Seagate has taken another step on their climb towards the top of the HDD pile by finalising its purchase of Samsung's hard disk drive arm.

The move sees Seagate gain control of select assets, infrastructure and employees, while both companies "have also extended and enhanced their existing patent cross-license agreement and have expanded cooperation to co-develop enterprise storage solutions," according to the press release.

"Together, Seagate and Samsung have aligned our current and future product development efforts and roadmaps in order to accelerate time-to-market efficiency for new products and position us to better address the increasing demands for storage," said Steve Luczo, Seagate chairman, president and CEO.

"It is an exciting time in the industry with rapidly evolving opportunities in many markets including mobile computing, cloud computing, and solid state storage."

First announced in April, the now-completed deal will also see Seagate Drives used in Samsung laptops, while Seagate also gain the semi-conductors Samsung use in their solid state drives.

Storage gurus Buffalo are preparing to launch their toughest drives yet, after today announcing the release of the Buffalo MiniStation Extreme range.

Certified to US Military Standard MIL-STD-810F 516.5 Procedure IV, the MiniStation Extreme can take a tumble from a height of 2.3 metres without causing any damage to your precious data stored within. Rubberised parts and a shock resistant build all help make it the storage equivalent of Charles Bronson.

It's a speedy bit of kit too, managing transfer speeds of 5Gbps thanks to an integrated USB 3.0 cable and Buffalo TurboPC EX technology.

"This latest addition to the MiniStation family is ideal for globetrotters who travel with their PCs and portable HDDs and demand a robust, fast and secure high performance portable storage device," said Paul Hudson, Buffalo's sales director for Northern Europe.

"The MiniStation Extreme can withstand free-fall drops of up to 2.3m making it the most robust MiniStation ever."

Available in black, silver and red, the 500GB MiniStation Extreme costs £74, while a 1TB version sets you back £134.

Seagate's latest hard drive release has its sights set firmly on a place on top of your TV stand. A multimedia drive, the Seagate GoFlex Cinema comes in sizes up to 3TB (as well as being expandable through use with other removeable GoFlex drives) for playback of video, photo and music files, hooking straight up to a flatscreen TV or projector via HDMI or composite video out.

Capable of full HD 1080p playback, the GoFlex Cinema has supports plenty of file types, including: Xvid HD; AVI; MPEG-2 (VOB/ISO); MPEG-1; MPEG-4 (Xvid); AVC HD; H.264; TS/TP/M2T; MOV; M2TS; MKV; FLV; VC-1; and WMV9 video, as well as ASF; MP3; WAV; AAC; FLAC; WMA; LPCM; WMA Pro; Dolby® Digital; and DTS audio formats.

20MP pictures can also be blown up on your big screen via the drive, with full subtitle support on video files. A S/PDIF digital optical audio output port is available to those looking to hook up a speaker system, while USB 2.0 support lets you drag and drop media files onto the drive.

Out now across Europe, it's priced up at €99 for 1TB version, €129 for 2TB and €179 for the 3TB whopper.

Buffalo Technology have just revealed a new range of hard drives called the DriveStation Velocity.

As the name suggests, it's all about speed with the Velocity models, boasting 7,200 RPM speeds and a TurboPC Ex utility for Windows PCs which boosts data transfer rates to 5Gbps over USB 3.0 connections.

In effect, you'll be able to transfer a whopping 1,000 photos in roughly 7 seconds.

Though USB 3.0 is needed to get top speeds, the drive is USB 2.0 backwards compatible too for those yet to make the jump.

Those looking to store particularly sensitive files will also be pleased to know that the drive uses 256-bit AES Full Disk Encryption to keep files secure and out of sight of prying eyes.

Available in Piano Black, the DriveStation Velocity range is out now, reasonably priced at £89.99 for 1TB, £112 for 2TB and £164 for 3TB.

Buffalo are looking to boost your PC storage space without taking up too much room on your desktop with the new MiniStation Plus external hard-drive range.

Shock-proof and USB 3 compatible for high-speed file transfers, the sleek drives come in pre-formatted 1TB and 500GB size options, both offering hardware encryption and password protection.

