Posts Tagged ‘Storage’

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Pogoplug Launches New Hardware, Brings Unlimited Storage To Your PC

December 15th, 2011
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Pogoplug is launching the fourth generation of its flagship product today, the Pogoplug Series 4. As with all Pogoplug hardware, the new device lets you attach your hard drives and plugs into your router in order to instantly give you your own personal cloud of online storage.

The service also comes with 5 GB of free online storage optimized for mobile users, and allows you to purchase additional cloud storage, if need be. However, all users of the Pogoplug device who host their own storage, can do so for free.

The pricing for the updated Pogoplug hardware remains the same as before: $99.99. It offers four different types of connections, including USB 3.0 (x2), USB 2.0 (x1), SATA/USM (x1) and SD Card (x1).

The hardware is designed to work with Pogoplug’s accompanying software suite, a freemium offering that allows you to stream your storage photos, music and movies to any PC or Mac via the web, or to your smartphone or tablet. The premium version ($29) includes the the ability to stream to any connected device, not just home computers. And for those not interested in buying any hardware, the software can function on its own to turn your computer into a software-based version of Pogoplug.

The company also offers a cheaper Pogoplug Mobile device for $79 which works with iOS and Android via mobile apps, offering mobile-specific features like automatic backup of mobile photos and videos, which, for Android users, offers something similar to Apple’s iCloud for their platform. The mobile product also works to convert your media into streamable bite-sized formats that are better for mobile viewing and sharing.

The bigger question with Pogoplug, and its now almost dizzying (and, yeah, I’m gonna say it: confusing) array of choices is why someone would choice this option over those from cloud storage and services companies including Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Dropbox, Box.net and others?

While it’s true that those using the software only (no device) and those who want mobile-optimized content and backup, will have to pay for additional storage beyond the 5 GB, no-frills Pogoplug users get everything for free, save for the one-time purchase price involved with buying the hardware. And that is a bargain, even if Pogoplug’s cloud is not.

And Pogoplug is especially helpful for those of you who, like me, have about 5 old USB hard drives laying around the house, all with content you would like access to from anywhere, but no easy way to just get them online.

Source:http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/14/pogoplug-launches-new-hardware-brings-unlimited-storage-to-your-pc/

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LaCie’s Got a 12big Rack Storage Server, And It’s Nearly $12,000

December 9th, 2011
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If you thought all Big Racks were awesome, well, you’re probably right. Childish jokes aside (seriously, we apologize for that one), LaCie has just announced their new 12big Rack Storage Server, described as a comprehensive network storage solution complete with the software and hardware needed for serious backup or file sharing right out of the box. The 12big Rack Storage Server features the performance of Quad LANs and the power of Windows Storage Server. With muscular performance and outstanding scalability at a competitive price point, the 12big Rack Storage Server is the perfect solution for corporate backup and file sharing. It is powered by the industry-standard Windows Storage Server 2008 R2, Microsoft’s latest version of the powerful NAS platform. The 12big Rack Storage Server ships with 6Gb/s Nearline SAS disks, which feature redundant path technology that improve I/O results by more than 40%.

As for specs, it’s got a quad-core Xeon CPU with 4GB of RAM, NAS-to-NAS backup and file serving, I/O ports to connect external storage and integrate as a JBOD array for massive scalability – up to 144TB, Hardware RAID controller, which supports RAID Levels 0, 1, 5, 10, 50 or 60, five free PCIe slots for dedicated applications such as 10Gb Ethernet, fibre channel, or InfiniBand, and the ability to configure as an iSCSI target or initiator to allow storage expansion in a cost-effective way. The 12big Rack Storage Server is available in 9TB, 12TB, 24TB and 36TB capacities with the 5-year Gold Protection Plan for premium support. The protection plan features warranty on drives and components, as well as fast product replacement. The 12big Rack Storage Server is available through LaCie Online Store, LaCie PROgram+ Partners, and LaCie PROgram+ Resellers starting at $11,299.00. Yes. Over $11k. Pony up!

Source:http://hothardware.com/News/LaCies-Got-a-12big-Rack-Storage-Server-And-Its-Nearly-12000/

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To Manage Big Data, You Need Smarter Storage

August 23rd, 2011
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Information is power, and having it at your fingertips is a reality in today’s smartphone obsessed world.

A recent report by the Pew Internet & American Life Project shows more than 35% of U.S. adults own smartphones. More compelling is that one out of four smartphone owners do online tasks through their mobile device rather than a computer.

What these users don’t think about is how much data they are generating in the process. The combined amount of tablet and smartphone traffic is predicted to generate 2.7 exabytes of data per month in 2015. That’s nearly 3 times all the mobile data generated in the U.S. in 2010.

