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Posts Tagged ‘SATA’

Apricorn SATA Wire upgrade kit makes getting a new drive simple

By Shane McGlaun on Thursday, Nov 19th 2009 No Comments

There are probably lots of people out there who would like to add a new HDD or SSD to their notebook computer, but are worried about getting their data and OS onto a new drive. Apricorn has announced a new kit called the SATA Wire Upgrade kit that makes getting data onto your new drive easy.

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FirmTek now shipping SeriTek/2ME4-E Snow Leopard compatible eSATA host adapter

By Shane McGlaun on Monday, Oct 19th 2009 No Comments

A company called FirmTek has announced that it is now shipping a new four-port eSATA host adapter that is compatible with the latest Apple Snow Leopard OS. The device works with both 32-bit and 64-bit modes in the OS and the device is backwards compatible with older versions of Mac OS X.

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mSATA connector promises smaller netbooks; Toshiba launch first mSATA SSDs

By Chris Davies on Tuesday, Sep 22nd 2009 No Comments

If there’s one thing we’re crying out for, it’s another netbook connector standard. Happily the SATA-IO working group have delivered just that in the shape of mini-SATA (or mSATA), a new low-profile connector supporting 1.5Gb/s and 3.0Gb/s transfer rates but with a slightly smaller plug. To celebrate, Toshiba have outed two new mSATA SSDs, offer 30GB and 62GB capacity

toshiba msata ssd

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Seagate Barracuda XT 2TB SATA 6.0Gbps hard-drive is world’s first

By Chris Davies on Monday, Sep 21st 2009 1 Comment

Seagate have announced the world’s first SATA 6Gbps hard-drive, the Barracuda XT, a huge chunk of 2TB capacity aimed at high-performance workstations. The Barracuda XT 2TB spins at 7,200rpm and is the first to feature the faster-speed SATA interface, though it’s also backward compatible with SATA 3.0Gbps and 1.5Gbps.

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Elecom nanoSSD slots straight into SATA port

By Chris Davies on Tuesday, Aug 25th 2009 No Comments

Elecom have announced two new solid-state drives, the 8GB and 16GB nanoSSD ESD-IDSAA Series, which are designed to slot directly into a SATA motherboard slot. Measuring 25 x 39 x 6.5 mm, the nanoSSDs can be used as startup drives on a main system or, Elecom suggest, the primary drive on a compact Mini-ITX setup.

elecom nanossd 16gb sata 540x404

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ASUS P6X58 Premium motherboard with USB 3.0 and SATA 6Gb/s

By Chris Davies on Tuesday, Jul 21st 2009 No Comments

In case you can’t read the helpful legends in the image below, you’re looking eye-to-port at what promises to be the first motherboard with dual SuperSpeed USB 3.0. The ASUS P6X58 Premium is designed for Intel’s Core i7 CPU range, and has six DDR3 memory slots, three PCI Express 2.0 slots and the usual bevy of USB 2.0 ports and headers; however, ASUS have also thrown in a pair of USB 3.0 ports capable of a theoretical 4.8Gbps transfer rate.

asus P6X58 premium motherboard 2 540x329

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MacBook Pro 3.0Gbps SATA upgrade breaking third-party drives?

By Chris Davies on Friday, Jun 26th 2009 No Comments

The recently-released MacBook Pro firmware that promises to enable 3.0Gbps SATA connectivity has ironically been causing problems in third-party drives. Apple released the upgrade earlier this week, after users of the new 13- and 15-inch MacBook Pro models reported that the notebooks were limited to 1.5Gbps SATA; this did not affect the speed of standard-fit hard-drives, but may have limited future performance should the user upgrade to a faster HDD or SSD. Now, some users with third-party drives already installed are reporting frequent pauses, usage spikes and data errors with the new firmware.

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Samsung mini-PCIe SSD: up to 64GB of super-compact storage

By Chris Davies on Tuesday, Jun 23rd 2009 2 Comments

Samsung have announced a solid-state drive (SSD) that fits onto a mini-PCIe card, offering up to 64GB capacity in a form-factor nearly 80-percent smaller than a 2.5-inch drive. The SATA 3.0 Gbps drive is not only intended for compact devices, such as MIDs and netbooks, but as a secondary or complementary drive for regular notebooks.

samsung sata mini card ssd 480x376

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Apple address slow MacBook Pro SATA with firmware update

By Chris Davies on Tuesday, Jun 23rd 2009 No Comments

Apple have released a firmware update for their latest MacBook Pro notebooks that fully enables their SATA 3.0 Gbps interface. The move comes in response to vocal complaints from MacBook Pro 13- and 15-inch buyers who discovered Apple had seemingly limited their new unibody machines to the older 1.5 Gbps SATA. However the company has distanced itself from drives that actually use the faster interface, reminding users that “Apple has not qualified or offered these drives for Mac notebooks and their use is unsupported.”

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MacBook Pro 13- and 15-inch limited to SATA not SATA-II?

By Chris Davies on Monday, Jun 15th 2009 No Comments

MacBook Pro confusion this weekend, as some owners of the new unibody 13- and 15-inch notebooks are reporting that their machines are apparently limited to 1.5Gb/s SATA connections rather than the faster 3.0Gb/s SATA-II. Full details are unclear, but it seems that Apple have either switched to SATA hardware or used firmware for the newest MacBook Pros that limits hard-drive connections to the slower speed.

macbook pro 13 15 inch slashgear 2 r3media 480x263