Articles about Storage

It's well known that sound at particular levels can cause problems -- we've all seen demonstrations of wine glasses being shattered by high frequencies, for example.

You might not think that's much of an issue for computers, but researchers at the University of Michigan and Zhejiang University in China have shown that sounds can be used to interfere with disks.

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You can never have too much storage capacity. For instance, when it comes to microSD or SD cards, nothing is worse than running out of room when on vacation -- you shouldn't have to decide which memories to delete from your camera. Not to mention, when shooting 4K video, you can run out of storage even quicker these days.

Today, PNY releases a new Class 10, U1 micro SD card to address this dilemma. With a monstrous 512GB capacity, you can be sure that your camera, drone, tablet, or other device that leverages the micro-sized card will have plenty of room for storing content.

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Solid state drives are in the future of computing, while hard disk drives are the past. With that said, despite being destined for the history books, HDDs are still a big part of the present. In other words, despite being older technology, mechanical hard drives definitely have their place these days. Why? Well, they offer huge capacities at affordable prices. True, solid state drives are dropping in price, but they still aren't financially feasible for data centers, for instance. SSDs will get there eventually, but for now, hard drives live on.

Amazingly, some manufacturers are still pushing the HDD envelope, delivering ever-increasing capacities. For instance, today, Western Digital -- one of the most respected storage companies -- announces a new 14TB HDD called "Ultrastar DC HC530." While that storage capacity has been done before, this is the first 14TB drive to use conventional magnetic recording (CMR).

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The new Rugged Raid Pro is a highly versatile portable storage device. Just unveiled by LaCie, it is designed to withstand the rough conditions of working in the field, featuring a durable shell and the option for automatic backups, but it can also be quite fast when the user wants to speed up data transfers.

How has LaCie managed it? Well, the Rugged Raid Pro, as its name suggests, can be set up in a Raid 1 or Raid 0 configuration, with the former duplicating data on a second internal drive and the latter boosting speeds at up to 240MB/s. The total capacity of the Rugged Raid Pro is 4TB, most likely achieved in a non-Raid 1 setup.

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While prices for NVMe solid state drives are dropping, it is important to remember that all such drives are not created equally. We recently shared a new Kingston NVMe drive with you -- the A1000 -- and while I am sure it's a fine product, it only uses PCIe Gen 3.0 x2, making it slower than drives utilizing x4. Consumers will have to decide if the speed trade-off is worth any potential savings.

Today, Western Digital launches the Black 3D NVMe SSD, and it looks amazing. While it is affordable, like the aforementioned Kingston drive, it uses PCIe Gen 3.0 x4, giving it insane performance. In other words, with this drive, you don't have to sacrifice speed for savings.

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One of the most important purchases a photographer can make is their memory card. Whether you are a professional or amateur photo-taker, you undoubtedly want to protect your images. This is why it is important to focus on reputable brands -- it isn't worth saving money by going with a lesser-known brand if your files get corrupted, right?

One company that has a great reputation is Kingston. It has long sold quality flash products. Today, the popular company unveils its new "Canvas" line of memory cards. They are available as both micro SD and SD, plus in various speeds and capacities. In other words, Kingston is aiming to meet the needs of many. There are three distinct Canvaas variants from which to choose -- Select, Go, and React.

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Back in the day, external storage capacity was quite minuscule compared to what is on the market now. Believe it or not, there was once a time where a 1.44 MB floppy was seen as huge. Zip disks eventually brought 100MB, while optical media delivered even more. USB flash drives and memory cards started out low on capacity, but these days, they offer hundreds of gigabytes in tiny form factors. Modern flash media doesn't just offer a ton of capacity, but super speed too.

Today, SanDisk -- a Western Digital company -- announces the 400GB Extreme UHS-I microSDXC card. What really makes this card special, however, is not its capacity, but its speed. The company claims it is the world's fastest UHS-I card. How fast is it? It offers 160MB/s read speed. Write performance is less impressive at "just" 90MB/s.

