Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

The Eee PC has been the most popular net book since it started selling, namely because it was the first, but also because it is damn good at what it does. However a few people have some qualms with it, mainly about the fairly low storage that it offers: 12GB.  I know I could easily fill that in a day and obviously the people at the Japanese company GreenHouse agree with me as they have released some Eee PC hard drive upgrades.
You can now replace your measly 12GB SSD with either the 32GB or 64GB modules which will over quintuple your storage, making the Eee PC a much more attractive option.  The specifications aren’t awful (considering that it is for the Eee PC) with 35MB/s and 15MB/s, but comparing that to a desktop internal hard drive it is poor and even for a laptop it is slow.  What’s it cost to upgrade that Eee?  Keep reading.

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If Santa is looking for stocking stuffers, or if you are just looking for some portable storage at a good price, you may want to check out one of Newegg’s latest “Special Buys.“

Right now, they are offering the Kingston DataTravelor 100 4GB flash drive for just $7.99 complete with free shipping.

I’ve compare shopped the item at some other sites.  Overstock is actually asking $21.99 for the same item. (Which is just ridiculous, even Newegg doesn’t list that as the regular price). . . .

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You remember Drobo, right?  It’s the cute, little storage robot, now with up to 4TB of storage.  Well, some interesting news surfaced that might make you take another look at this gem: Drobo Apps.

Yes.  With all the ways our phones can become different and more useful devices with 3rd party applications, now your Drobo can as well.  Currently, there are 20 Apps for Drobo.  In what ways will Drobo change?  Find out by following.

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Looking to get an Eee PC for less than an iPod?  Sounds like a good idea, doesn’t it?  Well, in its quarterly investors earnings call, Asustek announced a great number of things, including the fact that the baseline Eee PCs will be lowered to $200 by the end of 2009.  It seems 1.7 million Eee PCs were shipped last quarter, and Asus is expecting 1.8 million to be shipped this coming quarter.  There is some bad news for some, though.

Along with the price announcement, Asus announced that the 7” and 8.9” models will soon be phased out in favor of the 10-inch models.  That’s somewhat sad to me at least.  The 8.9” is the perfect size I think, especially if the screens on the 8.9” and 10” are the same resolution.

More after the break.

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HP has just introduced their latest USB flash drive, and although flash drives rarely offer any unique features outside of the exterior design, the Floppy Drive Key does give you a little more.  The Floppy Key Drive is actually a two-in-one device that offers the traditional USB storage, but it will also work as USB floppy drive.

Sure for most people a floppy drive is long since outdated, but anyone who is still performing BIOS updates will likely find this useful.  The HP Floppy Drive Key has a small switch on the drive that allows the user to switch modes between functioning as a flash drive and a floppy drive.

The Floppy Drive Key is currently available from HP for a slightly expensive $79 (1GB) or $49 (256MB).  Aside from the convenience of having just one device, it may be a little more cost efficient to pick up an old school and much less expensive flash drive and look for a used external USB floppy drive.

Product [HP]

• Kingston announces 64GB DataTraveler USB flash drive
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Not even a month ago, Pioneer had announced that they had developed a 16 layer disk with 400 gigabytes of data storage. Totally amazing, right? Well, apparently those engineers at Pioneer don’t like to sit on their haunches, because they’ve just announced the development of a 500GB disk that includes extra encoding layers (I’ve read it has anywhere from four to nine extra).  I’m not even sure what I’d DO with all that space on one disk.

Although details haven’t really been given about the development of the new disk, we can probably logically theorize that they followed the same process as it’s predecessor.  With the 400GB disk, data transmission issues were minimized by lowering the amount of crosstalk and hiking high-precision signal transmissions from each respective layer.

Both of the disks will work with Blu-ray players, though Pioneer is quick to stress that their strides in these ultra-high capacity disks will see more of an impact on the industry as file formats grow past the current limitations of the Blu-ray technology used today. Don’t look to run out to your local Wal-Mart or Staples to pick one of these puppies up today though, reports show that since they are still technically in the prototype stage, they aren’t available to the general public at this time, and won’t be for the next two to four years.

Via [ubergizmo]

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• More storage for the Eee PC
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You remember Drobo, right? The “robot” that stores your data, from Data Robotics.  Well, its been over a year since its launch, and the makers of Drobo have decided to give their product a little update.  Today, the “Drobo 2” has been announced, featuring not one, but two Firewire 800 ports. The device also added a more powerful processor to support the Firewire ports and a quieter case fan. Data Robotics claims that the Firewire ports allow for two times the data transfer speeds, blowing other competitors out of the water. However, the Drobo still lacks any sort of Ethernet/Wi-Fi connectivity.

You can still get the Drobo for the same $500 price tag, and $900 gives you two 1TB drives; $1,300 gives you four 1TB drives.  If you don’t care for Firewire, the original Drobo is selling (until stock runs out) for $350 or $750, and $1,075 — empty or bundled with either two 1TB or four 1TB drives, respectively.

Via [CrunchGear]

• Apps concept catching on everywhere: Drobo latest to offer them
• DataTraveler 100 4GB Flash Drive on sale at Newegg for $7.99
• More storage for the Eee PC

Iomega’s eGo external drive line has now hit 1 Terabyte of storage.  Entitled the “Super” eGo drive, the portable storage device contains one single 1 terabyte drive.  The drive’s physical size is also increased, as it is a 3.5 inch drive, as opposed to the normal 2.5 inch size portable hard drives have.  As a reference point, this thing can hold 1.5 thousand hours of video.  It comes in three colors: ruby red, midnight blue, or jet black.  However, the Super eGo only interfaces through USB 2.0, and with a drive of that size I would’ve liked to see a FireWire interface. You can pick one up now for $270.

Via [Gizmodo]

• More storage for the Eee PC
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SanDisk has upped the notch in memory card storage with the release of its new high-capacity microSD, microSDHC and Memory Stick Micro (M2) which all belong in their new Mobile Ultra card series. These flash mobile memory cards boast of 2GB, 4GB and 8GB capacities as well as offering fast loading speeds and accelerated transfer rates.

SanDisk said that their new Mobile Ultra flash memory card series will fit well with budding mobile phone photographers and videographers, thanks to their high-storage capacity and the ability to easily transfer photos and videos to PC’s. SanDisk has packed their Mobile Ultra memory cards with a MobileMate Micro Reader that users can plug into the USB port of their machines which allows for those fast data transfers. This also goes for users who habitually transfer their digital media into social media or video-sharing sites.

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Standing by their tag line, Fujitsu will truly “make your data portable” with its new Handy Drive 400, offering 400GB of space for any kind of digital contraption you can throw at it. The drive measures a convenient 3.23 x 5.57 x 0.87-inches and weighs 8.12-ounces. This 4200rpm hard drive will connect to your PC just fine over USB 2.0, although there’s no word whether this will support Firewire. Available now in Japan for 216€ or just a little over $330 USD. Yes, it’s pricey.

Via [Akihabara News]

• More storage for the Eee PC
• Apps concept catching on everywhere: Drobo latest to offer them
• DataTraveler 100 4GB Flash Drive on sale at Newegg for $7.99