"Product innovation has always been at the heart of Buffalo's core values," said Paul Hudson, Sales Director Northern Europe at Buffalo Technology. "Continuing in this tradition, Buffalo's new MiniStation Plus combines all the best points of the MiniStation range into one great product."

The 1TB MiniStation Plus will set you back £109.99, while the 500GB drive costs £63.99. Grab them now from Amazon, eBuyer and Dabs.

It's no easy task, but Seagate have been trying damn hard recently to make storage a little bit more sexy than we're used to seeing. We recently reviewed the super-svelte GoFlex Slim portable hard drive,and today Seagate return with the GoFlex Satellite, a wireless drive designed specifically with mobile devices in mind.

A 500GB drive, the idea here is to be able to carry your entire media library on the go with you. Through a built in Wi-Fi connection, the Satellite allows any device with Wi-Fi connectivity and a web browser to access files stored on it, streaming the data from the drive to the tablet or other media player wherever you go.

Housing a Lithium-ion rechargeable battery, you'll get 5 hours of continuous streaming playback from the Satellite, or 25 in standby mode making it the perfect travel companion. You'll also be able to squeeze a little more life out of the battery by using the drive to download files too, streaming video to the point where the transfer is completed and then entering standby mode and seamlessly switching to the locally stored copy.

"The average person has between 80 and 100GB of files on their computer", said Seagate's Greg Falgiano.

"Tablets have between 16GB and 64GB on average, meaning users are having to pick and choose the content they're going to load onto the devices. As a result, large video files are usually the last thing people load onto mobile devices. So we're really targeting those people who want to watch video on the great mobile displays they've now got but need that extra bit of storage space, paired with the flexibility a Wi-Fi connection offers."

Three Wi-Fi devices can stream content from the drive at once, with iOS devices such as iPads and iPhones given further functionality through the GoFlex Media app, which also adds much-needed file browser support for the tablet. Android apps are also planned for the future, as well as DLNA compatibility.

As a mobile drive (120mm H x 88mm W x 32mm D), Segate have worked hard at making the Satellite fairly rugged. A 2.5' drive running at 5400 RPM, the device also features an accelerometer and a special bearing that react in tandem to bumps and drops, should your fingers be of the buttered variety. Segate haven't gone too crazy with digital security methods, only employing WPA standards, but as this device is designed primarily with media files in mind, they're banking on you not using the Satellite for moving around particularly sensitive files.

Launching in the States today, the GoFlex Satellite ships with an RRP of $199. Due worldwide by August, it's expected to hit UK stores for a price of around £169.

For more info, click here.

Name: GoFlex Slim (Seagate)

Type: 320GB ultra-portable external hard drive

Specs: Click here for full specs

Price: £73.20 from Span

Image Gallery: Click here

Who said computer storage devices couldn't be sexy? Seagate's latest portable external storage drive, the GoFlex Slim is so svelte and small it may well replace your USB flash stick as your pocketable drive of choice. But does its performance match its good looks?

There's no denying that Seagate have managed something quite remarkable with the GoFlex Slim drive. At 9mm thick, it's roughly the same thickness as your average Bic pen, and thinner even than the slinky iPhone 4 smartphone. What's even crazier is that it manages to be .5mm thinner than your average 9.5mm standard SATA internal drive. It's still fairly wide and long at 4.1 inches by 3.2 inches, but there is only so small you can make a 2.5 inch drive chassis, and Seagate are definitely pushing the envelope here.

The drive's small size of course leads to at least one concession, and that here lies with overall storage capacity. 320GB is hardly anything to write home about in the external drive stakes these days, and the overall cost-to-capacity ratio is quite expensive, with the average price for the drive around the £80 mark. If large capacity is a necessity for you, look elsewhere, but again for a drive this size 320GB remains impressive.

