 500GB, 1TB, and 2TB capacities at a MSRP of $100, $130, and $250, respectively.
You better act quick. This deal ends today. But if you really need a smaller WHS for, lets say, backup purchases only, the HP MediaSmart LX195 is perfect and Newegg has it on sale just for you. For only $199, you can get a 640GB HP MediaSmart LX195 server. Sure, the hard drive is little on the small side, but it’s easy enough to upgrade. You can either swap out the hard drive later or plug in an external hard drive for more storage. Windows Home Server makes it easy to add even an external drive to the cluster. For $199, it even could make a great gift to some technology-fluent parents. The backup and restore feature would be worth it alone. But act fast, the sale ends today.
We'll show you where to find the best prices on an Apple MacBook laptop, a Casio megazoom camera, a Toshiba external hard drive, and more.
Short version: Western Digital’s refreshed My Book Essential external hard drive provides a simple, unobtrusive, and relatively inexpensive home backup solution. With an enormous 2TB capacity, built-in WD SmartWare software, 256-bit built-in encryption with password protection, an “illuminated capacity gauge,” and a MSRP of $249.99, there is very little not to like here. Longer version: As we, the computer-savvy netizens of the (physical) world, continue to amass more and more digital media and create endless bytes of data, storage has become increasingly important in our everyday lives. Along with the ability to save and backup all of one’s digital treasure trove, being able to secure all those 1s and 0s has also become more desirable. Thus, it came as no surprise when Western Digital recently overhauled its entire external drive lineup with password protection, encryption, and built-in backup software. Hardware: The My Book Essential is Western Digital’s “standard” PC desktop external hard drive (identical to the Mac version). Now available in 500GB, 640GB, 1TB, 1.5TB, and 2TB capacities, the new My Book Essential has undergone very slight physical updates. The drive is the same height as its predecessor (6.5″), but is down to 1.9″ wide (from 2.1″). The drive also has a new illuminated capacity gauge and an icon showing whether the drive has been locked (via password with encryption).
The faux book shape may not be for everyone, but it does hide rather nicely if you put actual books (remember them?) around the drive. Generally speaking, the drive is pretty quiet, although there is the usual buzz and hum during large backups. The My Book Essential connects via USB 2.0, has a physical on/off switch, a place for a real lock, and ships with a relatively compact power adapter. Security: As mentioned above, the new WD drives come standard with password protection and 256-bit hardware-based encryption. When I spoke to WD a few weeks back, they were pretty adamant about erring on the side of total security. Thus, WD never receives your drive’s password. In other words, you are the only person who knows the password. Should it be lost, the drive will remain locked or must be re-formatted to use again. I can live with that. WD SmartWare backup software: Finally, we get to WD’s new, integrated backup software solution, SmartWare. Standard across its entire line of external drives, SmartWare provides users with a very straight forward (if at times too simplified) way to automatically backup your files.
The first time you plug your new WD drive into your computer you will be prompted to install WD SmartWare. Once installed, SmartWare will scan your computer (defaults to drive C:) and present you with a graphical representation of all the various bits of data in 6 main categories: System, Pictures, Other, Music, Movies, and Documents.
You can either select all or pick and choose the particular types of files you want to be automatically backed up when your My Book Essential is plugged in. Then simply click ‘Run Backup’ and voila, your files will begin to copy automagically.
SmartWare will continuously update the graphical representation with the status of your backup. By default, the software is set to run as a low priority while your machine is in use and will speed up when the machine idles.
Once the backup is complete, the software will continue to run in the background, updating the drive as you add/change/delete files on your system. You can also eject the drive from the icon in the system tray when you have finished or if you don’t want to continue the backup at that time.
Finally, with the same ease that you can backup your files, SmartWare provides a dead simple retrieval function. All in all, SmartWare makes automatic backups simple and painless. I wish it offered more control over which files and folders you want to include/exclude from the backup, but in terms of a complete and idiotproof backup system, SmartWare does a respectable job. Conclusion: The WD My Book Essential is a good choice for a personal backup or plain ol’ external hard drive. The ability to protect your data with a password and 256-bit encryption is a welcome addition, and the integrated backup software, SmartWare, does a solid job of providing automatic backup. Oh, and a maximum capacity of 2 freaking terabytes of space with an illuminated capacity gauge…yeah, that doesn’t hurt either.
