Storage World

I doubt there are many of you out there who would deny the convenience of a USB flash drive. I can’t count the number of writable CDs and DVDs I’ve saved by jockeying large files around from PC to PC on a flash drive. But I’m sure virtually all of you will agree that, despite their convenience, USB flash drives could never be too fast or too spacious. With that in mind, I present Corsair’s latest Flash Voyager.

The new Flash Voyager 8GB shares the same durable, rubberized outer shell and blue activity LED as previous products in the Flash Voyager line, but this model sports a relatively large by USB flash drive standards, anyway, 8GB capacity. For those counting, that’s enough space to store a couple of uncompressed DVD movies or thousands of hi-res pictures and MP3s. And like many other flash drives, the Flash Voyager’s partition can be left wide open or password-protected with the included software.

Corsair claims its latest Flash Voyager can read and write data at up to 33MBps and 16MBps, respectively. My testing backs up this claim with files at least 2MB in size, but performance dropped to around 26MBps (read) and 3MBps (write) with files that were 256KB or smaller. Such a performance hit is typically the case with all flash drives, however. One area where the Flash Voyager falters a bit is its physical size. The device’s casing is somewhat bulbous in the middle, which could make it difficult to plug it into a USB port alongside another relatively wide device. It’s also easy to lose the flash drive’s cap, but Corsair will replace it upon request.

Ultimately the latest Flash Voyager is a quality product that literally puts 8GB of storage at your fingertips.

Get the Corsair CMFUSBSRVR-8GBGT 8GB GT Flash Voyager USB Flash Drive now

Get ready for monster laptops as drive manufacturer Hitachi predicts that 750GB notebook storage will be common by 2010. The company just shipped its millionth Travelstar drive using the new, more compact PMR (perpendicular magnetic recording) scheme. Hitachi plans to introduce 200GB and 250GB drives using PMR to the portable market in 2007, but this technology has proven so reliable and scaled so quickly to high-volume production that the company says it expects enormous capacity gains very soon.

OCZ Technology, well known for its extensive line of high-speed system memory, also has a broad range of flash memory products in its arsenal. Many of OCZ’s flash-based offerings, however, incorporate innovative and useful features not found on competing products. Take the Secure Digital Dual 2GB memory card for example. At first glance, the SD Dual looks just like any other SD card. But it isn’t. OCZ has incorporated a USB interface onto the card itself. Slide off a thin protective sheath and insert the SD Duo into any USB slot, eliminating the need for a card reader.

Tested a 2GB 80X OCZ SD Dual using its built-in USB interface and with a SanDisk USB 2.0 card reader on a Core 2-powered desktop system. When I used the card reader, the OCZ SD Dual posted read and write speeds of 3.7MBps and 1.4MB, respectively, with 256K files. With 2MB files, the 80X OCZ SD Dual improved to 3.7MBps (read) and 3.3MBps (write) speeds. It notched 3.3MBps (read) and 4.3MBps (write) speeds with larger 64MB files.

Performance using the built-in USB interface was much better. When I plugged it directly into a USB 2.0 port, the SD Dual’s respective read/write speeds were as follows: 12.3/1.2MBps (256K files), 13.3/2.8MBps (2MB files), and 13.1/5.4MBps (64MB).

OCZ’s Secure Digital Dual OCZSDDU80 2GB card isn’t the fastest SD card on the market but it’s still plenty fast. And the added convenience of its built-in USB interface is a very nice touch.

Place your order now: 2GB Mini Kart USB Slim Drive

We don’t want to start a spec war or anything, but just as SanDisk bumps up speed and reliability of portable storage with its UATA 5000 flash drive, Fujitsu ups the capacity ante with its 300GB MHX2300BT
series of drives. The 2.5-inch SATA drives use PMR technology to pack even more gigabytes into a portable form factor. Although the rotational speed is a modest 4,200rpm, Fujitsu is promising a second generation PMR design that uses less power and has improved shock tolerances. Fujitsu hasn’t yet announced the price of the drives, but they should be available this first quarter in 250GB and 300GB sizes.

Pointing toward a future of solid-state massive storage for PCs, SanDisk wowed attendees at CES this year with its release of the UATA 5000, a 32GB flash RAM drive for notebooks. The 1.8inch drive boasts a sustained read rate of 62MBps for a 512byte transfer rate the company claims is 100 times faster than typical hard drives with moving parts. In addition to sheer speed, the solid-state design substantially reduces both power consumption and failure rates. What does not plummet in this drive is the cost of bleeding-edge early adoption.