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The future of technology is about more than just increasing raw processing power and embracing the likes of quantum computing -- storage is also a serious concern. We already generate huge amounts of data, and the amount we need to store is only going to increase.

Just as processors have developed in new and exciting ways over the years, so there have been great strides made in the field of storage. But variants on the current methods of storage are simply not going to cut it for much longer. Thankfully, scientists in Ireland may have come up with a solution -- storing data in DNA.

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It probably comes as no surprise that we're all storing more data. But just how much of an impact is this having for businesses.

Enterprise file sharing specialist Egnyte says 82 percent of businesses are hybrid-enabled, keeping their data both physically backed up and in put into cloud storage. This is up from 76 percent in 2016.

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Do you care about your data? If yes, I hope you are backing it up. While I swear by the cloud for backups, only a fool would trust their important data to another company’s servers alone. In other words, it is smart to leverage the cloud, but you should also store your data locally. Redundancy is key, folks.

For locally stored data, I recommend external storage solutions. Why? These drives can be easily taken with you in an emergency, or physically locked in a safe if needs be. To take things further, a rugged external drive with water resistance is ideal. Today, ADATA unveils a new USB 3.1 gen 1 (USB 3.0) durable drive that meets that need.

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Solid state drives are all the rage nowadays, and it is not hard to see why. Not only are they much faster than traditional mechanical hard drives, but they consume much less electricity too. While power consumption might not be a big deal for home users, it can really add up in the enterprise where many drives are in use. In other words, a reduction in energy use can really benefit data centers and other business uses.

Today, Samsung unveils a new high-performance SSD aimed at the enterprise. The "SZ985 Z-SSD," as it is called, uses special Z-NAND memory. The drive is designed for The Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence, supercomputing, and more. With that said, there is no reason enthusiasts can’t use it on their PCs.

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The rise of the cloud has made for greater complexity in business IT environments, with data accumulating on different platforms and in different locations.

To address this problem, object storage company Cloudian is launching a new version of its HyperStore platform which integrates data management capabilities to bridge traditional and cloud native environments, as well as object and file storage types.

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I love my MacBook Pro for many reasons, but one in particular is the Thunderbolt 3 ports. If you aren't familiar, Thunderbolt 3 is insanely fast at 40Gbps, but also, it is very versatile. It can transmit video and data, for instance, but also, it is compatible with USB-C devices too. By connecting a single Thunderbolt 3 cable to my Mac, I can simultaneously charge it and transform it into a desktop thanks to a docking station. Seriously, folks, TB3 is amazing.

The company Patriot is leveraging Thunderbolt 3 for data storage, and its new EVLVR (pronounced "evolver") Portable SSD is blazing fast as a result. Not only is it very speedy, but it is physically small too -- a big win for portability. Despite being diminutive, it has big capacity -- up to 1TB of storage. Wow!

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Solid state drives are ideal for portable storage. Why? They are small, fast, and have no moving parts. Unfortunately, SSDs are also a bit expensive per gigabyte compared to mechanical hard drives.

If you need external storage that won’t break the bank, and speed is not a major factor, a mechanical USB hard drive is still a great choice. Over the years, I’ve had great experiences with Toshiba CANVIO drives. Today, the company unveils three new models -- CANVIO BASICS, ADVANCE, and PREMIUM.

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I must be honest -- I am starting to become fatigued by all of the vulnerabilities and security failures in technology nowadays. Quite frankly, between Spectre and Meltdown, I don't even want to use my computer or devices anymore -- I feel exposed.

Today, yet another security blunder becomes publicized, and it is really bad. You see, many Western Digital My Cloud NAS drives have a hardcoded backdoor, meaning anyone can access them -- your files could be at risk. It isn't even hard to take advantage of it -- the username is "mydlinkBRionyg" and the password is "abc12345cba" (without quotes). To make matters worse, it was disclosed to Western Digital six months ago and the company apparently did nothing until November 2017. Let's be realistic -- not everyone stays on top of updates, and a backdoor never should have existed in the first place.

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