Information overload has become an epidemic, and, not just from mobile devices. Information is increasing nearly 50% each year driven by armies of sensors, email, social networks and cloud computing.

This data influx is exponential. More than 75% of the data in the world today was created in the last two years. Facebook allows users to share 30 billion pieces of content each month. Twitter’s active user base generates 140 million tweets per day. Combined, these sites create 17 terabytes of data every day.

This new data deluge, sometimes known as Big Data, promises to provide us the opportunity to turn information overload into an asset for better decision making by applying analytics. That insight can help identify business trends and consumer preferences. Organizations can find new business streams, create more sustainable buildings and cities, pinpoint cures for diseases, or reduce criminal activity.

The challenge is storing, retrieving and prioritizing unprecedented volumes of data. Doing it the old way – throwing more resources at it — just won’t work. That’s inefficient and cost prohibitive. In 2009, the world spent nearly $4 trillion on hardware, software, services, networks and IT staff to manage data in the digital universe, according to IDC.

Take a look at storage. IDC states nearly 75% of the data that exists today is a copy. Organizations are spending far too much of their precious IT budget just to keep unneeded copies.

Beyond budget, people resources are also being wasted. It is estimated that employees spend up to two hours a day looking for the right information, such as searching for a forwarded file in email archives.

Instead, businesses need to capitalize on the potential hidden in the petabytes or even zettabytes of raw data. (For those wondering how big a zettabyte is, it is equal to 1 trillion gigabytes or 1,000 exabytes or about 250 billion DVDs.) Through intelligent storage and data retrieval systems, we can learn more with the information we have today to improve service to customers or open new revenue streams by leveraging data in new ways.

FOX Broadcasting and how they dealt with high definition television is a good example of this.

FOX had dramatic increases in storage demands due to HDTV, but through a first-of-its-kind, direct-to-digital storage solution for HD video, FOX eliminated the need for costly videotape recorders and media. The solution not only saved considerable amounts of money and physical space, it also offered a much more efficient way to handle video.

Here’s where smarter Big Data storage opened up new opportunities. FOX took archived HD content and made it available on demand – making them one of the industry leaders in the HD industry by taking existing content and finding a new way to offer it to customers.

Take a completely different example in healthcare. The Institute University of Leipzig, in Germany has a major genetic study called LIFE to examine disease in populations. LIFE is cataloging genetic profiles of several thousand patients to pinpoint gene mutations and specific proteins. This process alone generates multiple terabytes of data. With a storage system that intelligently organizes, archive and retrieves all this data, the project group was able to conduct analysis in half the time compared to its previous system.

As storage capacity and data recovery systems continue to advance – whether it leverages the cloud, virtualization or traditional hardware and software – storing, archiving and retrieving only the relevant pieces of data presents a huge opportunity for businesses to maximize information assets.

And that is just the tip of the iceberg. As the volume of data continues to grow, and the technologies used to manage that data advance, the quality of predictions improves dramatically. Adding in the data that is being created by billions of new mobile devices and sensors, what becomes computable is outright amazing.

Source:http://blogs.forbes.com/ciocentral/?p=2516

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Storage intelligence: storage virtualization by Dell Compellent

June 30th, 2011
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Storage virtualization, like other forms of virtualization, is using excess system resources to create an artificial environment for data and applications. The process of abstracting functions away from the physical hardware allows the introduction of any number of wonderful new capabilities. The folks from Dell Compellent stopped by to let me know what they’re doing in this area.

The company has developed a virtual storage environment that allows data and applications to me automatically positioned on tiers of storage for maximum performance. It also optimizes the use of storage so organizations can make best use of their storage devices. Dell Compellent is calling this concept “fluid data.”

How does Dell Compellent describe what they’re doing?
Compellent virtualizes enterprise storage at the disk level, creating a dynamic pool of shared storage resources available to all servers, all the time. With read/write operations spread across all drives, multiple requests can be processed in parallel, boosting system performance. Compellent Storage Virtualization allows users to create hundreds of virtual volumes in seconds to support any virtual server platform and optimize the placement of virtual applications.

What improvements does this virtualization make possible?
Dell Compellent has developed storage controllers that offer a number of really useful features. The storage controller makes it possible for virtual storage volumes can be created without IT administrators having to allocate devices to support specific servers or do extensive capacity or performance planning.

Servers (physical or virtual) simply see a specific amount of storage capacity without having to know that its data is being spread across a number of different storage devices. Servers can be connected to the controller using a number of different storage networking architectures. The controller optimizes how the data and applications are spread across physical storage devices.