The drive supports both USB 2.0 and the much faster USB 3.0 connections, and comes packaged with a USB 3.0 backwards-compatible cable. The actual drive itself is comprised of two parts which snap together; the main drive unit with a standard SATA female connector at one end, and an adapter part with a male SATA connector and a Mini-USB 3.0 port for attaching the supplied cable. This flexible design allows for pretty much any connection to be supported providing you snap in a sold-separately GoFlex adaptor. With USB 3.0 currently the fastest peripheral connection available (at least until Thunderbolt drives become the norm) the need for other adapters are unlikely to be much of an issue however. Of course, the SATA connections also mean you'll be able to hook the drive up with a SATA internal drive, no matter what the manufacturer, which is a great addition by Seagate.

Flexibility is extended by the drive's built in software. Though available in two pre-formatted styles (a black chassis with NTFS file system for Windows and white chassis with HSF+ formatting for Macs) pre-installed software drivers give full read/write access across both platforms anyway. It's a thankful addition, and much better than having to use the FAT32 universal standard which frustratingly caps file sizes at 4GB.

All this good work would be for naught however were the GoFlex Slim a sluggish performer when it comes to transfer rates. The drive, with its 7200 RPM speed, has so far proved a consistent joy to use. Testing USB 2.0 transfer speeds, we saw an average of 27.6MBps and 37.5MBps for writing and reading speeds respectively. As you'd expect, USB 3.0 speeds were significantly better at 82.3MBps for writing and 102MBps for reading. They're not category topping speeds, but are very nippy nonetheless, and again particularly impressive given the drive's size. Even during prolonged use the drive stayed quite cool too, despite the lack of any visible ventilation slots.

Capping off an impressive package is the Seagate Dashboard software suite. It bloats the drive by some 195MB with mostly unnecessary software, but don't turn down the optional installation of the Memeo Backup Premium application. It's a simple-but-excellent tool for backing up important files or entire drives, with clever visual representations of the volume of specific file types, as well as customisable backup schedules that should ensure your data is never lost.

Verdict:

You could argue that the GoFlex Slim's relatively small capacity makes it poor value for money, and in that stake alone you'd be right; there are plenty of drives that offer more space for your buck than the 320GB on offer here. However, few drives can balance portability and performance as deftly as this catwalk-ready little number, and the inclusion of very good back-up software more than makes up for any storage shortcomings. Slip this into your jacket pocket and you'll unlikely go back to your USB flash drive ever again.

(Guest post from Shiny Shiny)

The brand new Radeon HD 6990 graphics processor is the fastest graphics technology in the world - no small claim by semiconductor design company AMD, but it seems to be merited.

'This is for the really high-end gaming market,' Leslie Sobon, vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing at AMD, told Shiny Shiny. 'It's faster, more realistic, and delivers a much better visual experience.'

But it's not only gamers who will benefit from this cutting edge technology - anyone working with high-end visuals will benefit, says Sobon. 'Those working with video editing or creating can take advantage of this as well. It's the top of the line, so it's ideal for anyone who considers themselves an enthusiast.'

On to the specs: The card records score of P11865 in the industry standard 3DMark11 benchmark. There is native support for up to five displays, with potential to upgrade to six with additional components. There is also a dual-BIOS toggle switch, allowing enthusiast gamers to unlock the card and rev up the clocks and voltages for even more performance. The card also allows for stereoscopic 3D gaming and film viewing as it has HDMI 1.4a support.

Into affordable laptops
While gamers will be salivating over the news, others may be more enthused to hear AMD is taking this cutting-edge graphics technology beyond the gaming world. Fusion APU is the company's new combined technology, where the graphics capabilities are joined with the regular computer brain onto a single chip. This means faster processing, and AMD expects to see this top-of-the-line technology become available for even basic laptops, explains Leslie Sobon.

'The improvements are still very much about the visuals and the graphics, but with the new chip you get this without sacrificing the battery life.'

Equally interesting is the fact that these jacked-up laptops will come in at modest price points too: 'They will be highly affordable as well,' says Sobon, suggesting prices under the £500 mark.

Fusion has now been officially launched with products including the Sony VAIO Y Series, Acer Aspire One AO522 and Toshiba NB520, and AMD expects budget Fusion APU-powered laptops to become available also from Asus, Dell, Fujitsu, HP, Lenovo, MSI and Samsung.

