solid state drives

So far, tablets generally use flash memory as their internal storage. That's about to change.

Seagate announced today a new Ultra Mobile hard drive (HDD), designed exclusively for mobile devices. The storage vendor says the new hard drive, with up to 500GB, will enable tablets to have PC-like storage space, while offering the same reliability as does flash memory.

The Ultra Mobile HDD is integrated with Seagate's Mobile Enablement Kit that includes Seagate's Dynamic Data Driver software technology to address key areas to make it function beyond a standard laptop HDD. These areas include shock management, heat … Read more

WD has some great news for people with a network attached storage (NAS) server, such as the Synology DS1513+ or the QNAP TS-469 Pro: new Red internal hard drives.

These SATA hard drives are specifically designed for home and small office NAS systems that come with one to five drive bays. The new drives are available in both 2.5-inch (750GB and 1TB capacities) and 3.5-inch (4TB) designs.

The WD Red lineup is a family of regular internal hard drives that work wherever other SATA hard drives are used. WD Red drives are compatibility-tested with top NAS systems and … Read more

Some ads, like some movies, can be so bad that they become a peculiar sort of good.

Then there are ads that maintain a deep worthlessness and cause only pain to the senses.

You must decide how you feel about this opus, created by Samsung.

Released a couple of weeks ago, it sat in the Internet's ether, hiding in plain sight. Then the critics at Reddit got hold of it and mused whether the world had ended early.

The ad, for Samsung's 840 EVO Series Solid State Drive, seems to have enjoyed a very strict casting brief: please … Read more

Following up on the SSD 840 series that came out in November 2012, Samsung today announced its new entry-level solid-state drive, the 840 Evo.

The main difference between the two is the fact that the 840 Evo offers up to 1TB of storage space, double that of the 840 series, and significantly faster performance.

Like the previous drive, the 840 Evo comes in the 7mm-thick, 2.5-inch design and supports the SATA 3 (6Gbps) I/O standard.

Samsung says the 840 Evo uses its compact 10-nanometer class 128GB NAND flash memory, which the company started mass-producing in April, and is … Read more

Apple's new MacBook Air has adopted faster solid-state drives made by Samsung. But Apple won't be the only beneficiary.

Samsung announced Monday that it has started mass-producing new PCIe solid-state drives aimed at the next generation of ultrabooks. SSDs that use a PCIe connection offer faster speeds than those outfitted with SATA (Serial ATA) connections.

As one example, Samsung's XP941 SSD can read data sequentially at 1,400 megabytes (1.4 gigabytes) per second, the highest speed offered by a PCIe 2.0 interface. In the real world, that means the drive can read 500GB of data … Read more

Intel today introduced the DC S3500 series solid-state drive, which brings enterprise performance at a cost that general consumers can afford. The new drive is optimized for read performance, which is important for data centers, or storage servers.

The new drive supports the SATA 3 (6Gbps) standard and is available in both 2.5-inch and 1.8-inch designs. The former is available in 80GB, 120GB, 160GB, 240GB, 300GB, 480GB, 600GB, and 800GB capacities, while the latter is available in 80GB, 240GB, 400GB, and 800GB capacities. Both designs are 7mm thick.

Intel says the new SSD uses its 20nm NAND flash … Read more

Today only, over at Rakuten.com, you can buy a Seagate Expansion 4TB USB 3.0 hard drive for $139.99 shipped when you apply coupon code 5419C15 at checkout.

Four terabytes. For $140. That's quite possibly the best storage deal I've ever seen, at least in terms of price per terabyte.

On the other hand, what on earth would a person do with that much space? Sure, if you use your PC as a media center and record a lot of high-def TV shows and movies, this would be great. (Flip side: If you're hoarding 4TB … Read more

Ready to get serious about solid-state storage? If you've looked into SSD upgrades for your laptop, you know that you can easily spend upward of $175 for a measly 128GB drive. That's fine for some users (myself included), but not nearly enough for others.

This should be enough: For a limited time, and while supplies last, Newegg has the OCZ Agility 3 480GB SATA III internal SSD for $299.99, shipped. That's after applying coupon code EMCYTZT3478 at checkout. (Note that you must be a Newegg newsletter subscriber in order to use the code.)

That's an … Read more

There's more to digital storage than you might be aware of, and your needs often require devices across the entire spectrum. Start with the internal drive, then get an external drive, then a portable drive, then something you can access remotely or stream content from. Or just maybe, you might find you need something that works both as a portable drive and a media streamer, even when you're out and about. Yes, you could just realize that you want too much!

But no worries, you won't need to spend too much time on your search. The six … Read more