Western Digital My Passport 320GB 2.5″ External Hard Drive Review
August 27, 2008
External hard drives are becoming less and less expensive while offering even more storage capacity. One prime example of this is the 320GB 2.5” external hard drive from Western Digital. It’s half price in the PC World sale so you can pick one up for £75 at the moment – that’s a lot of storage for your money.
Styled like a wallet the Western Digital My Passport external hard drive looks good, as well, and is available in a choice of black, red, blue, or white to match your mood (or, indeed, your computer room interior design).
Compatible with both PC and Mac computers, the 320GB of storage is enough to hold around 100,000 photos, 80,000 mp3 music files, 320 hours of digital video, 53 hours of DVD, of 13 hours of HD footage. Whatever your multimedia poison there’s a lot of room to fill up before you need another.
128 bit encryption ensures it’s perfectly safe to take your drive with you and it has synchronisation software so that you can make changes to its contents on any computer and then synchronise those changes with your home or office based computer.
- 320GB of storage capacity
- 2.5″ Form Factor External hard drive
- Stores up to 80,000 MP3 songs
- or up to 455 movies
- Smart and energy efficient
- PC and Mac compatible
- Backup all your important files
- 480 mbits/sec Internal Transfer Rate
Kingston DataTraveler Mini Slim Flash Drive
August 6, 2008
Kingston has certainly been batting out the PC storage devices lately and have a seriously extensive range of flash drives, portable hard drives, and stone tablets (probably). The DataTraveler Mini Slim is not only vying to be the flash drive that incorporates the most variants of the word small as possible, but it’s actually living up (or down) to its name.
Roughly one and a half inches long, they are minute and you’ll have to be careful not to lose it in the USB plug on your computer never mind in your pocket. They’re available in 2GB and 4GB models for around £5 and £8 respectively. Colour choices are pink, blue, and black
It can’t feasibly be possible to make flash drives very much smaller than this, although I know that marginally smaller devices do exist, because if they were any smaller they would be useless. If you’re into modding everything you ever put near your PC then you’re pretty much guaranteed to be able to slip this into any object and make your very own unique USB flash drive.
With up to 4GB of storage and surprisingly good prices, though, they do represent excellent value even without making them into a fish finger styled USB drive. They’re also a great way for Kingston to make money as people will undoubtedly need replacements regularly.
Hide Your Flash Drive In Your Watch
July 18, 2008
Flash drives just keep getting smaller in dimension while growing in stature and storage capacity. In fact many of them are no bigger than the actual USB plug, and if they do get any smaller then you’re going to need specialist tools to remove them from your PC, never mind attempting to find them again once you’ve secreted them about your person (we don’t need details).
This 4GB flash drive is concealed in the back of a fairly inconspicuous looking watch. Not only does that mean you could carry round government secrets without fear of having them stolen, but you won’t be able to leave those all important records on the bus either. As is the trend, the flash drive really is tiny measuring in at 1.5 x 0.5 x 0.25 inches so you may need tweezers to get it back out of your computer.
If they ever become popular, of course, then everybody will know what you’re hiding in the back of your watch, but for now they are available online and cost little more than £20 to £30. That includes the drive and watch, in case you were wondering. You’ll need your own government files to add to it.
Corsair Padlock Flash Drive
June 4, 2008
USB Flash Drives come in all shapes and sizes, and Corsair are one of the companies responsble for the influx of such devices. The Flash Padlock from Corsair is one of the most secure and simple ways to store large amounts of data and offers peace of mind that your data is completely secure even when you’re mobile.
Owners can enter their own pin codes, and as soon as you remove the flash drive from the computer, it automatically locks using that code. To unlock it, simply use the mini keypad provided to enter the pin and you’re away with your data. Two indicators display whether the drive is currently locked or unlocked.
The plug and play flash drive is multi platform compatible and can be used with Windows, Mac, and Linux based system and because it’s plug and play there’s no need to install any software or drivers before you can start using it. This also means you can transfer data quickly and easily (presuming you haven’t forgotten your pin).
2GB and 4GB versions are available and range in price from £10 to £20 depending on where you shop. Forgetting your pin shouldn’t be a problem because you can choose your own rather than use a randomly generated one – use your bank card pin or your best friend’s hairdresser’s sister’s birthday to make it as memorable and secure as possible.
Fortunately, you can register one or more pins on the Corsair website, so if you do happen to forget it (which, if you’re anything like me, then you will) you can retrieve the pin and carry on as normal.
The Solar Powered Backpack
May 29, 2008
Solar is the big thing in ecogadgets. Portable, light weight, and surprisingly inexpensive solar chargers can be used to encourage life into most of your portable devices and at gadgetshop they also have a solar powered backpack. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean that you charge it up and then it packs and carries your personal belongings.
The bag includes a rechargeable battery pack for emergencies as well as various mobile phone connectors and a mini USB cord. Inside the bag you get numerous compartment type walls that you can use, ignore, or swear at when you’re attempting to single handedly juggle your laptop, mobile phone, and mp3 player into its cushioned confines.
Unfortunately, there’s no word on how effective the charger is but it does act as a moderately more subtle alternative to wearing a neon sign reading “Gadgets Found In Here”. Headphone access means you can listen to your mp3 player or mobile phone while storing it in the conveniently included storage compartments. A rain proof sleeve ensures that you’re protected against all eventualities including the unpredictable British summer.
