With a name that sounds awfully like a certain other external RAID enclosure, and a logo that’s also pretty similar, we could waste plenty of column inches calling Sarotech’s Frigo hard-drive enclosures Drobo knock-offs. Instead, let’s just accept that these things happen, and ask whether space for up to two (Sarotech Frigo RS-2) or four (Sarotech Frigo RS-4) 2TB SATA drives are tempting enough to overlook any similarities.
Don’t let the hard-drive and DVD burner fool you: this isn’t an ultraportable laptop, but a netbook cooler with extra talents. Century’s Netbook Stand aims to address two of the more common complaints about budget ultraportables, low storage capacity and no optical drive, by squeezing both things into a compact slice.
If you’re a fan of Kingston DataTraveler USB storage but weren’t ever able to use them because you’re an Apple user, you’ll be pleased to hear the company has come around and are now offering a Mac compatible version of one of their popular storage devices.
Part of the OLPC project’s appeal has been its innovative Sugar OS; now Sugar Labs have released a public beta of Sugar on a Stick (SoaS), which allows anybody to create a portable Sugar environment that will run on any computer. Fitting onto a 1GB USB memory stick, SoaS combines a compressed version of Fedora 11 with the Sugar Labs amendments.
There’s something strangely compelling about tiny gadgets, and EagleTec’s USB Nano Flash Drive is no different. Measuring just 19 x 15 x 6mm, the Nano Drive is all about squashing portable storage into as small a package as possible, and that means up to 8GB hanging barely noticeable from your keyring.
It’s been almost 18 months since we reviewed the Drobo, and now Data Robotics are back with their latest model, the DroboPro. Aimed at small businesses and professionals with huge quantities of data, the Data Robotics DroboPro has a full eight SATA I/II bays each happy with up to 2TB drives for a maximum of 16TB storage. It also features the company’s intelligent monitoring and management system.
Corsair have announced a desktop dock that can turn any USB flash drive into a one-click backup solution. The Corsair Voyager Port has a top-mounted USB 2.0 port and comes with a copy of NovaBACKUP 10; at the push of the Voyager Port’s single button, a preset backup is triggered.
Video demo after the cut
Backup remains a guilty chore, and one which most of us don’t complete as often as we know we ought to. Cheap USB drives certainly offer the storage, but it’s still down to the user to make the most of them; that’s where Clickfree comes in. Their automatic backup is, according to the claims, easier than making toast. SlashGear picked up the Clickfree HD325 hard-drive and Clickfree Transformer Cable to see if that was true.
Buffalo have announced their latest SSD range, the SHD-NSUM, and while we’re used to seeing solid-state drives nowadays, these new models do have at least one feature to differentiate them. As well as giving the 2.5-inch drives the usual SATA-II interface, there’s also a micro-USB 2.0 port that lets you access data before you install the SSD.
OWC have announced their latest Mercury Pro Blu-ray/SuperDrive “Quad Interface” External Drive, offering Blu-ray and DVD burning for any PC or Mac with FireWire 800, FireWire 400, USB 2.0 or eSATA connectivity. The new Mercury Pro also doubles the burn speed of the previous-generation version.
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