Technology Information
HACKED!™ the OH! *#% flash drive
Holy crap—somebody just went and TORE MY FREAKING USB CABLE IN HALF while it was still attached to my laptop! No — wait — sorry. That’s just my USB flash drive. My bad. Nevermind. Mammoth 2-gig capacity. Peggable blistercard packaging. (link)
The conclusion, however, that Flash SSDs are often misleadingly presented as energy savers to increase your battery mileage on notebooks, is not invalidated. The truth is that more and more Flash SSDs will be increasingly efficient. But many conventional hard drives can also be more efficient than today’s Flash SSDs in the scenarios some of you were demanding: when providing data under a defined workload such as video playback or in idle until the notebook battery runs empty.
We looked into all of that to find answers to the questions. You will see that there is indeed one Flash SSD that beats the living daylights out of any hard drive now, and you will see that answers can only be found for specific applications. (link)
Does it really get this hot in Japan? … in the office? … to warrant a USB air conditioned tie? OR do people walk around with their laptops with a USB cable running to their ties? However … it does look quite refreshing.
For that hiker in you, here’s a USB device to store your data when you get the urge to climb mount everest. AND it comes in 6 colors ($32)
USB carabiner flash drive built-in flash memory lets you store your data on the go. You are easy to hook in your bag, it’s another fancy stuff for your daily life. (link)
Sun will release a 32GB flash storage drive this year and make flash storage an option for nearly every server the vendor produces, Sun officials are announcing Wednesday. (Compare storage products)
Like EMC, Sun is predicting big things for flash. While flash storage is far more expensive than disk on a per-gigabyte basis, Sun argues that flash is cheaper for high-performance applications that rely on fast IOPS (I/O Operations Per Second) speeds.
“It consumes one-fifth the power and is a hundred times faster [than rotating disk drives],” John Fowler, the head of Sun’s servers and storage division, said at a press conference in Boston Tuesday. “The fact that it’s not the same dollars per gigabyte is perfectly okay.” (link)
Overview
USB Flash Drive Duplicator allows one Master USB Flash Drive to be simultaneously duplicated to 60 USB Flash Drives.
IP Multicast Duplication (In development)
IP Multicast duplication is the feature designed for large-volume duplication business which allows one FCD unit to send data to hundreds of other FCD units via IP Multicast protocol.
This feature require all FCD to be connected to Ethernet switch or Hub (link)
Do you want an SSD but don’t want to pay for one? Well check out this DIY SSD adapter using compact flash cards. Has anyone tried this out with 1TB CF cards? What’s the performance like? Is anyone desperate enough to spend $$ over a traditional hard drive? Thought so.
Protect your organization’s portable data and comply with data-at-rest agency directives by choosing Kingston’s new, ultra-secure DataTraveler® BlackBox USB Flash drive. It’s FIPS 140-2 Level 2 certified and features 256-bit, hardware-based AES encryption, enforced complex password protection and device lockdown after a specified number of invalid attempts, to prevent brute force attacks.
DataTraveler BlackBox is rugged and waterproof (up to 4 feet), with a titanium-coated, stainless steel casing for added data protection. And it’s easy to set up and use, with no admin rights or application installation required. (link)
Hewlett-Packard has been selling USB-based hybrid flash-floppy drives that were pre-infected with malware, the company said last week in a security bulletin.
Dubbed “HP USB Floppy Drive Key,” the device is a combination flash drive and compact floppy drive, and is designed to work with various models of HP’s ProLiant Server line. HP sells two versions of the drive, one with 256MB of flash capacity, the other with 1GB of storage space.
A security analyst with the SANS Institute’s Internet Storm Center (ISC) suspects that the infection originated at the factory, and was meant to target ProLiant servers. “I think it’s naive to assume that these are not targeted attacks,” said John Bambenek, who is also a researcher at the University of Illinois. (link)
An Intel executive demonstrated upcoming solid-state drives at this week’s Intel Developer Forum in Shanghai, noting that the chipmaker is on track to deliver the drives later this year.
Meanwhile, an Intel fellow describes his “addiction” to solid-state drives in a blog posted Wednesday.
SSDs, if you don’t already know, are based on flash memory chip technology and have no moving parts. Hard-disk drives, in contrast, use read-write heads that hover over spinning platters to access and record data. With no moving parts, SSDs avoid both the risk of mechanical failure and the mechanical delays of hard drives. Therefore, SSDs are generally faster and more reliable. The catch is the cost: SSDs are currently much more expensive than hard drives.
Knut Grimsrud, an Intel fellow who leads an R&D group responsible for developing new mainstream storage innovations, described in a blog the difference between using a hard drive and a solid-state drive. (link)
While munching on a reuben at Birk’s, a steakhouse in Silicon Valley, Seagate (STX) CEO Bill Watkins is explaining why he’s not too worried about a these trendy new laptops that have everything but a hard drive.
On the surface, this would seem to be a big problem. Seagate, after all, is the world’s largest hard drive maker with expected sales of more than $3 billion this quarter – so Watkins likes to see his wares go into more gadgets, not fewer. It’s easy to see why he tends not to favor devices like Lenovo’s sleek ThinkPad X300, which is winning raves for its light weight and silent operation, and its 64-gigabyte flash storage drive.
And the X300 isn’t the only laptop that’s doing without a hard drive in favor of a flash solid state drive, or SSD. A version of Apple’s (AAPL) MacBook Air also comes with 64 gigabytes of flash. And there are other defectors, like the diminutive Eee PC from ASUS.
But the key thing, Watkins argues, is that SSDs are just too expensive, and will be for a long time. Just look at the MacBook Air. There are two versions of the Apple laptop, one with an 80 GB hard drive for $1,800, and one with a 64 GB SSD for $3,100. Why pay so much more for less storage? It’s not a difficult choice.
“Realistically, I just don’t see the flash notebook sell,” Watkins says. “We just don’t see the proposition.” (link)