There are several reasons for carrying large amounts of data around.Those who work or play with digital video,photos or music will soon find that a flash drive or USB key won’t do the business.

A portable hard disk,which works on the same plug-and-go principle,offers much more room and can still be compact. The snappily named PX-SP08U from
Plextor is even claimed to be shock proofed to withstand the occasional fall. The PX-SP08U is a 2.5in hard disk in a light alloy case.It comes with a silicon
rubber jacket that can be snapped onto it when it’s being carried.

There’s also a leather-like pouch in which to keep the whole thing.A separate power supply isn’t needed as it draws all it needs from a USB 2 socket. We timed some typical transfer speeds using a mixed ‘basket’ of files that totaled 1Gb in size.The Plextor drive transferred the lot in just over a minute.The PXSP08U isn’t blazingly fast,but it is quick enough to play video or music without lag or jitter.

It’s extremely simple to use;just plug it into a USB 2 port and Windows XP identifies it as an additional hard disk allowing you to copy files to and from it.
The PX-SP08Ucan be used for backup too,though disappointingly no application software is supplied.

The PX-SP08U claims to withstand a drop from 80cm,the height of most tables and desks.We dropped it onto carpet from this height,with no ill effects.The harddisk continued to work faultlessly.We hadn’t the heart to repeat the test on a hard floor,but it’s obviously pretty robust. If 80Gb isn’t enough space,Plextor offers the PX-SP12Uat 120Gb.

Microsoft and Samsung Electronics recently showed a prototype hard drive that can record data while idling, a twist that has the potential to significantly cut power consumption in notebooks.

The trick is that the hard drive contains a 1GB flash-memory chip. Incoming data is directly recorded to the chip. When the chip is close to full, the hard drive wakes up, takes the data, records it, and goes back into idle.

Typically, hard drives rotate, but in the hybrid model, the drive rarely spins only about 30 to 45 seconds every half hour, says Ivan Greenberg, director of strategic marketing for Samsung Semiconductor, a division of Samsung Electronics. The goal is to get it to 30 to 45 seconds per hour.

“The traditional hard drive takes up about 10 to 15 percent of the battery power of your notebook,” Greenberg says. Thus, in a notebook with a 4-hour battery, the hybrid drive could extend battery life by about 36 minutes. The companies also say the drive could help accelerate boot up time.

Linksys, more commonly known for its wireless equipment, has now entered the Network Attached Storage (NAS) market with the Instant GigaDrive EFG80. Designed primarily for thesmall/home office markets it provides a simple-to manage, quickly deployable storage solution.

The Linksys GigaDrive EFG80 is supplied with a single Maxtor 80GB Ultra ATA/100 drive installed in one of the two lockable drive bays. The additional drive bay can be fitted with any E-IDE drive up to 120GB. This would allow you set up one drive as a backup, giving you some measure of redundancy.

A cut-down version of Linux is the base operating system, although you’d never know it as allthe administration is done via a Web browser. A setup wizard guides you quickly through theinitial setup process and you’ll find the Web interface simple to navigate.

It’s possible to set up a variety of user groups with individual storage quota levels. Additionallythere’s a parallel port connection for the built-in Print server. This is controlled through the administration interface, although the options for managing the print queue are limited. There are a number of utilities to maintain the file system structure and performance and you can schedule SMART analysis on the drives to monitor any potential hardware problems.

Support for more advanced features, such as Internet Attached Storage (IAS) and InternetPrinting Protocol (IPP), allows remote users to retrieve and print files over the Internet via their Web browser. However, while these are undoubtedly useful features, they can also introduce additional infrastructure and security issues unless used within a secure intranet.

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LaCie’s Universal Media Drive reads wide variety of solid-state storage media

LaCie has launched a new USB media reader that allows users to read and write to most formats of Flash storage from any PC or Macintosh system with a USB port. The drive could help users to
move files more easily and quickly between handheld PCs and desktop or notebook PCs.

LaCie’s Universal Media Drive, available now, supports CompactFlash, Smartmedia, Secure Digital, MultiMedia Card and Sony’s Memory Stick Flash memory formats. It can also be used to access the Microdrive miniature hard disks designed by IBM now sold by Hitachi Global Storage Technologies which fit in to a CompactFlash slot.

‘The USB Universal Media Drive is perfect for those who are working in environments where different kinds of digital media are used,’ said Olivier Moulin, LaCie’s product manager.

Flash memory is commonly used for non-volatile storage of data on PDAs. The most recent Palm models feature a Secure Digital slot, while devices based on Microsoft’s Pocket PC platform sometimes have both Compact-Flash and Secure Digital.

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