Articles about Storage

It is fair to say that Windows Phone still needs quite a few major titles in Store before the so-called app-gap can be considered a thing of the past. Take cloud storage services for example. You can embrace OneDrive if you want to stick with Microsoft services, or, as an alternative, use Box. But neither Dropbox nor Google Drive are an option. Both are hugely popular services, and their availability can be a deal-breaker for prospective Windows Phone users.

The good news is that at least Dropbox's availability on Windows Phone is no longer an issue, as the cloud storage service just launched its app in Store. It's undeniably a major win for the tiled smartphone operating system, which has consistently been criticized for lacking an official Dropbox client.

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Windows Phone is the last major mobile platform to receive an official Mega app, following Android, iOS and even BlackBerry. It took quite a long time for the offering to make its public debut in Store, as the cloud storage service, which launched two years ago, first mentioned details surrounding its development in mid-2013.

Expectations are high, also taking into account the fact that Mega currently sits in Windows Phone Store as version 2.0. What does it have to offer? Well, let's take a look at the features it has, and should have.

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If you are into PC gaming, then you probably have a really sweet computer. I'm sure it has a powerful graphics card and a ton of RAM, but what about storage? If your operating system is running from a traditional spinning hard drive, your computer is lame. All the cool kids have solid state drives and if you do not, then you are truly missing out.

Don't worry though, there are plenty of SSDs on the market, and prices have been dropping lately. Today, Silicon Power announces two new such drives, with a big emphasis on gaming. If you are looking to achieve faster load times for games, or just an overall performance boost, you should definitely take notice.

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Solid state drives are commonly used nowadays in premium ultrabooks, laptops and desktop PCs, mainly because they are faster and more energy-efficient, and run cooler than traditional hard drives. They are also favored by those who build their own PCs, and as aftermarket upgrades for older devices. SSDs are commonly connected using SATA, but, for the best results, PCIe is the better option.

So, naturally, Samsung has chosen to use PCIe with its latest SSD for ultra-thin laptops and workstations. Dubbed SM951, it promises lighting-fast performance, with speeds over 1000 MB/s, and excellent energy-efficiency, consuming less than 2mW in standby. It will be offered in 128 GB, 256 GB and 512 GB storage options.

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If you need a portable storage device, then are you are most likely looking to buy an external HDD. They are available in lots of sizes, and they are also pretty affordable. However, they are also slow. Too slow, I would say. So, if you need something that is fast -- that can transfer files quickly and open everything almost instantly -- then a portable HDD is not the answer.

However, a portable SSD would fit the bill just fine. On top of being faster, it will also be more energy-efficient and less sensitive to shocks. Targeting this crowd, Samsung today announced Portable SSD T1, which is about to hit store shelves in three storage trims. And it is so small and light, you can carry it in your pocket.

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More than ever before we expect our technology to come with us wherever we go and more importantly be able to survive the journey.

The weakest link in the past has usually been storage because even SSDs don't take too kindly to rough treatment. Storage company G-Technology is using CES to launch a solution in the form of its range of rugged drives.

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Jump on the iDevice bandwagon and one of the first decisions you'll need to make is choosing capacity. This may be determined largely by budget, but what if you run out of space further down the line? Not many people are in a position to just invest in the same device with more space, but Leef iBRIDGE is a neat plug-in solution.

Just as you can expand the storage space of your computer or laptop with a USB drive, Leef iBRIDGE works in much the same way for your Apple device. Available in 16GB, 32GB, 64GB, 128GB and 256GB capacities, the little plug-in modules give you a little breathing room for more music and photos.

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In the story of Snow White, there is an aging, evil queen that is totally jealous of the sexier title character, and thus wants to murder her. So basically, Ms. White runs into the woods, hooks up with some little people, and ultimately falls in love with a sexy prince guy. The end. Why did I tell this story? Oh yes, the magic mirror! Everything I just told you is pointless, other than to say that in the story, the queen had an enchanted mirror.

Speaking of mirrors, LaCie today announces a new portable hard drive by the name of "Mirror". Why? You guessed it; it serves as a mirror. Yes, most of the USB 3.0 hard drive body is Corning Gorilla Glass, which makes it reflective. Crazy, but totally sexy too! How do you not want this on your desk?

