Computer Storage Products Reviews And News
Internal, external, hard drives or SSD -- you need somewhere to store your files, images and media. And don't forget to back-up early and often. Here we cover computer storage products of all types like Solid State Drives (SSD), good old spinning Hard Drives, external storage devices and network attached storage (NAS) devices.
Although performance has been greatly enhanced over the last few years through the use of faster spindle speeds, larger caches, and newer interfaces, hard drives still tend to be a bottleneck in a typical PC. Mechanical devices, by their very nature, require time to seek the data requested, read it, and then transfer that information back...
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When most home and workstation users think of NAS (Network Attached Storage), they think of big, bulky rackmount servers packed to the brim with terabytes of hard drive space (and terabyte-style price tags to match). NAS became a buzzword in the late 90's, during the dot-com explosion, where the product was targeted at companies who were just...
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Western Digital has earned themselves quite a reputation in the Computing Enthusiast market with their line of Raptor hard drives. Originally targeted as "Enterprise class" SATA variants of what WD had historically...
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End user demand for increased hard drive capacity is waning somewhat, now that we can store over 200,000 typical digital photos, or 60,000 music files, for less than a $100 street price. Sixty thousand music files could play for almost six months without repeating and you'd have to stay...
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It used to be the case that the fastest optical drive was, by default, the best. Reducing CD burn times from 12 minutes to eight and then to six was considered significant evolutionary progress. But then a barrier was encountered, where the imperfect nature of mass-produced compact discs precluded, or at least made it much more difficult,...
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Now that the DVD format war is essentially over, thanks to the advent of Dual-Format drives, the market's next big push is towards Dual-Layer recording. One of the most noticeable differences with the next generation of DVD drives is low pricing from the start, unlike the initial DVD...
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Choosing a recordable DVD drive has always been somewhat of a difficult task. There was a bit of initial uncertainty as some wondered which format would win out, DVD+R or DVD–R. After all, each format has its advantages. In the end, however, unlike the Beta vs...
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Back in mid-June we took a look at the latest offering from Plextor, the PX-712A. This drive boasted 12X DVD+R write speeds and maintained the same level of quality we've come to expect from Plextor. For years, Plextor has been in the optical drive business and for most of that...
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A few years back, if you wanted the best of DVD playback and CD burning, you had to buy separate drives for each task. With the advent of combo drives hitting the mainstream market, however, users can now get top-notch CD and DVD performance from a single optical device. MSI's...
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For years Plextor has set the standard for optical drives in both quality and features, being the first to bring major innovations to market on a number of occasions. These days, the competition fierce, with cheaper offerings available that can compete on the same performance level as slightly more expensive Plextor products. However, what...
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We've taken a look at quite a few dual format DVD burners over the last few months, and found some to be better than others for various reasons. Most, if not all, of the drives we've reviewed shined in one area, but were lacking in another. Whether it be slower CD-R burning speeds, lack...
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The Artec Dual DVD±R/RW DriveA Quality DVD±R/RW for Less By,Jeff BoutonMarch 17, 2004 When it comes to CD and DVD writers, the market is filled with quality models from a wide array...
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ASUS DRW-0402P/D DVD±R/RW Drive Review High Capacity on a Budget By Chris Angelini January 28, 2004 It's hard to believe that the very first DVD writers were priced in the neighborhood of $16,000, especially considering the current landscape of low-cost optical hardware. There's still a market...
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The Plextor PX-708A 8x DVD±R/RW Drive Plextor fulfills the need for speed! By Robert Maloney December 28th, 2003 When it comes to optical drives, one brand that folks have turned to time and time again, for reliability and performance, would be Plextor. We have had our looks at many a CD-RW drive and even a few 4X DVD burners...
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The AOpen DRW4410 4x DVD+R/RW Drive A drive that won't burn through your budget! By Robert Maloney December 4, 2003 If we were to step back for a second and look at the state of optical storage a couple of years ago, we were just getting used to having CD-Writers come standard in pre-built PCs. They might not have been super-fast, or...
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The Plextor PX-708UF DVD±R/RW Drive Plextor Thinks Outside the Box By, Jeff Bouton November 20, 2003 When it comes to CD/DVD recorders, Plextor has been one of the top choices for a number of years. While they have been paving the way in this fiercely competitive environment, the industry has evolved and technology improved,...
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The Teac DV-W50D DVD±R/RW Drive The Best of Both Worlds on a Budget By, Jeff Bouton August 28, 2003 As DVD burners have gone mainstream, they've also evolved into an economical burning solution, but this wasn't always the case. When DVD writers were first introduced a few years ago, they got everyone's attention with their functionality...
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The Teac CD-W552E 52x24x52 CD-RW Drive Pushing the CD-R Limits By, Jeff Bouton August 7th, 2003 It's hard to believe how far technology has advanced over the last decade. I can remember getting my first CD-ROM drive that came with a Sound Blaster audio card. That was the ultimate addition to my Wang 386/16MHz computer system. ...
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The Plextor Premium 52/32/52 Hi-Performance Internal CD-RW Drive Exceptionally Fast Performance For Professionals Jason R. Gibson July 14, 2003 With the recent introduction of recordable DVD drives, it seems like recordable CD drives may soon become a thing of the past. In hopes...
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The Artec 52X 24X 52X CD-RW Series The drive is on fire, we don't need no water, let that baby burn! By Tom Laverriere June 24, 2003 CD-RW drive technology has come a long way from its prehistoric introduction at 2X burn speeds. The first CD-RW drives in the mainstream took up to thirty minutes to burn a disc and it was pretty...
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The Plextor PX-504A DVD+R/RW Drive More Space, More Speed, More Compatability By, Jeff Bouton April 15, 2003 Plextor is one of the top manufacturers of optical drives. In fact, many consider their drives to be the best available. Over the years, we've had the opportunity to review quite a few models, with virtually...
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Maxtor's DiamondMax Plus 9 Serial ATA Drive Serial ATA Drives Mature By Dave Altavilla March 20, 2003 Our first look at a Serial ATA drive, quite frankly, was a little less than inspiring. That is to say that, even though the SATA 150 standard offers a higher bandwidth...
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