Specs for the Fusion APU: Multi-core CPU (x86) technology, a high-definition video acceleration block and a high-speed "bus" that speeds data across the differing types of processor cores. Furthermore there's stutter-free HD video playback, DirectX 11-capable graphics and "all-day" battery life.

Sobon says upgrades to the Fusion APU range will continue to be announced on a bi-annual schedule: 'We're moving forward in leaps and bounds.'

SanDisk have today lifted the lid on a new range of solid state drives that are no bigger than a postage stamp, but still boast as much as 64GB of storage space.

Measuring 16mm x 20mm x 1.85mm and weighing less than one gram the Integrated SSDs (iSSD) will pave the way for smaller, lighter mobile computing devices according to SanDisk.

"The new category of embedded SSDs should enable OEMs to produce tablets and notebooks with an unprecedented combination of thin, lightweight form factors and fast performance," said Doron Myersdorf, senior director, SSD marketing, SanDisk. "With our embedded flash storage leadership, SanDisk believes it is uniquely positioned to deliver the ultra compact SSD solutions needed by OEMs."    

Jeff Janukowicz, research manager, solid state drives, IDC, shared Myersdorf's enthusiasm, saying: "The ultra-thin tablet and mobile computer markets are expected to experience tremendous growth over the coming years, and new advanced platforms will introduce new requirements for storage solutions. New embedded SSDs such as the SanDisk iSSD drive, which meet the stringent size requirements of small and light devices while offering greater performance, are designed to enable OEMs to deliver an enhanced user experience in their next-generation designs."   

The SanDisk iSSD is capable of 160MB/sec sequential read and 100MB/sec sequential write speeds and supports the SATA interface in a BGA (Ball Grid Array) that can be soldered onto any motherboard.

Expect to see these popping up in mobile phones and tablet PCs sometime soon.

Seagate have launched the 3TB FreeAgent GoFlex Desk external hard-drive. Offering a whopping amount of storage space, Seagate are claiming it's the world's first external drive of its size.

Compatible with Windows XP, Vista and 7 and Mac OS X 10.4.9 or higher, the USB 2.0 drive also can be used with an additional adaptor to give it USB 3.0 and Firewire capabilities for high speed transfer rates.

"As the definition quality of digital cameras increases, playback devices such as digital photo frames and MP3 players proliferate and the use of the Internet for downloading music and video continues to grow, more files accumulate in the home," said Kurt Scherf, vice president and principle analyst of Parks Associates. "Consumers who are active in digital media creation and consumption will witness their digital media storage needs grow nine-fold by 2014, driving the demand for higher capacity, easy-to-use storage solutions."

The drive is out now, priced £329.

If external drives aren't your thing, Seagate are also working on an internal 3TB hard drive, though there are no official release details for that yet.

LaCie, veterans in the portable storage field, have today unveiled their Rugged Safe external hard drive range. Not content with shock-proofing your precious digital files with military grade exterior rubber shielding, it also offers 128-bit AES hardware encryption. That, in layman's terms, means it's safe from cyber-crooks to the same standards as used by the government.

And as if that wasn't enough, it's also got a fingerprint scanner to lock your sensitive documents away from prying eyes, with support for ten separate user's fingerprint profiles.

"The LaCie Rugged Safe was developed to enable professional or private users to protect their valuable data and intellectual property from theft and unauthorised access," said Erwan Girard, LaCie Business Unit manager. "We've synthesised a range of technologies to ensure this device is the safest and most mobile storage solution - a real vault for your data."

Compatible with either Macs or PCs, it's powered by either a Firewire or USB connection. The LaCie Rugged Safe comes in two sizes, 500GB or 1TB, with prices starting at £169.

Pick one up by clicking here.

The King of Pop Michael Jackson may have left this earthly realm, but that's not to say we can't have a string of baffling Jackson branded products to remember him by does it?

