CES 2010 latest storage news

The BlackArmor PS110 USB 3.0 performance kit from Seagate

(Credit: Seagate)

You probably won't be able to get a hold of a motherboard that has a built-in USB 3.0 controller, like the VL810 SuperSpeed from VIA, but if you want the taste of the new USB SuperSpeed, Seagate has something to offer.

The company announced Tuesday at CES 2010 its first USB 3.0 external hard drive all-in-one performance kit for laptops.

The kit comes with both the USB 3.0-based external hard drive, the BlackArmor PS110 USB 3.0, and an USB 3.0 add-in controller card. The controller card is a PC card adapter that fits in the PC card slot, available in most notebook computers. The card adds a USB 3.0 port to the computer that can be used with the external hard drive.

The BlackArmor PS110 USB 3.0 external hard drive itself houses a 500GB 2.5-inch hard drive that spins at 7,200rpm. The kit also comes with a power cable for the hard drive, ... Read the full post at CNET's CES 2010 blog

The iConnect NAS server from Iomega.

(Credit: Iomega)

If you've been intrigued by the idea of Marvell's Plug Computer, you'll probably love what Iomega has to show at CES this year: the iConnect Wireless Data Station.

Despite the lengthy name, this is a tiny network storage product.

Fitting right in your palm, the iConnect Wireless Data Station has no built-in storage. Instead, it comes with four USB 2.0 ports for you to connect your external hard drives or printers to. After that, all you need to do is connect it your router via either its Gigabit wired or 802.11n wireless connection and you have a NAS server.

Its tiny size and its simplicity make the device seem a perfect fit for you to use on the go to quickly share data between a group of people. According to Iomega, the iConnect also comes with features that full size NAS servers have, including:

• Remote access: Users can connect securely to the device from anywhere in the world via the Internet and

The VIA VL810 SuperSpeed Hub Controller

(Credit: VIA)

When USB 3.0 was demonstrated by Intel last year, I was really excited. Now the wait is really over.

The VIA group unveiled Monday the world's first USB 3.0 Hub Controller, the VIA VL810 SuperSpeed. This is the industry's first integrated single-chip solution that supports the higher transfer rates of the new USB 3.0 specification.

And here's the reason why I've been so excited: USB 3.0 (aka SuperSpeed USB, as opposed to the HighSpeed USB or USB 2.0) allows for a maximum data transfer rate of up to 5Gbps, which is 10 times the throughput available to USB 2.0-based devices, making it the fastest connection to date for computer peripheral. In order to support this, the USB 3.0 cable is substantially thicker than that of USB 2.0 and contains six wires rather than two.

USB 3.0 is also full duplex, meaning it can upload and download simultaneously at the same speed (USB 2.0 ... Read the full post at CNET's CES 2010 blog

The original SheevaPlug computer

(Credit: Dong Ngo/CNET)

Six months ago, I had an exclusive First Look at Marvell's prototype plug-in computer, the SheevaPlug. Ever since, dozens of companies have contacted me about their applications. Most recently, CNET reviewed the Pogoplug from Cloud Engines.

That said, it didn't surprise me when Marvell announced Tuesday that 10,000 SheevaPlug units featuring Marvell CPU technology have shipped.

To celebrate this milestone, Marvell also announced Tuesday the launch of its worldwide Plug Computer developer competition, called "Free Your Imagination," to award the most innovative Plug Computing concept submitted.

You can participate or find out more about this competition at plugcomputer.org. This Web site is also the main Web resource for the plug application development community, where members can access software that facilitates the development of the SheevaPlug. Developers can also exchange ideas for free.

While the applications differ from one vendor to another, in a nutshell, Marvell's Plug Computer is a tiny unit, about the size of a small wall-plug power adapter. The little computer, despite its physical size, is equipped with Marvell's 1GHz processor and some 256MB of RAM. The computer also comes with a USB port and an Ethernet port to be best used as a network storage or an Internet-based cloud storage server.

One of the biggest selling points of the Plug Computer is the fact that it uses very little energy and therefore is the cheapest solution to offer users high-performance, always-on, always-connected, and environmentally friendly computing.

The new Momentus Thin laptop hard drive.

(Credit: Seagate)

At only 9.5mm, the regular 2.5-inch laptop hard drive is already very thin compared with the 25.4mm of the 3.5-inch desktop hard drive. But Seagate, one of the bigger hard-drive makers around, just decided to go even slimmer.

The company announced Monday the Momentus Thin, a new 2.5-inch-based laptop hard drive that's 25 percent thinner, at only 7mm. This reduction in thickness makes the new hard drive comparable, in physical size, to that of most solid state drives (SSDs) used in Netbooks and ultraportable computers. However, it retains the advantages of regular hard drives, which include much higher capacities and, most importantly, a much lower cost per gigabyte.

The Momentus Thin offers the same performance as a regular SATA 2.5-inch hard drive, which is faster than most low-end SSD used in Netbooks. The new drive comes in two capacities (250GB and 160GB); sports 8MB of cache memory, supports a SATA 3Gbps interface, and spins at 5400rpm.

The Mometus Thin uses the same type of cable and ports as a regular SATA 2.5-inch hard drive. This means it will also fit in any application where a 9.5mm hard drive is used. This makes it possible for users to upgrade their existing storage by themselves.

The new Momentus Thin 2.5-inch SATA hard drives will be available in January, with the 250GB version costing only $55. It's unclear how much the 160GB version will cost, but it will obviously be cheaper than its larger counterpart.

(Credit: CNET)

Apple "announced" upgrades to both their Time Capsule and Airport Extreme Base Station in October. After much ado, attempting to get the new revisions and the old ones in-house to test, we've finally completed testing and have updated the reviews.