The storage controller is intelligent enough to allow many different types of storage be used. It organizes the storage into different tiers and moves most used data onto the fastest storage devices. It can use different RAID levels on each tier to optimize performance, reliability and manageability.

The controller is also smart enough to allow data structures to be created based upon today’s needs and expand as needed up to limits set by the administrator.

Snapshot analysis
If we examine typical system configurations, it soon becomes clear that a significant portion of the hardware costs can be attributed to storage. Companies seeking to cut costs are likely to find many opportunities to both reduce the number of storage devices needed and improve performance by using storage virtualization tools, such as those being offered by Dell Compellent.

This technology makes it more easily possible to precisely tune a storage configuration to meet today’s and tomorrow’s requirements because many different types of storage can be made to work together. As new types of storage become available, storage virtualization makes it possible bring that new technology in without requiring a total replacement of storage systems in place today.

Source:http://www.zdnet.com/blog/virtualization/storage-intelligence-storage-virtualization-by-dell-compellent/3442

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Software to Recover Missing Photos from Digital Media Storage Devices

June 22nd, 2011
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Reliable and trustworthy photo recovery software retrieves missing, erased, deleted media files and folders such as pictures galleries, memorable photographs, digital images, snapshots, video albums from various storage devices in simplified manner.

Comprehensive image recovery software retrieves digital pictures, photographs, favorite snaps from bad sector infected hard disk drive.
www.picrecovery.com
Have you lost digital photographs from USB removable media or hard disk drive? Use complete and comprehensive photo recovery solution to retrieve inaccessible, virus infected and undetectable picture files and folders missing due to formatted drive, human mistake, improper device handling, system crash, improper system shut down or hardware malfunctions. Highly optimized digital images recovery software designed and developed by well educated team of professional software developers to restore picture galleries, favorite snaps, memorable photographs from computer hard disk (ATA, SATA, SCSI). Exclusively developed card recovery software retrieves missing image files and folders from USB removable media drives, different type of memory cards such as Secure Digital Card, Compact Flash Card, Multimedia Memory Card, XD Picture Card or other similar USB flash memory cards.
Technically advance memory card recovery software easily gets back virus infected photographs even if “drive not detected” “drive not formatted” error messages displayed on computer screen while accessing USB drive on Laptop, Desktop etc. One of the best digital photos recovery software retrieves images, pictures, photographs from hard disk drive with supports to different versions of Windows Operating System such as Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP Editions, Windows NT etc.

Source:http://libcom.org/news/software-recover-missing-photos-digital-media-storage-devices-22062011

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Hitachi GST releases cloud storage and backup service with free 3GB online storage

June 10th, 2011
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Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi GST) announced Thursday its new cloud storage service, HitachiBackup.com, offering anywhere, anytime access with the initial 3 gigabytes (3GB) of online storage are free.

When using Hitachi’s cloud storage service, your most important or cherished content is stored on secure online servers for accessing and sharing files from any web browser, tablet or smartphone – even from an Apple iPhone and iPad app. All content is stored in its natural format (no proprietary formatting), so files are easy to view, download and share from any web browser, anywhere. The user can also share online content with others by sending a web link. Backups can be performed continuously or as scheduled at a specific time in the day at the convenience of the user.

According to a recent poll sponsored by Hitachi GST and conducted online by Harris Interactive, almost half of U.S adults who have digital data (45 percent) have lost photos, music, videos or documents, stored on a laptop or computer due to a virus, hardware or software malfunction or for another reason.

According to the poll, Hitachi GST has discovered that the majority of U.S adults have never used a cloud backup service (71 percent). Among those U.S adults who use another backup method other than cloud, the top reasons why included: they wanted content physically nearby (31 percent), they are concerned about data security and privacy online (26 percent), they think it is too costly (22 percent) and they are not sure how to do it (18 percent). With affordable, simple and secure solutions, many of the consumer behaviors and fears uncovered in this new national survey can be addressed.

Hitachi GST utilizes advanced security technology to guarantee that files are saved in the most secure way possible. All communication goes through an encrypted SSL channel, the same ones used by banking institutions. HitachiBackup.com is as simple as turning on a light switch. Once the online backup software is installed on the user’s computer or laptop, by sliding the online backup bar to “on”, all pictures, movies, music files and important documents will get backed up to secure remote servers.

For more storage, Hitachi GST gives users an option to upgrade to a quarter of a terabyte (250GB) for $49 per year, and includes multiple computer protection. Upgrade to a paid account and receive the Apple iPhone or iPad mobile digital device apps for free. The new service also allows users to store content in the cloud for anytime, anywhere access through any web browser, as well as sharing of files with friends and family using email links. The user can also restore backed-up data if needed from anywhere to anywhere without having access to the local drive.

