No matter how resistant USB flash drives are compared with mechanical drives, they can still be damaged or corrupted by serious physical abuse. The circuitry of a flash drive can even be harmed by improper wiring of a USB port. And while USBs flash drives are appreciated for compact size, at the same time they can be easily left behind. This brings us to the biggest issue of the DT200. While most of us will love having 128GB of highly portable storage at hand, that’s a heck of a lot of data waiting to get lost or stolen. Individuals and small-business users should question whether carrying around so much data is wise. In spite of the security issues, the DT200 is a very good drive that could be put to a wide range of uses. It’s not the fastest or most individually styled but it’s practical and functional. Having said that, I’d have liked some auto-backup software included in the bundle. The biggest drawback is price, which is shockingly expensive considering you can buy an external 500GB hard drive (2.5-inch) for under £100. Still, this is far pocket-friendlier. It is backed by a 5-year warranty and 24/7 tech support.
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The Western Digital My Book World Edition II 2 TB network storage system uses RAID 1 (Mirrored) technology to automatically and continuously maintain a second copy of user’s data using supplied software that you need to install on each computer that you want to keep backed up. When running in RAID 1, if one drive in the two-drive system ever fails, the system continues to run and the data is safe. The My Book World Edition II storage device can be run in RAID 0 (Striped) mode as well if speed over redundancy is required. All My Book World Edition II’s ship in mirrored mode, though, as the main purpose of this drive is for data security. As a result, that means you can only use half the rated capacity for file storage since one drive is used for a mirror…
One of the things that makes the DataTraveler 101 interesting is that the Flash drive was built with simplicity in mind, which helps keep the price low. The 4GB version (DT101C/4GB) of the DataTraveler 101 that we are taking a look at today runs just $11.99 shipped, which is more than a fair price as the DataTraveler 101 is backed by a five-year warranty and free tech support. Other companies like Crucial, Transcend, and RiDATA offer just two year warranties, so be sure to keep the warranty length in mind when pricing USB 2.0 Flash Drives.
There are very few products that grab enthusiast attention like SSDs have. OCZ has created a well-deserved buzz around the industry since they launched their Core II, Apex, and Vertex multi-layer cell SSD products for retail consumers. Now they’ve gone one step further, and designed a SLC SSD for the demanding enterprise server segment. Benchmark Reviews welcomes the OCZ Vertex EX SSD OCZSSD2-1VTXEX120G into the ranks, and our bandwidth performance tests compare the Vertex EX to several other SSDs occupying the high-end market.
The Intel X25-M/Kingston SSDNow M Series 80GB SATA 2.5″ internal SSD is a very impressive drive that looks great on paper and held its own when it came to the benchmarks. The SNM125-S2/80GB lead many of the read benchmarks, but trailed other SSDs in the write benchmark tests. Intel claims their drives and firmware is better suited for wear-leveling, but that is something we can’t test. Sometimes slower is better and if the drive lasts longer it might be worth it…
As the platter density increases, hard drives are able to pack more data per disk and, as a result, the time for data retrieval is shorter due to less time that is needed to find the bits of data. Not only that, hard drives are able to perform faster. The larger areal density also allows hard drive manufactures to exceed the storage capacity of 1TB and now we are seeing HD manufactures breaking into 1.5TB and even 2TB. Seagate’s latest Barracuda 7200.12 is the company’s first hard drive that comes with 500 GB platter density.
Our next Pico we will be reviewing is the Pico-C Nickel. Which like the Gold model is plated with the precious metal. The advantage the Nickel has over the Gold we reviewed is an additional 8 gigs of storage. Not only is the storage size a pretty amazing aspect of the Pico but its physical size is as well. The Pico weighs in at an incredible 6 grams. At this size the drive is a non factor while hanging around your neck on a necklace or on your key chain.
As many of us know, computers, and their related hardware, have been getting smaller and smaller over the years. Peripherals and add-ons are no exception, of course. Laptop mice have become a niche all their own, desired for their small size and portability. So too, have the USB thumb drives. Leading the charge when it comes to miniaturizing is Super Talent, with their Pico line of USB drives. The Pico has been around for some time now, but the 16GB generation is a relative newcomer.
Lower power consumption and heat output are the least impressive benefits of Solid State Drives. The real payoff is in the practically instant response time and high-performance throughput. Once SSDs could outperform their HDD counterpart, it was all about price and capacity. Adding up to 64MB of Elpida DRAM to the buffer has permanently solved stuttering problems, making raw performance the last bottleneck. An Indilinx ‘Barefoot’ internal controller commands the bank of Samsung K9HCG08U1M DRAM modules, allowing a single OCZ Vertex SSD to offer impressive capacity with unmatched performance. But what if we put two Vertex SSDs into a striped RAID-0 array? Benchmark Reviews tests the speed and bandwidth of two OCZSSD2-1VTX120G SSDs against the fastest storag! e products on the planet in this OCZ Vertex SSD RAID-0 performance article.
External storage devices have become extremely popular, USB sticks up to 64gb in size and small 2.5inch laptop drive based external HDDs up to 500gb. Size isn’t everything though, today we test three HDD docking stations, from Sunbeamtech, Sharkoon and Thermaltake, which make adding extra HDD space to your PC child’s play; these docking stations take any 2.5/3.5inch devices, even SSD.