The thing about network testing is that because so many factors can potentially affect wireless network traffic, results can be quite unpredictable. This is especially true in an office environment like CNET's San Francisco office, where everyone and their mother seems to own an iPhone or BlackBerry.

While we attempt to minimize interference by analyzing the spectrum and choosing the best wireless band, we can't stop random devices using the band and cluttering the network. The mothers are usually the worst offenders.

So we test in an environment that, while not 100 percent clean, is 100 percent real-world. Check out the review updates for the Apple Time Capsule and Apple Airport Extreme Base Station, to see how these two fared in a real environment.

If you've wished you could connect your external hard drive to your computer without having to use the USB cable, now you can.

Imation announced Thursday the availability of the first wireless USB external hard drive, the Pro WX. The hard drive works just like any other USB hard drive, with one exception: it doesn't require a USB cable.

The Pro WX wireless USB external hard drive.

(Credit: Imation)

Wireless USB has been under development for about five years, and some of the first products were demoed at CES 2009. This technology allows you to connect USB 2.0 devices to a computer wirelessly from up to 30 feet away with a throughput speed of up to 480Mbps.

According to Imation, the Pro WX wireless USB external hard drive offers less than that, with speeds of up to only 120Mbps or 15MBps; this is about three times slower than regular USB 2.0 hard drives. At this speed it can finish copying the entire content of a CD-ROM (roughly 800MB) in about 50 seconds. Other than that, this drive is based on the 3.5-inch desktop hard drive and offers 1.5TB of storage.

The Imation Pro WX features a sleep-mode feature to conserve energy and a one-touch, backup sync button for you to manually start a backup when needed. The device is compatible with both PC and Mac operating systems

In order to take advantage of the wireless USB, your computer needs to support this. As most computers don't have built-in wireless USB, there are adapters that you can add to the machine. It's unclear if an adapter is included with the Pro WX.

What's clear, however, is the fact that this is going to be one of the most expensive external hard drives you can find. At the estimated price of $500, about three times the price of regular external USB hard drives of the same storage capacity, I am not sure if it's worth it when the only benefit is losing the USB cable.

Windows Home Server soon gets supercharged to better support Windows 7.

(Credit: Screenshot by Dong Ngo/CNET)

Microsoft announced Thursday its latest update to the Windows Home Server, the Power Pack 3. Originally, this upgrade was planned to be rolled out prior to the launch of Windows 7, but it was delayed due to a problem found during testing.

Power Pack 3 is much like a service pack to Windows Home Server, which is a special version of the Windows operating system designed specially for network-attached storage devices, such as the HP MediaSmart servers.

Judging from a few Windows Home Server-based NAS servers we've reviewed, Windows Home Server significantly helps new consumers familiarize themselves with network-attached storage devices by providing a similar management console, features, and file system support to those of the Windows operating system for desktop computers.

According to Windows Home Server Team's blog, the Power Pack 3 will be available next Tuesday in all shipping languages (including Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, and Spanish). The pack will be free and can be downloaded via Windows Update.

If you plan to manually download it, the Power Pack 3 requires Windows Home Server with Power Pack 2 already installed. However, if your NAS server is connected to the Internet, Power Pack 3 will be automatically installed as part of automatic updates. Make sure you turn this feature on.

The major improvement the Power Pack 3 delivers is support for Windows 7, especially in the realms of backing up and media playback. The breakdown:

• Windows 7 Libraries integration: Now users can access Windows Home Server shared folder from within Windows 7 libraries.
• Windows 7 Action Center backup warning suppression: Windows 7 Action Center now recognizes Windows Home Server as a legitimate backup solution and stops warning you that a backup has not been set up.
• Windows 7 power settings: Windows Home Server can wake a Windows 7-based computer to do a backup, then put it back to sleep once the backup is done.
• Windows Search: Power Pack 3 includes Windows Search 4, which improves query search times, indexing times, and reliability. Files encrypted with EFS are now supported.
• TV archive: Windows Home Server can automatically archive recorded TV by moving your recordings from a Windows Media Center computer to your home server in the format of your choice. This is actually a very handy feature if you want to play back recorded TV shows to multiple devices, including portable ones.

For the complete details of what you can get from the Power Pack 3, check out the release documentation. It seems if you move to Windows 7, the Power Pack 3 upgrade is a must for your Windows Home Server-based NAS servers.

It's fair to say that so far Synology is the NAS maker with the fewest misses. Ever since the company joined the network storage arena in early 2008, it has earned three CNET Editors' Choice awards, with the newest one being the DS409Slim.

The new DS410j NAS server from Synology supports Time Machine.

(Credit: Synology)

Synology NAS servers offer a vast number of features; signature among those are the advanced surveillance system, sophisticated photo sharing/managing capability, and a robust user interface. And now Synolgoy has overcome one of its only former missteps: by adding support for Apple's Time Machine.

The company announced Wednesday the launch of its new four-bay NAS server, the DS410j. This new NAS server carries all the features of other Synolgoy NAS servers and, on top of that, support for Apple's popular backup solution. For the first time ever, Mac users can use Time Machine (available in Mac OS 10.5 and later) with a Synology NAS server. Currently, very few NAS servers on the market support this feature.

Beyond that update, according to Synology, the DS410j is designed for busy home networks and entry-level businesses. It can house four 3.5-inch SATA hard drives of up to 2TB each, making the total storage up to 8TB. Like other models, the DS410j supports multiple RAID configurations when used with two or more hard drives. It also comes with automated backup, remote file sharing, and multimedia streaming features and is fully DNLA-compliant.

The DS410j is available now both with and without hard drives. Its price varies depending on the configuration; however, like other Synogloy NAS servers, it will not be cheap. It seems that affordability is something that Synolgoy will continue to miss for a while.