Storage World

Flash Memory Forms

Over the years Flash memory chips have appeared in more than 20 memory card formats. Only a few remain, like USB stick, Compact Flash, Secure Digital and Sony Memory Stick are the survivors, along with the proprietary formats of major game console vendors, and mobile phone SIM cards. Smart Media Now almost defunct, Smart Media was the first card memory released with NAND Flash. It often had only a single flash chip mounted in a very thin, flat card and no built-in controller. T...

Flash Memory Forms 2

Secure Digital (SD) Secure Digital or SD cards and the associated formats miniSD, microSD, SDHC (SD High Capacity) miniSDHC and microSDHC, are perhaps today's rising stars of Flash. SD memory is physically small and light, so it is eminently suitable for use in hand-held digital devices such as pocket cameras, mobile phone. The name Secure Digital is used because the original formats, which is SD and SDHC that are fitted with a tiny mechanical write-protect slide switch. High Capaci...

Hypertec Firestorm

External disks are great, in that they let you add extra storage to a PC or server with minimal fuss and expense. Unfortunately, most use USB to connect to the host system, which limits the speed at which data can be transferred and hence the type of application for which they can be used. The latest Hypertec Firestorm drives, however, have eSata as well as USB interfaces, which makes them far more flexible. As the name implies, eSata is an extension to the serial ATA (Sata) interface, used f...

Fake Flash

Flash memory is an obvious target for counterfeiters because it is small and easy to ship, it sells in high volume with a reasonable margin and it's relatively easy to copy the labeling and case designs. Copies are only made of the high-value brand names and they are often so good that it is hard to tell the genuine article when they are compared side by side. However, although the fakes may work they are usually nowhere near as reliable as the genuine article. A simple way to fake Flash i...

Freecom Toughdrive Pro 250GB

Small and light, Freecom's Toughdrive Pro 250GB not only comes with a huge capacity for a 2.5in hard drive but provides a good deal of physical protection for your data. It has a soft, silicone cover that can withstand a drop of two meters and there is a built in anti-shock mechanism. It also draws all the power it needs via the USB2 bus.

Apple Time Capsule

Time Capsule is primarily intended as a storage device for Mac owners using the Time Machine backup program included with OSX. However, it can also be used with Windows PCs or on a mixed Mac and PC network. Basically, Time Capsule is an an 802.11n wireless router with a network hard disk built into it so that everyone on the network can share data. In this review unit was the 500GB model, but there's also a 1TB version. Apple is often criticized for high prices, but Time Capsule com...

Humyo offers 30GB free online storage

An online service offers 30GB of free storage accessible via a web browser from anywhere in the world. The Humyo.com service has nearly 90TB of storage in a former Bank of England vault and an intelligent interface that senses the type of device accessing it and uses the appropriate interface. This means you can access your files from a mobile phone and stream music and video to it. However, the basic service does not allow you to transfer files directly to a local machine: you have to ...

What Is RAID?

RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) is a common method of configuring multiple hard drives to perform better and/or provide better protection against data loss than a single hard drive. The concept is fully explained in this Wikipedia Article, including the various RAID levels which can be used, such as RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5 and RAID 0+1. To set up a basic RAID array you will need two or more hard drives, preferably of the same size and speed, and a motherboard with RAID support. You wi...

Using System Restore

Once the initial backing up of your data and programs is done, and if you are not going to reformat and reinstall Windows XP, you need to create a new System Restore point as an additional safeguard before doing any tweaking. Using System Restore means that even if you make a large number of changes you can undo these changes using System Restore. It is strongly recommended that you create a new Restore Point prior to implementing any major tweak or system change at any time by following the...