The External Hard Drive is Dead. Long Live the External SSD!

Iomega today announced the imminent release of their first external solid state drives (SSD) for the consumer and small business markets. The new 1.8” USB 3.0 drives will be shipping in November in 64GB, 128GB and 256GB capacities, offering transfer speeds up to ten times faster than equivalent USB 2.0 drives. At speeds up to 5 Gb/s, Iomega claim the new drives perform twice as fast as a standard 7200 RPM SATA drive using USB 3.0.

The drives ship with Iomega Protection Suite, which includes backup and imaging software, a year’s anti-virus protection from Trend Micro and 2GB online storage from MozyHome. Expect the 64GB model to come in at £183, whilst the 128GB drive will cost £325 and the 256GB drive a mighty £624.

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Western Digital outs 3 Terabyte USB 3.0 drives

Western Digital has joined the 3 Terabyte club with latest offering in its My Book Essential external hard drive range.

The My Book, which as its name suggests is designed to sit inconspicuously on a book shelf, previously offered 1TB and 2TB models which have now been joined by a bigger sibling boasting 3 Terabytes of storage.

All now offer Superspeed USB 3.0 capable of chucking data about at 5 gigabits per second and come with WD Smartware software which can cope with continuous automatic back-ups.

WD reckons all of the USB 3.0 drives in the refreshed My Book and My Passport ranges will now copy a two-hour HD video in around three minutes.

They come in a range of fancy colours and sizes, offer password protection, and will work out of the box on all flavours of Windows (but will require OSX users to reformat).

No UK prices have been announced as yet but the 3TB monster, which let's face it is the only one we're really interested in, is selling in the US of A for a smidgen under $250.

Samsung unleashes three-platter 2TB drive

Multifarious tech firm Samsung has just upped the ante in the whale-sized storage arena, introducing a new 2TB drive that spreads its capacity over just three platters.

While other 2TB drives split their collection of bytes over four 500GB platters, Samsung's new Spinpoint EcoGreen HD204UI F4EG features three 667GB disks. This, says Samsung, means the new platters boast the world's highest areal density at the moment.

The 3.5-inch F4EG is intended to replace Samsung's four-platter F3EG drive, and has otherwise similar specs. The drive is still bolstered by a 32MB buffer, and the platters spin at a comparatively pedestrian 5400rpm, rather than the 7200rpm rotational speed of other 2TB desktop drives, such as Hitachi's Deskstar 7K2000.

As well as granting Samsung a temporary spell of bragging rights, the new three-platter drive also cuts down on power consumption. According to Samsung, the F4EG eats 23 per cent less electricity in standby mode than its predecessor. The company also claims the drive will remain quiet while it's ticking away, taking advantage of the company's SilentSeek and NoiseGuard technologies.

Assuming the PC industry eventually irons out all the potential problems with the move to drives larger than 2TB, Samsung's high areal density should put the company in a good position to manufacture even larger drives. A four-platter drive that packs this many bytes onto a single disk would end up with around 2.7TB. As a point of comparison, Seagate's 3TB external FreeAgent drive has to split its capacity across five 600GB platters.

The new Spinpoint HD204UI F4EG also supports Native Command Queuing, and is lined up to start shipping in early September this year.

There's no word on UK pricing yet, but Samsung has said the recommended retail price at $119.99 (£75.33) across the pond. Once you've added the usual UK rip-off mark-up, we reckon the drive will come in at a similar price to the F3EG, which currently goes for £88.09 inc VAT.

Analysts Expect Seagate to Lose Market Share to Western Digital

Western Digital entered the enterprise storage market just several years ago and introduced its first Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) just about a year ago. However, analysts from Wedbush Securities believe that WD could snap some enterprise market share from Seagate Technology, the company with a long history of being a leading supplier of high-end drives.