The bag is designed for comfort with a padded back and numerous buckles placed so that they will take some of the strain when carrying heavier items.
What Could You Do With 1TB Of Hard Drive?
May 25, 2008
A terrabyte is one of those figures that sound incredible, but they’re just too large to truly fathom. It’s a bit like the prices that Internet companies are being valued at. In reality, a 1TB hard drive is going to offer little genuine use to most of us except that it gives us bragging rights to tell people we’ve got a 1TB hard drive.
You could store 200,000 mp3 tracks, roughly equivalent to every single one of Cliff Richard’s 17,500 albums. If you’re more of a movie buff you could, in fact, store around 1,500 avi format movies (that’s a lot of back up copies in anybody’s book).
I can’t think of a possible reason you would want to but you could choose to hold about 700 copies of Windows XP (without Service Packs installed – that would probably bring the figure down to more like 500) or 70 copies of Vista.
Is there a reason for this seemingly pointless list of figures? Well, surprisingly, there is a dim glimmer of a connection.
Sumvision offers a 1TB external 1TB hard drive at a smidgen over £100. That’s a lot of storage for very little money in our book and we felt it was worth the tenuous link.
Recent Discovery Could Lead To DVDs Holding Hundreds Of Films
May 16, 2008
When the mp3 file format came along, it negated the need to store hundreds of “backup” discs in the glove box of the car. It meant that we could happily record numerous discs onto one mp3 disc and just carry that single CD in the conveniently helpful CD player. Researchers have long struggled to perform a similar miracle with DVDs because of the limitations of diffraction.
While lab tests have discovered methods of counteracting this problem, scientists had yet to discover a means to transform these discoveries into robust and practical everyday solutions. Now, thanks to Hard University scientists, that could be about to change and we could soon be enjoying the same benefits we’ve enjoyed thanks to the compressed mp3 file format.
The new technology could mean a DVD capable of storing up to 3.6TB of data, whereas current DVD discs are only capable of managing 4.7GB – that’s an increase in storage of about 750 times the amount of data.
Another potential use for the science, as reported on the Technology Review website, is in the creation of silicon chips. Because the process involved in etching the chips suffers the same diffraction limitation, with alternatives costing an infeasible amount of money, this breakthrough could lead to smaller chips holding more data and costing considerably less.
The Portable Camo Hard Drive – Don’t Put It Down In The Garden
May 8, 2008
It’s not often that a hard drive manufacturer has the cunning foresight to create camouflaged portable hard drives is it? And, if we’re being completely honest, there’s probably a damn good reason for that. But we’re not ones to shun the pointless because there will undoubtedly be somebody somewhere that has been keenly awaiting the introduction of a camo drive. Well, put your acrylic paint and brushes away, because Iomega has developed the hard drive that you can lose in your garden.
At £75 it isn’t that unreasonably priced and offers 250GB of storage and USB 2.0 connectivity. Clearly, it’s unlikely that you’re ever really going to have a need for a woodland camouflaged portable hard drive but if you just can’t get enough camo gear, or are sick of those boring, modern silver and black designs then the latest offering in the Iomega eGo line is definitely, possibly, for you.
Protected by an Iomega Power Grip, the drive is said to offer extra ruggedness and durability but it does lead you to question just what Iomega think you are actually going to do with a portable hard drive. There can’t really be any serious and legitimate uses for such covert periperals can there?
1TB USB Hard Drive For £115
May 5, 2008
External hard drives offer an excellent method of backing up essential data, and storing everyday data. Size restrictions are pretty much non existent and even the price of 1TB external drives are more than reasonable if you shop around. The Trekstor Datastation duo is the perfect example offering 1TB of secure storage for £115.
1TB offers you more than ample room to store pretty much everything you currently have without needing to upgrade any time soon. SUB 2.0 connectivity ensures good performance with 24.5MB/s and 16.0MB/s download and upload speed as well as a 16MB buffer size.
Power consumption is low, while it’s a happily quiet beast to run. For anybody that appreciates the importance of backing up data, making a copy of your hard drive, or simply needs more storage capabilities, this offering from Trekstor looks to be the perfect solution.
More and more mass storage external hard drives are becoming available, and the prices are happily affordable but this looks to be one of the best deals available – pixmania is the site currently responsible for this offer, although it can be purchased via Amazon as well (still from pixmania) if you’d prefer.
Samsung K5 MP3 Player With Slide Out Speaker
May 5, 2008
Samsung MP3 players may not be as widely purchased as iPod, but they tend to offer excellent design and superb features for a not entirely unreasonable price tag. The Samsung K5 is an excellent example – modern and stylish in design, it also offers an excellent slide out speaker for when you don’t want your personal MP3 player to be that personal.
Available on Amazon for less than £100, the 2GB model is a snip compared to some of the more over priced alternatives on the market. Its ultra slim design make it practical for carrying around and the slide out speaker is an excellent addition feature for those that believe music is meant to be shared.
The supplied headphones are reasonable as far as MP3 included headphones go. The speaker itself isn’t designed to supply music to a large auditorium with reasonable sound quality at low to medium levels. If you turn it up a little too much you will begin to notice traces of distortion.
As well as being an MP3 player, the K5 also has a built in FM tuner and can be used as a portable photo viewer. All in all, it looks a great product at a reasonable price and offers a superb alternative to the iPod bandwagon.
