By David Ponce

I wish there really was much more to say than what’s in the title… but really there isn’t. This is what passes as art these days. You know what they say: all the talented artists are busy making money for one commercial interest or another (games, ads, etc.). What’s left are people with crappy ideas, too much money and stickers that say “Art”, begging to be put on whatever they think makes a statement. This particular exhibit is a 1TB hard drive that is on display at the Art 404 gallery, on a pedestal, with an accompanying PDF listing everything that’s in it. Books, “124GB of copyrighted music, fonts, Adobe software, various game system ROMs, and more.”

I’m not going to bother to point out that the value of what’s in most people’s hard drives probably exceeds that amount, but… well… you get my point.

[ "Product" page ] VIA [ Geekologie ]

By Chris Scott Barr

Here’s an interesting thing. TVs are getting more and more features these days. Enough that they can actually start eliminating the need for other devices to be connected to them. The next device to go? If Sony has anything to say about it, they’re looking to replace your DVR.

Sony is releasing a trio of new Bravia TVs that come equiped with 500GB hard drives. What’s more is that they have support for external drives, just in case you run out of room. The only real difference between the three models is size, which range from 22-inches to 40-inches. The new sets will cost you a pretty penny though, with the smallest size fetching $1,000 when it launches next month in Japan.

[ Sony ] VIA [ Geeky Gadgets ]

By Ian Chiu

[ The following article is syndicated with permission from Everything USB ]

USB 3.0 is here. While not everyone has immediately hopped on the bandwagon yet, several major motherboard and storage manufacturers have been actively pushing out SuperSpeed USB devices, and one of them is Seagate BlackArmor PS 110 Performance Kit. Bearing an ambitious name, the BlackArmor PS 110 is one of the industry’s first portable USB 3.0 2.5″ drives. The kit – backed by a generous 5-year warranty – comprises of a 7,200-rpm 500GB drive that now becomes the performance bottleneck instead of the USB interface; a single-port USB 3.0 ExpressCard/34 card; an auxiliary power cable; and a backup software suite.

Obviously, what makes this drive so special is the speed. The on-board USB 3.0-to-SATA bridge chip boosts average performance to consistently high between 60 to 95MB/s. This is up from 30MB/s range registered by USB 2.0 FreeAgent Go. A review by Everything USB confirmed that the BlackArmor PS 110 USB 3.0 is indeed the bottleneck as a 3.5″ 1TB drive inside a WD My Book 3.0 easily bumped speed even further to 110MB/s. Keep in mind BlackArmor PS 110 3.0 is only first generation product. So it could take a year or two before the potential of USB 3.0 is fully realized. Read on for the full review for all the benchmark data and usability test results.

[ Seagate BlackArmor PS 110 USB 3.0 Review @ Everything USB ]

By Evan Ackerman

Earlier this month, we posted a review of Cloud Engines’ Pogoplug, a piece of hardware that takes USB hard drives and makes them network accessible (among other things). Iomega has come out with another option for centralizing your storage, called the iConnect. Like the Pogoplug, the iConnect lets you plug in standard USB drives, and then puts them on your home network. Plus, it throws a whole bunch of other cool stuff into the mix, like wireless access and printer networking. Read the review, after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

By Evan Ackerman

Less than $100 probably means $99.99, but that doesn’t change the fact that the 2.5″ Onyx SSD from OCZ is actually in the realm of casually affordable, a first for SSDs. We’re used to seeing SSD drives that offer incredible performance, but at a price point that makes most of us just sigh sadly. The OCZ Onyx, while offering only modest speeds (125 MB/s read and 70 MB/s write) relative to other SSDs, is still fast enough that you’d notice a significant difference in load times if you stick your operating system on it. Unsurprisingly, the drive only has a capacity of 32 gigs, so your operating system may be the only thing you can stick on it, but that’s okay.

Even if the speed and size aren’t that impressive, don’t forget about the other benefits of SSDs: they’re light, shockproof, durable, and use up a heck of a lot less power than conventional drives since they don’t have anything inside them that needs to be kept spinning at several thousand RPM all the time.

$100 is not going to get you some kind of incredibly awesome SSD drive. But it will get you this SSD drive, which, for the cost, is way better than no SSD drive at all.

[ Press Release ] VIA [ HotHardware ]

By Chris Scott Barr

When Microsoft entered the console gaming market, it was a great day for gamers here in the US. Now I don’t have anything against Nintendo or Sony, I love their consoles. What I don’t love is all of the exclusive hardware that Japan gets from these companies, since they are located in the region. Well since Microsoft is located here in the US of A, the tables are turned. Take this new 250GB hard drive that has been announced for the 360. Guess where it’s being launched first. Wait, Japan?

What’s even more strange is that despite a confirmed March 11 launch in Japan, there is no plan for a US release. Does Microsoft not think that we download enough? Or maybe they know that we’re in a recession, and aren’t going to pay $170 for a 250GB hard drive. I’ve ranted about this before and it still infuriating, you can buy a 2.5-inch hard drive (which is what’s used for the 360) for 1/3 of the price they are selling it. That’s one heck of a markup. They should take a cue from Sony and let us use our own drives to upgrade.

[ Microsoft ] VIA [ PCWorld ]

By Chris Scott Barr

Do you have need of a lot of external storage and want to make use of that USB 3.0 card that you decided to purchase? After all, what good is having the ports if you don’t also have devices that use them? LaCie has announced their latest external drive, dubbed the 2Big RAID drive which utilizes the latest in USB technology.

Obviously speed is the name of the game with this drive, with throughput speeds of 275MB/s. These speeds are reached by using a dual-disk RAID configuration along with the USB 3.0 technology. LaCie claims that with a drive this fast, you can stream and edit multiple HD files simultaneously. Pricing and availability have not yet been announced, though you can expect to pay a nice premium for the extra speed.

[ LaCie ] VIA [ CrunchGear ]

By David Ponce

We’ve written about Philippe Stark a few times before. He’s an influential French industrial designer who’s gotten involved in the design of an endless stream of consumer products from juicers, to teddy bears and now hard drives. Partnering up with LaCie, he’s helped develop these drives with an interesting design. The desktop drives have a customizable touch-sensitive surface allowing you to launch preselected applications based on how you touch them. They comes in 1TB or 2TB sizes ($129 or $249) , and also feature the Starck Signature LED (a “+” sign, since the man likes to spell his name S+arck) which glows green or orange based on activity. There are also portable versions of these drives in sizes 320-500GB, with prices starting at $99.

[ Desktop Drive Product Page ] AND [ Portable Drive Product Page ] AND [ Interview With Starck ] VIA [ Uncrate ]