E-Label Smart Display Helps Creative Professionals Organize Their Storage

Western Digital introduced its new My Passport(TM) Studio(TM) portable drives featuring the super-fast FireWire® 800 interface and a customizable e-label that’s always visible, even when the drive is unplugged. Sporting a sleek and stylish design, the new high-performance My Passport Studio drives are formatted for Mac® computers, compatible with Apple® TimeMachine® software, and feature automatic and continuous backup with WD SmartWare(TM) software, and 256-bit hardware-based encryption. Available now at select retailers and shopwd.com, the new My Passport Studio drives are offered in capacities of 320 GB, 500 GB and 640 GB.

WD’s My Passport Studio drives are designed for creative professionals and Mac enthusiasts. Their production and use of many large files require the fast transfers from computer to My Passport Studio drives that FireWire 800 provides. Professionals such as photographers also benefit from the e-labeling system to effectively organize their work.

The e-label smart display on the front of the My Passport drives can be changed as often as desired using the included WD SmartWare software. Users can easily create a label to personalize their drive or remind themselves of its contents. The e-label also shows available capacity and whether the drive is locked. Utilizing e-paper technology, the information on the display remains clearly visible, even when the drive is unplugged.

According to research firm Parks Associates, the average U.S. broadband household currently has over 120 GB of digital media and files which is projected to grow to over 1 TB of data by 2013.

“Many of our customers store their content on multiple external drives, making it difficult to know what content is on each drive,” said Dale Pistilli, vice president of marketing of WD’s Branded Products group. “The e-label smart display is an elegant and practical solution for organizing and keeping track of one’s digital life and work. WD SmartWare software makes it easy for users to protect their valuable content with automatic and continuous backup and encryption.”

The new My Passport Studio is fully compatible with Apple TimeMachine software for easy backup of your most important files. It also offers the option of the simple and intuitive WD SmartWare software, with automatic continuous backup and real-time visual interface, giving users a reassuring view of their backup as it happens. After the first backup, users’ files are backed up automatically every time they change or add a file.

My Passport Studio drives also feature user-selected password protection combined with 256-bit hardware-based encryption, which scrambles files before they are stored. Typically found only on much more expensive drive systems, the encryption acts as a virtual padlock to keep users’ data safe.

Price and Availability

The new My Passport Studio drives are offered in capacities of 320 GB, 500 GB and 640 GB and have a 3-year limited warranty. My Passport Studio ultra-portable drives are available now at select retailers and online at shopwd.com. MSRP for the My Passport Studio drives ranges from $149.99 USD to $199.99 USD depending on capacity.

My Passport Studio
The new WD My Passport Studio ultra-portable drives feature:
– Smart display – a customizable e-label that reminds users of what is stored on the drive and provides available capacity and security status at a glance even when the drive is unplugged;
– FireWire 800 – users can save and access data at top speeds with the high-performance FireWire 800 interface;
– Plug-and-play, designed for use with Mac computers and compatibility with Apple TimeMachine software;
– WD SmartWare software that visually presents consumers’ data in a software control center;
– 256-bit hardware-based encryption and password protection for peace of mind knowing that data is protected from unauthorized access;
– USB 2.0 interface – for convenience and compatibility among multiple computers;
– Planet-friendly packaging derived from recycled materials to minimize waste;
– HFS+ Journaled formatting and are compatible with Mac OS X Tiger®, Leopard® and Snow Leopard®; and,
– 3-year limited warranty.

WD SmartWare Software
WD SmartWare software features:
– Visual backup displays that show content in categories and shows the progress of backup;
– Automatic, continuous data backup will instantly make a second copy whenever you add or change a file;
– Retrieve valuable data to its original location whether it’s lost data or the file has been overwritten; and,
– Customizable data backup that allows users to set drive security, run diagnostics, manage the power settings, and more from the WD SmartWare control center.


Creative Professionals Now Have a Better Way to Tell Their Drives Apart

WD® introduced its new high-performance My Book® Studio(TM) desktop external drives with a customizable e-label that is always visible, even when unplugged, so it’s easy to know the contents of the drive. Designed for Mac® users and creative professionals, the new My Book Studio drives are equipped with a FireWire® 800 interface to give users the speed they need for demanding tasks like photo and video editing and graphic design.