To set this thing up, all you need to do is plug-in the power and Ethernet and dock a Seagate FreeAgent Go portable hard drive. Wait a few seconds for the little light to turn green – which tells you that the dock is connected to the Internet – and then navigate to this activation website. The website asks you a couple quick questions and then the device is activated. From there, it’s simply another Pogoplug device. Well, what’s Pogoplug, Matt? I’m glad you asked, friend. It’s a service that allows you to easily share locally-stored info online. This dock turns a Seagate FreeAgent Go external hard drive or flash drive into a NAS that also has access to the Pogoplug service. Seagate has included one year’s worth of service with the device, but after that trial is up, you will be required to pay $30 a year to use the service. (keep reading, more on this farther down)
It’s kind of crazy that the dock doesn’t act like a NAS without subscribing to the service anyway. It’s such a simple ability to leave out. Sure, once Pogoplug knows your device, it’s available as a network share, but that seems hokey to me. It should be the other way around.
Now, if the DockStar could be used as a standalone NAS and the Pogoplug service is just an added benefit, my conclusion might be something different. Consider this an open invitation to Seagate to show me how to use this device without subscribing to an online service. Until then, I cannot see a single reason to buy the DockStar over the standalone Pogoplug model.
The Seagate FreeAgent Go is a 1TB, USB-powered hard drive that works. What more do you wanna know?
I just got the 1TB FreeAgent Go Portable Drive from Seagate and I’m impressed. First off, it’s not that large. I mean, it’s sort-of bulky compared to Seagate’s smaller FreeAgent Go drives, but it’s manageable. The drive is just a tad less-thick than the width of a SD card. It has a good amount of weight too it and feels solidly constructed. I like it. The extra bulk comes from the larger hard drive that Seagate stuffed into this thing. Don’t expect to rip it out and fit it in your notebook.
The drive came loaded with some autorun software, but I deleted it. Sorry. I hate autorun bullshit on portable drives. Just let me access the file system already. The good news is that this sucker is fast even though it’s only powered by USB. I transferred a 1.1GB file in less than 10 seconds, which is plenty fast in my book. I’m sure you could probably get a Firewire 800 drive to do it a bit quicker, but I’m fine with the 45~ MB/s throughput of the drive. Personally, I would much rather have a slower drive that doesn’t require a power brick than a faster drive that requires extra cables to run. Maybe if I was in a studio setting I would have a different opinion.
So in summery, it’s a 1TB, USB-powered hard drive that works. Oh, and it can be had for around $230 online. Anything else? If not, check back later today for looks at the FreeAgent DockStar and FreeAgent Theater+.
The ioSafe external hard drive is designed to withstand home catastrophes such as floods and fires. But can it survive the 3000-degree fire cannon?
The thought process behind is probably that you, the digital media hoard, might have so many external hard drives that you will lose track of what’s stored where. But with e-ink labels, you will always know which external drive is storing your backups, personal files, or unmentionables even when the drive isn’t powered. This is of course assuming you have enough data to require more than one external hard drive. The labels will be available on the USB-only My Book Elite (up to 2TB for $280) and the Firewire 800 and USB My Book Studio (up to 2TB for $300). I personally think the e-ink idea is kind of novel, but a Dymo labeler would probably work just as well. Western Digital also updated its My Passport Elite portable hard drive by adding a dock and upping its storage capacity to 640GB for $170.
When Peter Ha reviewed the original FreeAgent Theater HD, he loved the UI and the ease of use with the external hard drive. What he didn’t like was the lack of video file support and that it was called HD but didn’t have an HDMI output. Thankfully Seagate payed attention because the new FreeAgent Theater+ HD now plays back pretty much everything: MPEG-1, VOB/ISO, MPEG-4, DivX HD, Xvid HD, AVI, MOV, MKV, RMVB, AVC HD, H.264, WMV9, VC-1, M2Ts, TS/Tp/M2T. Plus, the new model also has an HDMI output and a Ethernet jack. Peter can’t complain now. (but he will anyway)
We have one of these in and we’ll have the review posted soon enough. I have higher hopes for the device now that it supports all those file formats and can stream media off of a local network. Got any burning questions about the FreeAgent Theater+ HD?