“We believe that Seagate could lose some market share to Western Digital in the enterprise segment, as Western Digital further extends its enterprise class hard-disk-drive product line. In addition, we also believe that there could be more pricing pressure as more capacity comes online in calendar third-quarter 2010,” analysts Kaushik Roy and Hemant Hebbar from Wedbush Securities wrote in a note to clients.

The financial analysts estimate that the total available market (TAM) for the Q1 2010 was 157 million units, which is in the middle of Seagate's expected range of 155 million – 160 million units. The analysts believe that the supply-demand situation in Q1 was in balance, whereas in Q4 2009 the demand actually exceeded supply.

Unfortunately for the manufacturers of hard disk drives (HDDs) more production capacity will be available this summer and fall, as a result, pricing pressure will amplify and profit margins of hard drive makers will go down.

“We expect an increase of at least 15% in glass availability in the summer time frame. Everybody is aware that additional disk-production capacity is coming online in the July-August time frame. Original-equipment manufacturer vendors such as Dell and HP are unhappy that HDD vendors are enjoying fat margins while they themselves are struggling to improve margins and are waiting to hammer the hard-disk-drive vendors on pricing as soon as more capacity comes online,” the analysts said.

WD Introduces New AV Portable Media Drives

WD has introduced its new My Passport AV portable media drives. Designed specifically for video storage and playback, the new My Passport AV portable media drives deliver a plug-and-play experience for digital media enthusiasts. Available now at select retailers, the My Passport AV portable media drive is offered with 320 GB of capacity.

A large and increasing number of game consoles, camcorders, TVs, DVRs, Blu-ray players and media players, including the WD TV Media Player family, allow consumers to connect a USB drive and play the multimedia content from the drive on an HD TV. The My Passport AV portable media drive is designed to meet the requirements of this demanding video streaming environment. It delivers the formatting and low-power consumption that assures out-of-the-box compatibility with many leading CE (consumer electronics) devices.

WD worked to ensure that the My Passport AV portable media drives operate seamlessly with the Direct Copy feature offered in Sony’s new Handycam video recorders. Direct Copy lets Handycam users offload and archive HD video directly to a My Passport AV portable media drive without a computer, creating room to shoot more HD videos when their Handycam hard drive becomes full.

Consumers can then play back their stored videos using Sony’s latest Blu-ray players or any of the WD TV media players by just connecting the My Passport AV portable media drive via the USB port on these players.

With its small footprint, the My Passport AV portable media drives are designed to fit neatly in a home entertainment center. The included stand and extra long cable makes it easy to position the drive neatly in entertainment centers, maximizing the airflow and minimizing heat around the drive.

“With more and more devices capable of generating and playing back HD video – camcorders, Blu-ray players, game consoles – portable hard drives are the best solution for this 8 GB-per-hour capacity-intensive content. The My Passport AV portable media drive is optimized for a better digital video experience with a growing list of consumer electronics, starting with Sony’s latest camcorders and Blu-ray players,” Sushil Bandi, Country Manager for the Indian Subcontinent, Western Digital.

The new My Passport AV portable media drives feature a 3-year limited warranty and are available now at select retail stores. MSRP for the My Passport AV portable media drive of 320 GB capacity is Rs. 5,150.

My Passport AV portable media drives are formatted FAT32[1] and are compatible with Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Mac OS X and Apple’s Tiger, Leopard, and Snow Leopard. My Passport AV portable media drives utilize the same drive technology found in WD AV drives inside leading cable and satellite set-top boxes and DVRs (digital video recorders) around the world.

The My Passport AV portable media drives are compatible with the following devices:

• WD TV family of media players
• 2010 and later Sony camcorders with Direct Copy functionality
• Sony 2010 Blu-ray Disc Players including BDP-S370, BDP-S470, BDP-S570
• Sony 2010 Blu-ray Disc Home Theater Systems including BDV-E370, BDV-E570
• JVC LT-32P689 television
• Samsung LN32A550 television
• Philips 42PFLA332D television
• Microsoft Xbox 360 (compatible with the USB media playback feature)
• Sony PlayStation