hard drive

Seagate unveils 1.5 Terabyte desktop drive

Paul Mah — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 09:18:02 -0400

Seagate unveiled a 1.5 Terabyte, 3.5-inch hard disk for the desktop earlier this week. Meant for the mainstream market, the Barracuda 7200.11 represents the 11th generation of Seagate's flagship drive for desktop PCs. The release of this drive marks the single largest jump in hard disk capacity in the history of hard drives, up a half-terabyte from the previous highest capacity of just 1 TB. This was possible due to the four platters based on perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) technology spinning inside the Barracuda 7200.11. In addition, the drive comes with a SATA interface giving three gigabytes per second, and can give a sustained data rate of 120 megabytes per second. According to Seagate, the drive is scheduled to ship in August.

For more on Seagate's 1.5TB hard drive:
- check out this InformationWorld article

Google looking to shift some servers over to SSD

Paul Mah — Tue, 13 May 2008 06:43:18 -0400

Plans are afoot over at Google to shift some of its servers over to SSD-based storage. The motivation has to do with lower electrical consumption compared with that of traditional Winchester (or spinning) hard drives, say sources at memory makers. The SSDs will first see action at servers in Google's Mountain View, CA headquarters. Intel will be supplying the flash chips, while the server controller chipsets will come from Marvell.

With the sheer number of servers that Google operates, DIGITIMES predicts that a shortage of both 16Gb and 32Gb NAND flash chips could result. According to them, shipments are due to arrive late second quarter.

For more on Google and SSD:
- check out the DIGITIMES article

Stamping out domain tasting

Mon, 12 May 2008 06:59:58 -0400

The sharp increase in speculation over domain names is causing a backlash. As every CIO knows, a company's domain name is a treasure, but havoc can be caused by typo-squatters--those who create and register websites with misspelled variations of company names.

Millions of names also are routinely tied up in a constant churn of registering and returning names before fees are charged--a practice known as "domain tasting" that is used to test out advertising and marketing possibilities.

Now the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the organization based in California that manages domain names--is considering steps to stop the practice. The board of ICANN will vote in Paris next month on a proposal to severely limit the number of domain names that can be returned without a fee, but the organization is facing resistance from domain name registrars who are against ending the grace period.

To read more on the domain name chase:
- see this cio-today.com article

For more tech stories from the FierceCIO network:
> Space shuttle hard drive data recovered. Article
> Dell takes aim at MacBook air. Article
> HTC announces Touch Diamond. Article

Phoenix Technologies enables remote drive security

Mehan Jayasuriya — Fri, 09 May 2008 13:21:52 -0400

Phoenix Technologies has announced that it will bring its "FailSafe" tech to Fujitsu's new Full Disk Encryption (FDE) 2.5" 7200RPM SATA hard drive. FailSafe allows IT admins to remotely track, disable and even erase drives in the event that a machine containing sensitive data is lost or stolen. No word yet on pricing or launch date, though we're sure that there are plenty of admins out there that can't wait to get their hands on this tech.

For more on FailSafe:
- see this Gizmodo article

Hard Disk Crusher is serious about security

Mehan Jayasuriya — Fri, 02 May 2008 12:25:15 -0400

How serious are you about making sure that the secure data stored on your business's hard drives stays out of the wrong hands? Given the recent rash of corporate laptop thefts the last few years, the answer just might be "not serious enough." Well, while it might be overkill, one way to ensure that data cannot be recovered from a discarded drive is to physically destroy the drive itself. Enter the $11,500 EDR Hard Disk Crusher. This machine will drill through any hard drive, ripping the drive's platters apart in order to make data recovery impossible. According to EDR's website, the Hard Disk Crusher can tear through a drive in 10 seconds flat, so it certainly seems like it could be an efficient solution for enterprises with a large backlog of drives to crush.

For more on the disk crusher:
- see this Gearlog article

Lawyers miss the boat on eDiscovery

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 06:59:59 -0400

With all this talk about eDiscovery and so many companies pushing tools to protect or gain access to key digital information, you would think that lawyers would get it. Experts say that lawyers relying on the disclosure of computer evidence may be missing out on valuable clues if they are accepting CD-Rs containing the requested material. What's wrong with that? Plenty, according to some experts. Alan Philips, chief executive at 7safe, said that taking snapshots and burning them to CDs may provide lots of documents, but no assurance of getting everything that is needed. It is better, he said, to take complete hard drive scans that show what documents have been deleted and where they have been moved.

For more on this pressing digital issue:
- Check out this Vnunet article

WD Velociraptor is fastest drive ever

Mehan Jayasuriya — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 10:33:32 -0400

What's faster than a Raptor? A Velociraptor, apparently. Western Digital has gone and bested their existing Raptor line of speedy drives by unleashing the Velociraptor, a drive that they claim is the world's fastest mechanical hard drive. The 300GB drive connects via 3GB/s SATA and spins at a blazing fast 10,000RPM. What's more, it's actually a 2.5" drive but because of its massive heatsink, needs to be placed in a 3.5" drive bay. So, is the Velociraptor a marketing ploy or the fastest drive ever? The folks at Maximum PC set out to find the answer and their benchmarks (versus the old Raptor X and the previous king of the storage hill, Samsung's HD103UJ) present a compelling case. "[W]hen it comes to consumer-level drives that are both affordable and practical, you cannot beat a Velociraptor."

For more on the Velociraptor:
- check out the benchmarks over at Maximum PC

Lenovo IdeaPad U110 is X300 alternative

Mehan Jayasuriya — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 11:29:03 -0400

Lenovo's X300 seems like a solid alternative to the MacBook Air for the Windows-loving business set. The downside is that the X300 is more expensive than the MacBook Air, which itself is a pretty pricey machine. So here's yet another alternative: the Lenovo IdeaPad U110, a tiny 11.1-inch, 2.3 pound ultraportable. Inside you'll find a 1.6Ghz Core 2 Duo, up to 3GB of RAM and as much as 120GB of storage. Additional enterprise-friendly features include shock protection for the hard drive and face-recognizing biometric login technology. At $1,999, it's still more expensive than the cheapest MacBook Air, but at least its a little easier on your wallet than the X300.

For more on the little lappie:
- see this Gizmodo article

2.5″ disks to become standard in 2009?

Mehan Jayasuriya — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 13:27:38 -0400

The old, reliable 3.5" hard drive has been with us for years. Fifteen, to be exact. So when someone maintains that a new storage standard is going to take over inside of a year, you've got to at least hear him out. That's exactly what ZDnet's storage guru Robin Harris is predicting, and he's got a number of reasons to back him up: increasing storage capacity for 2.5" drives, dropping prices, increasing speeds and the advent of 2.5" drive arrays. "[B]y the end of 2009, most new storage arrays will be announcing with 2.5″ drives," Harris writes. "High-end workstations, like the next-gen Mac Pro, will be both smaller while containing more drive bays...The last 3.5″ disk will roll off the assembly line in 2014."

For more on Harris' prediction:
- see this ZDnet blog entry

Wipe your hard drive

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 06:59:58 -0400

There are many steps to take to protect your data. One of them is to make sure your hard drive is cleaned before reusing. And remember it is important to use the technology that can sanitize hard-drive data.

For more on products to wipe your hard drive:
- See this CIO Magazine article