WESTERN DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES MY BOOK(R) STUDIO

The new My Book Studio drives are TimeMachine® compatible, offer automatic, continuous backup with WD SmartWare(TM) software, and include 256-bit hardware-based encryption to provide a high level of security. Available now at select retailers and the WD online store (shopwd.com), the new My Book Studio drives are formatted for Mac and offered in capacities of 500 GB, 1 TB, 1.5 TB and 2 TB.

Creative professionals generate, store and back up massive amounts of digital content. During in-home and in-studio interviews with consumers, WD team members observed that many were taping notes or other hand-made labels on their many drives to tell them apart. For these customers, WD developed the e-label high-contrast smart display which reads like ink on paper, and lets the user create a customized label to describe the drive’s contents.

Utilizing e-paper technology similar to that found on the Amazon Kindle(TM), the information on the display remains clearly visible even when the drive is unplugged, and can be changed easily and as often as desired. The e-label also shows available storage capacity and drive security status.

“Storing and backing up is a huge part of my workflow as a professional photographer,” said Bruce Dorn. “I have been using WD hard drives for quite a while now and my experience has been exceptional with reliability and ease-of-use, and I love the design. The new e-label smart display will help me organize my projects while password protection and encryption will keep it more secure. The new drives deliver backup not only for professionals, but for anyone who is taking pictures, collecting music or who needs to back up their digital life.”

My Book Studio drives also feature user-selected password protection combined with 256-bit hardware-based encryption, which scrambles files before they are stored. Typically found only on much more expensive drive systems, the encryption acts as a virtual padlock to keep users’ data safe.

The new My Book Studio drives come equipped with WD SmartWare software, an integrated application which provides automatic and continuous backup, as well as control of the e-label display, password and other settings. When the My Book Studio drive is plugged in for the first time, the simple and intuitive first backup process launches automatically. The real-time visual interface of WD SmartWare software gives users a reassuring view of their backup as it happens. After the first backup, users’ files are backed up automatically every time they change or add a file.

WD SmartWare software is compatible with the Apple® TimeMachine. Users with older versions of Mac OS (not equipped with TimeMachine) or those who wish to use the drive for both backup and extra storage have the option to use WD SmartWare software backup capability.

“Photographers, videographers and other Mac computer enthusiasts require fast performance for their complex projects,” said Dale Pistilli, vice president of marketing for WD’s branded products group. “They also have a very large number of projects and files which they need to keep organized across multiple hard drives. With a FireWire 800 interface and customizable e-label, the new My Book Studio drives offer an elegant, high-speed solution for these creative professionals to interact with, organize and securely archive their media.”

Price and Availability

The new My Book Studio drives are offered in capacities of 500 GB, 1 TB, 1.5 TB and 2 TB and have a 3-year limited warranty. My Book Studio drives are available now at select retailers and online at shopwd.com. MSRP ranges from $149.99 to $299.99 USD depending on model.

My Book Studio
The new WD My Book Studio drives feature:
– Smart display with a customizable e-label that reminds users of what is stored on the drive, available capacity and security status at-a-glance, even when the drive is unplugged;
– High-performance FireWire 800 interface to access data at top speeds and USB 2.0 interface;
– Plug-and-play ready for Mac users and compatible with Apple TimeMachine;
– WD SmartWare software that visually presents consumers’ data in a software control center, providing them peace of mind that their precious photos, videos and files are securely protected;
– 256-bit hardware-based encryption and password protection for peace of mind knowing that data is protected from unauthorized access;
– Smaller, sleeker, more streamlined design and elegant book-like shape that takes up minimal space and allows two or more My Book drives to nestle together neatly like volumes on a shelf;
– WD GreenPower Technology(TM) lowers internal drive power consumption by up to 30 percent, a sleep mode reduces power during idle times, and a power-saving feature turns the drive on and off with your computer;
– Planet-friendly packaging derived from recycled materials to minimize waste;
– HFS + Journaled(1) formatting and are compatible with Mac OS X Tiger®, Leopard® and Snow Leopard(TM);
– 3-year limited warranty.

WD SmartWare Software
WD SmartWare software features:
– Visual backup displays that show content in categories and shows the progress of backup;
– Automatic, continuous data backup will instantly make a second copy whenever you add or change a file;
– Retrieve valuable data to its original location whether it’s lost data or the file has been overwritten; and,
– Customizable data backup that allows users to set drive security, run diagnostics, manage the power settings, and more from the WD SmartWare control center.

(1) My Book Studio drives can be reformatted NTFS to work with Windows® Vista and Windows 7.

