Corsair to Launch New Desktop SSDs

It seems that Corsair is to take a move further into the burgeoning solid-state storage market, by offering a line of new solid-state drives (SSDs), some of which will be particularly pleasing to the desktop bound among us.

Corsair's 2.5-inch SSDs are genuinely lovely to look at...

While most SSDs tend to weigh in at the notebook friendly 2.5” mark, it seems that Corsair is following OCZ’s lead by making some of its heavier-duty SSDs more accessible for those who want to use them to bulk up their desktop. Indeed, the new offering from corsair is a 3.5” drive (so there shouldn’t be any more fussing around with brackets to get it to fit into a desktop case) that boasts fully 512GB of storage and a 128MB cache, with read and write speeds of to 200MB/s and 240MB/s respectively.

Cinema Sales Outpace Discs in 2009

It’s been a long time since cinema sales last managed to outperform sales of disc-based media for movies, but it seems that in 2009 cinema has managed to push past discs again.

According to Adams Media Research, the strong performance from cinemas was bolstered by the release of “3D exhibition at a premium price,” which seems as though it could be a fairly roundabout way of saying that Avatar has been performing so very well that it’s managed to pull in crowds that cinemas haven’t seen in quite a while. Indeed, it seems that 3D cinema provides enough spectacle to draw in big crowds, with the news that Avatar has managed to pull become the fourth biggest grossing film ever, already.

Blu-Ray Gets Capacity Bump

Sony and Panasonic have managed to bump up the maximum amount of storage space on a single layer of a Blu-Ray disc, leading to a disc that can store up to 33.4GB on one layer.

At the moment, the limit on capacity for a single layer is somewhere around the 25GB mark, which means that dual layer discs have just jumped from an already respectable 50GB or so right up to 66GB, an increase of more than 20%. Of course, having researched the kit and actually being able to sell it are two very different things indeed, and we’ll be curious to see just how long it takes to push so significant a storage increase out to market.

Special Offers – Halloween Week

Good afternoon all, hopefully the long weekend was kind to you (though not so kind that it’s making the return to work too hard on you). Normally we run our Special Offers for the week on a Monday afternoon, but given the week that’s in it we’re going to have to run with it today instead 😉

This week we’re offering a 1TB extneral hard drive, an AMD processor and an OCZ power supply. Without any more delay, we’ll get to the products themselves.

Packard Bell Carbon 1TB:

Whenever people ask about a low-cost 1TB external drive, we tend to direct them towards the Western Digital Elements, which weighs in at €76. For this week though, Packard Bell’s Carbon is down to €73, which pretty much makes it the cheapest 1TB external drive on offer.

By contrast to the Western Digital Elements, the Carbon is relatively simple aesthetically, lacking the rubberised chunks at either end that keep the Elements raised. This means that the Carbon is a bit easier to store, either in a backpack or just around the house.

Because of its power saving features, it’ll automatically drop itself to low power mode when your machine is turned off but the drive is still connected. That means it’s an excellent drive for those who’ll be happy to just plug it in and leave it on a shelf or desk and use it to store an archive of their media or even something as simple as a backup of a particularly important system.

When you consider the euro per GB cost, you’re getting around 13.6GB for €1, which isn’t a bad deal by any stretch of the imagination (unless my maths is out by miles). If you’re at all interested, you can check out our product page for the Packard Bell Carbon 1TB external to see more details and a few more pictures of the device itself.

At €73 it’s down 18% for this week.

Secure Hard Drive Boasts Own Keypad

Apricorn has produced a an external USB hard drive that boasts a numerical keypad on the front of the enclosure, allowing for you to encrypt the drive in such a way that removing it from the enclosure doesn’t really make it any easier to access.

Adds a much needed James Bond feel to external storage...

Apricorn’s Aegis Padlock Secure Drive boasts no software required, which basically makes it a snap for the non-tech-savvy to get their hands on and set up an encrypted drive. While some have been quick to point out the nefarious applications of a device like this, anyone working in businesses that deal with a lot of sensitive data will be familiar with the issue of data on USB sticks and hard drives being generally difficult to keep secure.

HDDs versus SSDs – Which do you need?

We got some feedback from readers of our piece on installing Windows on a solid state drive (SSD) asking if we’d do a bit of a beginners’ guide to the SSD vs. HDD debate, so that’s what we’ll be doing today. The fact is, there are a number of reasons to move on up to an SSD that you might already be familiar with, but there are also plenty of reasons to stick with a HDD that aren’t often considered.

For anyone reading who doesn’t yet know the physical differences between a HDD and an SSD, don’t worry, we’ll explain those shortly, so nobody will be entirely lost. A hard disk (or HDD) is the drive you’re most likely to find if you cracked open the machine you’re using now (unless you’re reading this from a netbook). It is, as the name suggests, fundamentally a spinning disk (or platter), to which data is written or read by a head. The arrangement doesn’t look entirely unlike an old vinyl record player.

This lovely example shot of a HDD comes courtesy of the folks at Wikipedia