Behold! A portable convergence device from faraway lands! It plays music, it plays videos, it takes photos, it’s an e-book reader, a dictionary, a notepad, it slices, it dices, it does it all! But none of that matters. None of it. Why? Because this little $30 gem plays NES games. And so we dance… Officially called the “1 GB Portable Media Player” and available from computer parts vendor Geeks.com for $30, this device features a 2.5-inch LCD screen with 320×240 resolution, a 4-way directional pad, and four action buttons. You’ve also got an OK button, an ESC button, and a top-mounted power button. There are two tiny, tinny speakers on either side of the screen, a 1.3-megapixel camera on the back, and a miniSD card slot and a reset button underneath. This review will focus solely on the NES emulator feature. Please watch the video below if you don’t feel like reading. For starters you’ve got 1GB of built-in storage to work with, which ought to be more than enough for all your favorite NES ROMs. Actually, if memory serves, all the NES ROMs in the world don’t take up an entire gigabyte. The device shows up as an external hard drive in Windows Explorer and ROMs are dropped into a pre-made folder called GAMES. I had trouble getting a few titles to work correctly. Some just wouldn’t load at all, some would play the first few seconds of audio and then crash out, and some contained jacked-up graphics. While a fair amount of these non-working ROMs could just be bad ROMs to begin with, my favorite game of all time — Bad News Baseball — doesn’t work even though it runs fine on my computer. Most of the games I threw at this thing worked just fine, though. Actual processing power is surprisingly impressive. Games run smoothly and with full audio, closely resembling gameplay on an actual NES console. The screen is bright and detailed, and I was able to play games for hours on end without any eye strain or headaches. Battery life is a bit iffy. I’m able to squeeze in about an hour and a half of play time before I need to recharge. On the flip side, the device is super light. The first time I picked it up, I thought the battery was still in the box. The D-pad is on the mushy side, but it gets the job done. I found games that require a lot of precision — some sports games and shooters, for example — to be frustrating from time to time but, hey, the thing costs $30. Racing games, side-scrollers, and fighting games all played pretty well, though. The A and B buttons are correctly placed (B before A) and work just fine, although they’re pretty small and spaced closely together. I did get used to them pretty quickly, despite my Shrek-sized thumbs. One glaring omission is that the volume can’t be controlled while you’re playing games — it can only be turned all the way off in the device’s settings menu. So you’re stuck with sorta-loud audio or no sound at all unless you use headphones. Even with headphones, though, the audio level can’t be changed. Inexpensive device or not, the ability to control volume levels should ALWAYS be included. You can control the volume while using the music and video playing features, though, so it’s just been left out of the emulator. Another thing I personally would have liked are save states. In most computer-based NES emulators, you can save your in-game progress to one or more save state slots, to be continued later. Not here, unfortunately. You’ll have to go super old school and write down game codes just like you used to when you were a kid. It was fun and nostalgic once or twice, but it got old faster than a first-timer on prom night. I’d even trade the volume control feature for save states. Unfortunately, I have neither. All in all, though, if you love old NES games, you should probably treat yourself to this little doodad. It’s literally provided me with hours and hours and hours of enjoyment and it makes a great travel companion. At $30, too, even cheapskates like me can’t complain about the price. 1GB USB 2.0 MP4/MP3/ FM/Voice/ Camera w/2.5″ LCD [Geeks.com]
The only beef I have with the HP LX195 is the price for the amount of storage. Newegg must have heard my cries as the retailer is now throwing in an Western Digital My Book Essential 1TB USB external hard drive. That means, you can get 1.67 TB of storage in a Windows Home Server for only $375. Now that’s a deal, but you better hurry as it ends on 6/25/09. Don’t forget that we are giving away one of these servers in our recent review. Just leave a comment in this post to be entered. WHS can automatically add the USB drive to the storage capacity of the server but you will not be able to use it for anything else unless you format the drive. Who’s to say that you have to use the external drive for this server though? Maybe the 670 GB drive that comes with the LX195 is good enough for your needs. The 1TB drive is just a pleasant bonus.
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ioSafe is running a great deal with Costco right now, you can buy their ioSafe Solo (which 
National Geographic Magazine has been one of the most important publications ever printed. From the insightful articles to the brilliant photography, NatGeo has been the benchmark that other magazines compare themselves to. Now, you can own a copy of every single issue without having to build a new addition to your house to store it.