Take for instance this Samsung Michael Jackson branded 500GB external hard drive. I don't quite remember Jackson being a familiar face down in Silicon Valley, but I suppose even from beyond the grave you've got bills to pay. They really would slap his face on just about anything though, wouldn't they? Or in this case, his silhouette.

The hard drive, available from February 22nd, comes pre-loaded with the "This Is It" tour documentary, chronicling the last rehearsals before Jackson's untimely death.

Excuse the pun, but I can't help thinking this is a "Bad" idea.

That said, I bet this lot below have pre-ordered about 12 of the things.

Storage giants Buffalo have today unveiled the latest version of their TeraStation III iSCSI product range.

The Buffalo TeraStation III iSCSI Desktop and 1U Rackmount units offer data transfer speeds of up to 92MB/s, allowing critical business data to be managed, stored and backed up quickly, efficiently and securely. The desktop unit is available in capacities of 2TB and 4TB, whilst the 1U Rackmount unit is available in 2TB, 4TB, 6THB and 8TB.

Paul Hudson, Northern European Sales Director, Buffalo Technology, said: "The potential for iSCSI within small and medium sized business environments is enormous. The TeraStation III iSCSI will allow organisations to back up all their data and make it appear as just another drive on the server. The beauty of iSCSI is that you can aggregate a lot of different devices into one logical volume and for IT managers this makes life infinitely easier and cheaper than backing up to the primary storage tier.

The Buffalo TeraStation III iSCSI for Desktop or 1U Rackmount features include:

* Fully populated, 4 bay, 4 drive device
* Up to 92MByte/s iSCSI high speed data transfer
* Supports RAID levels 0, 1, 5, 10 and Standard
* Advanced RAID system to continually check hard drive performance
* Resilient - Replace faulty hard drives with the Hot Swap functionality without interruption of work
* Hot Spare feature automatically switches failed drive to spare drive to ensure redundancy
* Dual Ethernet connectivity for port trunking
* 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet port and Jumbo Frame capability for higher transfer speeds
* LCD Status Display, easy setup wizard management through intuitive web interface
* Supports UPS connectivity via USB port
* Supported OS: Windows Server 2003/2008, Windows®7(64/32bit), Windows® Vista™, Windows® XP, Windows® 2000 (32bit), Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004/2005
* Available as Desktop or 1U 19" Rackmount
* Warranty 3 Years
* Available as 2TB, 4TB, (Desktop), 2TB, 4TB 6TB and 8TB capacities (Rackmount)

For availability and pricing information, visit www.buffalo-technology.com.

Computers get smaller, file sizes get bigger. Fact. But where to store all of our fancy new HD media and lossless sound files? Acer's Aspire easyStore H340 is one way to keep all your files safely stored away.

The Aspire easyStore H340 is home media server perfect for organising all your video, photo and music files. Totally DLNA compliant, the server can stream files to games consoles and PCs all around the house.

Best of all, the server has four hot-swappable hard disks, allowing for a massive 6TB of storage. That's more than enough space for the Atom powered kit to automatically backup your entire computer, automatically duplicating data to a number of devices.

Your data can also be accessed remotely thanks to a secure personal web address on the Windows Home Server website.

The Aspire easyStore H340 is available now, with prices starting from £329.99 going up to £429.99.

LaCie are set to launch the LaCinema Classic HD media player and server.

Acting as a DLNA server to sync up all your media collections from PCs and games consoles, the LaCinema Classic HD lets you hook up your media content to any HD ready TV around the house via HDMI.

Boasting a 2TB hard-drive, the LaCinema HD has plenty of storage available to house 1080p video content, which is fully compatible with the player. USB support makes shifting content from one device to another simple too.

If you're looking to use the LaCinema Classic predominately for video, LaCie have you covered. All the most popular file formats and plug-ins will be supported, from DivX to high-quality MKV H.264.

Salem Tirane, Digital Home Product Manager said of the product, "LaCinema Classic HD is all you need to store, play and share your movies, music and photos at home. We believe organising and playing should be simple for everyone, without concern for media compatibility or how to access media, no matter where it's stored in your home".