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I'm not easily impressed. Lots of tech products see the light of day each year, but only a few I consider to be truly great. And by that I mean technology that I want to have in my life, that brings value, and, last but not least, that makes me feel good. The subjective factor is just as important, I believe, when it comes to the things that I have to look at and interact with on a daily basis. That's just the way it is, and I'm fine with it.

Because of this, a pretty long list can get really, really short in no time. My colleagues have already shared their favorite tech products of 2014 with you, and now the time has come for me to do the same. It's BetaNews tradition, after all. So, without further ado, here they are.

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I am a huge, huge fan of SSDs. They're blazing-fast, resistant to external shocks and, let's not forget, they are also energy-efficient. What's not to love about that? They're, quite frankly, the only storage solutions I want to use in my laptops, and the only type of storage solutions I can wholeheartedly recommend. (You can probably tell just how excited I am about SSDs, right?)

But, there are two (some might say major) downsides to SSDs, which go hand in hand: cost and capacity. To get a decently-sized SSD, one has to spend considerably more than for a HDD of the same capacity. In fact, the difference is huge. For instance, a 1 TB Seagate Barracuda HDD goes for around $50 on Amazon, while an SSD of the same capacity from Samsung (840 EVO family) costs around $420, on the same site. Also, SSDs don't usually go above the 1 TB mark, which makes them a poor choice for large file storage. That's where a HDD shines. And what better HDD to use for, let's say, long-term storage of movie collections than the soon-to-ship 8 TB Seagate Archive?

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Anyone buying a new PC or laptop today should get it with an SSD, or replace the HDD with one immediately after. The performance difference is huge, most noticeable in terms of responsiveness, software launch times, booting, loading information, but also when it comes to transferring files internally. An SSD will make any new device feel extremely fast, even if it is among the least-expensive PCs or laptops on the market.

Swapping the HDD with an SSD is the best thing one can do to increase performance, dramatically, also for an older PC or laptop, where the performance difference will be even more dramatic. A six-year old HP laptop that I have feels every bit as fast as any modern equivalent, in day to day use, thanks to an SSD upgrade I performed two years ago. However, there is a catch with using SSDs and that is their seemingly short lifespan. Very old SSDs are expected to not last as long as HDDs, the latter of which benefit from a more mature technology. So how do newer SSDs -- the ones that you are most likely to find and buy today -- fare?

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The IT needs of businesses are constantly evolving and technology giant HP has announced a raft of new products aimed at optimizing today's workloads whilst preparing for the future.

Offerings include new servers, faster storage, converged systems and an expanded range of services including combining HP Enterprise Services with Microsoft Office 365.

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Bare metal recovery (BMR), restoring a machine with no requirement for operating systems or software to be present beforehand, isn't always seen as a reliable technique.

To look at how successful it really is, cloud backup and disaster recovery specialist Zetta.net has released the results of a survey looking at companies’ real world experience of BMR.

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When you buy a Galaxy Note 4 or Galaxy Note Edge you don't just get a great phablet. On top of all the powerful features that Samsung packs in its stylus-toting flagships, it also throws in a lot -- and I mean a lot -- of freebies, most of which you may not even be aware of.

And by freebies I mean freebies that you may want to take advantage of, not free stuff that is nice to have but hardly useful. This is something that Samsung has been doing for quite some time, as it applies to other flagships in its portfolio like Galaxy S5, but is only now detailing the freebies for its Galaxy Note 4 and Galaxy Note Edge customers. The best known perk is probably the 50 GB of free Dropbox storage, which is good for two years.

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Over the past three decades, the storage industry has changed significantly, not just in terms of evolving technologies, but also with regard to the volumes of data we produce and therefore the amount of storage we require. Today, we are accustomed to talking about terabytes and even exabytes when it comes to our data storage needs. But 30 years ago things were very different.

If we consider the capture of CCTV images in the 1980s, image quality was much lower than it is today. Surveillance technology, for example, created low-resolution images, which with the introduction of the VCR, were transitioning from real-time in-person monitoring to being recorded onto tape for playback and archive. The challenges were in tape capacity and the sequential nature of tape, which provided fairly slow access to specific sections of footage.

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