HitachiBackup.com can also be used to backup the computer, laptop or any brand of external hard drive. Once the Hitachi Backup software is installed, by default, it will copy everything in the user account, starting from documents and photos, and then moves on to music and videos in the user folder, up to the available space. The user can also edit the default folders or add additional folders to better suit backup needs.

Outside of offering HitachiBackup.com as a standalone cloud storage service, Hitachi has been shipping this online backup service with several of its external hard drive families. The most recent is its new line of Touro Pro external storage and backup solutions. Hitachi external drives take data protection to the next level where users receive both local and online cloud backup in one integrated solution, within one interface – no more downloading and installing two separate programs.

With Touro Pro, customers know that their data is tucked away in the cloud. Hitachi Touro Pro solutions come in capacities ranging from 500GB ($109.99 MSRP) to 3TB ($229.99 MSRP).

“The launch of HitachiBackup.com gives us the opportunity to reach out and educate consumers and small business owners on the importance of protecting their digital content,” said Mike Williams, vice president and general manager, Hitachi GST Branded Business. “The real question is not if backup is important, but whether the information you’re storing is important. For example, in the survey 76 percent of U.S adults listed digital photos and home videos as their most important files. HitachiBackup.com gives users a simple and easy way not only to protect these files, but to access and share them from anywhere.”

Source:http://www.wwpi.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12860:hitachi-gst-releases-cloud-storage-and-backup-service-with-free-3gb-online-storage-&catid=236:backup-and-recovery&Itemid=2701320

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Top external hard drives – best storage solution

October 22nd, 2010
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If you’re looking for the best external storage for you, there are several good options out there. To find the one that is best suited for you, you need to look at several factors including your budget, the capacity you desire, the drive speed and more. You also want a reliable brand and model, so those are also considerations to keep in mind when choosing your new hd.

What to watch out for is poor quality of casing, hard disk itself or components. Here is a list of top-rated hard drives based on a compilation of reviews from top review sites. You’re likely to find one here that will suit your needs well.

Western Digital My Book

Western Digital’s “My Book” line of drives is one of the oldest manufactured external hard drives to date, and the line is currently in its 3rd generation of offerings. My Book 3.0 has in-built USB 3.0 capabilities, making it a sensible choice if you’re looking to stay updated with computer technology standards. Since USB 3.0 hasn’t even been released yet at the time of this writing, investing in this hard drive is a surefire way to make it last well into the future.

Western Digital is a well-known brand reputed for producing reliable internal and external hd. Although there aren’t many reviews yet for the My Book 3.0 because it’s so new, previous generations have garnered enthusiastic positive reviews from both professional and consumer-driven review sites.

The My Book drive is available in 1 TB and 2 TB capacities, and will likely have more capacities available once demand increases.

Iomega Prestige

Iomega has also been manufacturing all kinds of storage devices for a long time. They were the original manufacturers of the Zip drive back in the day, which eventually became an industry benchmark of computer storage devices. Iomega are using their knowledge and experience to now make high-quality external hd.

The Iomega Prestige is a stylish and elegant drive, boasting an attractive brushed aluminum finish. Its current capacities include 500 GB, 1 TB, 1.5 TB and 2 TB.

The Prestige has received good to excellent reviews from professional and consumer review sites.

Lacie D2 Quadra

The Lacie D2 Quadra series external storage are designed to be stackable, and are known for their expandability. You can purchase them sequentially as your storage needs change, and keep stacking them together. They are connectable via USB as well as Firewire 400 and 800, and ESATA as well.

The D2 Quadra is available in the following capacities: 500 GB, 1 TB, 1.5 TB and 2 TB.

This model has gotten favourable reviews overall from professional and consumer review sites.

Worthy Mention

Amongst all the many good external storage out there, the hard drives mentioned above are the ones that have consistently gotten the best reviews from major review sites. There are a few more that also deserve to be mentioned:

Western Digital Passport

Toshiba Portable

Seagate FreeAgent Go

Western Digital Element

Seagate Desktop

Conclusion

In general, the brands Western Digital, Toshiba, Seagate, and Lacie are at the forefront of the external hard drive market. These brands have a consistent record of manufacturing reliable, high-quality hard drives.

Which one is the best for you? It’s a matter of preference, really. Once you know the features you’re looking for, you’ll be in a better position to choose from the options available.

Also consider building a hard drive of your own, or upgrading your existing internal HD- which is easier than it might seem.

Source:http://www.booshnews.com/2010/10/22/top-external-hard-drives-best-storage-solution/

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