Satechi today announced a new USB-C adapter, and it's quite the doozy. Though its official name - the Satechi USB-C Hybrid Multiport Adapter - might be a little boring, the actual adapter is anything but. As you'd expect, the USB-C adapter comes with a variety of ports, but it comes with something else we're not really used to seeing on these types of products: An M.2 slot.
Microsoft seems bent on the idea that Seagate will be the absolute best company to promote for storage expansion for the Xbox Series X and S. At the launch of the console, Microsoft's own "Designed for Xbox" announced a "close collaboration with Seagate" to create storage expansion for the Xbox Series X. Now they've "collaborated with Seagate once again."
The human body is filled with vast amounts of information tucked away inside DNA, and it's extremely efficient at storing data. It's millions of times more efficient at storing data than existing data storage solutions. Researchers from Northwestern University say that we could get rid of every hard drive in the world and store all that data using only a couple of hundred pounds of DNA.
As game consoles become more powerful, one particular aspect seems to have taken a small step backward instead. Internal storage naturally has to be a bit limited, but the latest PlayStation and Xbox generations have also made expanding that storage either more difficult or more expensive. While the Xbox Series X|S has long had storage expansion, the available choices aren't exactly accessible, making the sighting of this 512GB card from Seagate an early holiday treat for Xbox gamers.
Google One, the company's subscription plan that includes cloud storage space, has added a new 5TB plan for those who need more than 2TB but aren't willing to pay for the next highest level, 10TB. The new 5TB option joins the existing smaller plans, including 100GB and 200GB options, as well as the huge 20TB and 30TB plans.
Google has announced a feature that has been in beta since 2019 has now become generally available. The feature allows Drive users to make all file types available for offline viewing. Previously, only Google file types were available for offline viewing.
Western Digital is a common name in the world of computer storage, making many of the hard drives inside computers and other devices today. The company has announced a new architecture called OptiNAND that meshes traditional hard drives with flash storage capability to deliver performance and increased areal density. OptiNAND drives are essentially a combination of a traditional hard drive with an iNAND embedded flash drive.
Kingston makes a lot of storage devices, but today, it announced one of the most intriguing yet. Today Kingston Digital announced the DataTraveler Max, a new USB flash drive capable of some impressive read and write speeds. The DataTraveler Max users USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 to meet those high speeds, and what results is a USB flash drive that's faster than most people probably even need.
We've covered a lot of Network-Attached Storage or NAS products here at SlashGear, especially as the data storage needs of people get more complicated even at home. These NAS devices can sometimes even function as your personal cloud services, which can be accessed both locally and remotely. For some people, however, the simplicity and straightforwardness of Direct-Attached Storage or DAS is more convenient and, more importantly, more affordable. TerraMaster's D5 Thunderbolt 3 is one such DAS option in the market, and we take it for a spin to see if it's worth the price it's asking for.
At long last, it seems Sony is finally ready to roll out support for the PlayStation 5's M.2 expansion slot. Since launch, the slot has been disabled, as Sony wanted to ensure compatibility with drives before activating it through a software update. Now support for expansion M.2 drives is rolling out as part of a new beta - the PlayStation 5's first system software beta, for that matter - with plans to enable the expansion M.2 slot for all consoles in a future software update.
Thunderbolt external drives may be fast, but they're not typically sturdy, something OWC aims to change with its new super-durable Envoy Pro SX. On the inside, there's a big chunk of high-speed SSD storage; on the outside, there's a ruggedized case which OWC promises is dust, drop, and water-proofed to IP67.
The recent incident with Western Digital's My Book Live NAS devices getting wiped remotely has emphasized the need for data backups, sometimes even redundant data backups. But what if the backup device itself is the one that gets irreparably broken? That is the potential nightmare that owners of Apple's discontinued AirPort Time Capsule could face soon, no thanks to a design flaw in both the enclosure itself as well as the hard drive used inside it.