The LaCinema Classic HD is set to feature some pretty attractive functions by the looks of things. Giving change back out of £200, it's not too badly priced either.

For more information, visit www.lacie.com/uk

We told you last year about LaCie's LaCinema - a rugged, portable multimedia hard-drive designed to host all of your multimedia content. Well, as the name suggests, this is the HD upgrade to that device.

As well as playing all the formats you'd expect of a multimedia player - it now plays all of the popular HD variations too, such as H.264, MKV, WMV9 and MPEG-4.

It's got 500GB of storage and offers full HD, 1080p resolution via HDMI. It's designed to be carried around - it has a unique varnished, scratch-protected aluminium shell and shock-resistant rubber sleeve that make it resistant to a bit of rough and tumble.

It's £289.99 and it's available now direct from LaCie.

This guide outlines the main differences between solid state drives (SSDs) and hard disk drives (HDDs).

There are two major types of SSD in current production -- NAND and DRAM. This guide focuses on the more common one: NAND.

It's worth noting that advances are being made all the time on both types of drive and that these differences are generalisations. Individual performance will vary from manufacturer to manufacturer.

1. Speed

Most solid state drives, except ones made using cheaper components, are significantly faster at reading data than a hard drive.

This is because there are no moving mechanical parts on a SSD and so the "seek time" is significantly reduced. Incidentally, DRAM drives are faster still.

Writing large files is also generally quicker on a SSD, though at present there are often performance problems when trying to write a lot of small files to a SSD. It's possible to overcome this through improved system design.

In general, though, SSDs are faster than HDDs.

(PS: SSDs are generally quieter than HDDs because they don't have any moving parts and are usually fanless)

Although solid state drives deliver incredible performance compared to their creaky, mechanical brethren, one area that SSDs have difficulty competing on is price. Opting for an SSD on a laptop, rather than a normal drive, can add hundreds of pounds to its cost, and you'll likely end up with a smaller capacity too.

Flash marketing manager for Samsung, Brian Beard, says: "Flash memory in the last five years has come down 40, 50, 60 percent per year. Flash on a dollar-per-gigabyte basis will reach price parity, at some point, with hard disk drives in the next few years."

The cost gap exists, Beard explains, because the two drives are built differently. In a traditional hard drive, the spindle, motors, PCB and cables all have a fixed price. Upgrading one of them - the motor, for example, so it spins faster - doesn't add a massive incremental cost to the unit.

An SSD on the other hand, has a very small fixed cost - just the PCB and the enclosure. If you upgrade the memory units, increasing the speed or the capacity, the price increases linearly. A doubling of capacity will nearly double the price.

There's plenty of pressure on SSD manufacturers to make their drives conform to the industry standard set up HDDs, but the flash memory market is notoriously unpredictable, so it could be some time things settle down. For the consumer, 256GB solid state drives are only now rolling out into mass production.

(via Cnet)

I'm not sure why I get excited about external storage solutions. I think it's the computer equivalent of shelving and anyone out there can understand people getting pleasure out of talking about that, right?

So, that given, you can basically double my levels of manly excitement when I see that these things look as good as the latest range of external drives from Toshiba. If you like them gloss, then go for the Toshiba Store Art which come in 1.8", 2.5" and 3.5" depending upon how large your collection of illegal downloads is - 160GB, 500GB or a whole fat 1TB.

The only sad part is that they're HDDs and not SSDs, so, despite the promise of low power consumption, expect a degree of whirring. Still it does mean that prices start at a wallet friendly £64.99 when they hit the shelves from April.

Most people know that the hard drive is one of the slowest bits in most modern computers, and we're all eagerly anticipating the arrival of affordable, capacious SSD drives, but I hadn't quite realized how fast these things were until I saw this video, from Samsung's marketing team. Watch it above.

A set of 24 SSDs in RAID can open the entirety of Microsoft Office in half a second, the entire start menu (53 programs!) in 18 seconds, and can copy a DVD from place to place in less time than it takes to throw the aforementioned DVD out of the window. Best of all, the system can defrag in just three seconds. Impressive!

(via Gizmodo)