Source: Western Digital Technologies


New SATA-certified 7,200 RPM Series Delivers Improved Performance and Reduced Reliance on Hazardous Substances

Toshiba Storage Device Division (SDD), a division of Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc. and the pioneer in small form factor hard disk drives (HDDs), announced a new family of high-performance 7,200 RPM 2.5-inch HDDs, including a top-end half-terabyte capacity.

The four-model line-up delivers more than a 13 percent performance improvement in disk operations compared to Toshiba’s previous 7,200 RPM family, while decreasing environmental impact by eliminating or reducing the use of certain toxic and hazardous chemicals. The series also carries the SATA-certified 3Gb/s logo, which indicates successful completion of stringent interface compliance testing defined by the Serial ATA International Organization (SATA-IO), the industry body responsible for setting the standards for Serial ATA interface technologies.

Toshiba’s high-performance MKxx56GSYseries offers capacities up to 500GB for commercial and consumer notebook PCs, gaming notebooks and all-in-one desktop PCs. In addition to enhanced performance, the MKxx56GSY models boost responsiveness of the overall system in areas such as application loading and general data processing. The family also offers extended battery life with lower power consumption in standby and sleep modes and faster start-up operation, thereby enhancing user experience.

With these performance features, the new line is well-suited for productivity-oriented, data-intensive and gaming applications, including general computing, graphic and image rendering, and scientific computing, while the power economies make it a fit for all-in-one and EnergyStar PCs.

The series also features best-in-class areal density of 395 Gb/in. At 500GB, the top-capacity HDD can store up to either 142,000 digital photos, 131,000 digital music files, 222 hours of DVD-quality video or 58 hours of high-definition video.

As notebook shipments exceeded desktop shipments for the first time in the third quarter of 2008, according to industry analyst firm IDC, PC manufacturers are looking for 2.5-inch HDDs to provide storage capacities and performance levels that rival larger form factor drives for a similar user experience.

“This new family delivers faster overall system performance, which boosts user productivity — a key differentiator that PC manufacturers can provide to commercial and consumer notebook users,” said Maciek Brzeski, vice president of marketing at Toshiba Storage Device Division. “As a result, we expect that 7,200 RPM HDDs will grow to more than 25 percent of 2.5-inch HDD shipments within two years. In addition to the half-terabyte capacity, decreased environmental impact and low power consumption are also benefits, demonstrating Toshiba’s continued leadership in delivering the right solutions to meet emerging market needs.”

Environmentally Conscious HDDs

The environmental enhancements in the MKxx56GSY line are part of Toshiba’s ongoing commitment to transitioning its HDD products to environmentally sounder solutions by the end of 2009. Since September 2008, new HDDs manufactured by Toshiba have decreased or eliminated the use of hazardous or controversial chemical substances, such as antimony trioxide, BFR (brominated flame retardant), PVC (polyvinyl chloride), red phosphorous as well as chlorine and bromine. Toshiba also curtailed usage of all chemicals listed under the European RoHS directive, achieving RoHS compliance across its full product line before mandatory restrictions came into effect.

SATA-Certified Logo

The SATA-certified logo is a program designed by the SATA-IO consortium to easily identify products that adhere to the Serial ATA standard and provide seamless integration across other SATA-compliant components. Products carrying the SATA-certified logo have passed extensive testing for compliance to the SATA specification. The 250GB-per-platter, 7200 RPM, MKxx56GSY series successfully completed the SATA testing and is certified at both the 3Gb/s and 1.5Gb/s interface transfer rates. The MKxx56GSY will be displayed in the SATA-certified section of the SATA-IO booth at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco September 22-24.

“Compliance with the SATA interface specification and other industry standards is of key importance to Toshiba storage products, as standards establish the foundation on which mainstream solutions can be built,” Brzeski said. “Standards reduce the risk of integration for our customers and provide the best criteria for interoperability available for the products we design and market.”

Information and Availability

Toshiba’s new 7,200 RPM 2.5-inch HDD series began shipment to PC manufacturers in limited quantities in the third quarter and is scheduled to enter volume production in the fourth quarter of 2009.

Source:  www.toshibastorage.com


Categories

Archives

Blogroll

Meta


Gadget Blogs - Blog Catalog Blog Directory Technology Blogs - Blog Top Sites Technology Top 100 Gadget Blogs


Shop at Kodak.com

Shop at the Discovery Channel Store.

Buy.com Coupon