Now There’s a Good reason to buy the WD Elite

Let’s face it, who needs extra connections? Blah. The electronic display on new WD external elite models are reason enough to spend the extra money on these drives. Other than the flashy “elite” name there are some useful options with it. The label helps distinguish which drive contain what data, plus gives you a rough estimate of how space is available. Things that are the same: shape, automatic backup software, hardware based encryption, warranty, and Western Digital’s green technology.

USB 2.0? Come on already. Hello? USB 3.0? Heck even eSATA would be appreciated. If I’m paying a premium for the brand name it should have firewire. FYI Mac users will need to reformat the drive to work optimally with their hardware. FAT32 just doesn’t cut it. A nice aluminum or metal casing would look fantastic, albeit more expensive, would probably do wonders for the failure rate. Plastic is not great when it comes to heat dissipation.

Hmm, I wonder how much a label machine costs? I’m always mixing up my music and porn drives…

Here we go again …

Who’s got the bigger … notebook hard drive? I guess Western Digital has beaten the others to the punch. Enter 1 TB of storage goodness in a 2.5″ platform. Whaaat?! I’m still using a lowly 500GB in my desktop beast an now WD has come out with something even larger for my notebook? Perhaps it IS time to upgrade. I’ve barely filled up half of my 80GB laptop hard drive and along comes something to tempt my wallet. Shame on WD for trying to put me in the poor house with their lineup of storage solutions! I guess the only thing left is to wait for Seagate to come out with their version … and run out and buy it.

Western Digital buys Silicon Systems

Well hello there! It looks like Western Digital thinks solid state drives are worth investing in. Silicon Systems just got snapped up by WD for $65 million. It seems for a little while SSD technology has been searching for something … a legitimate place amongst the big boys when it came to data storage. I think this purchase makes a good case for the technology hitting mainstream with a bigger push. But rather than just a re-branded Silicon Systems solid state drive, I’d prefer to see Western Digital integrate the technology into their existing research and development. I’d like to see some innovative approach seeing how WD has the resources to do it.

So does this acquisistion put pressure on Seagate to make a purchase as well? I think if you see a Western Digital SSD sitting next to a lesser known brand at the store, you’re going to stick with WD. It certainly sets the bar for other companies looking to sell. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Seagate make a similar purchase or announce that their brand of SSD’s to be shipping soon.

South Korea cracks down

Under increasing pressure South Korean officials have finally cracked down on peer to peer file sharers. In total 39 people were indicted for illegally shared files. I’m guessing there was a lot of movies, software, porn, manga, and of course lots and lots of Starcraft maps. Financial analysts estimate that billions of dollars are lost to digital theft each year. Perhaps this “token” gesture is meant to quiet international pressure. Let’s be honest, it’s a very small step, but it’s a step nonetheless. Maybe there is hope that Asian countries can get serious about piracy? Let’s just wait and see how much Starcraft II gets pirated in the spring.

Maybe it’s time to buy that 1 TB now …

Can you hear that? It’s opportunity knocking. Seagate is dealing with it’s firmware disaster bricking their hard drives and a sever distrust has been building for awhile against their brand. I’m sure many consumers are switching to Western Digital because of the negative PR. Here’s another reason to switch. 2 terabytes of storage goodness. No, not 2 hard drives in a raid enclosure. A single 3.5″ drive and 4 platters with 400Gb per square inch in storage density. 32 MB cache and did I mention that it’s green technology? MRSP $299US.

Hmm, maybe it’s time to buy a new drive. Are there any cheap non bricked Seagate 1 TB’s for sale?