storage

Every year, our homes become mini data centers, with the addition of new computers and mobile devices as well as the introduction of smart home and IoT appliances. We not only consume more massive amounts of data and content, we also produce just as much via our smartphones, digital cameras, and software. The measly hard drives confined to our desktops are no longer sufficient. We need a data storage that is not only capable of storing that much data but can also grant access to the same quickly and painlessly. Fortunately, Synology’s DS416play NAS offers storage, reliability, and convenience in one neat and affordable package for your home.

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Computers, especially laptops, are getting thinner and thinner. At some point, it might be near impossible to cram more data storage in those already crammed spaces. But even if future technology does make it possible, there will always be a need for external storage you can take with you anywhere. Unfortunately, such portable drives are often limited in capacity, bulky, slow, or all of the above, especially when compared to internal data storage. Not unless you save up for Samsung’s new SSD T5 portable drives.

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Most of the time, when you hear about new Network-Attached Storage (NAS) products, they’re geared towards professionals or, at the very least, small to medium businesses (SMB) or home offices. But with the mass of data we produce and the growing number of computers and devices in our homes, the benefits of reliable data storage as well as access from multiple devices will soon also be critical for home owners as well. Ready to meet that demand, Synology has announced the new DiskStation DS418j for home use and with a home-friendly price to boot.

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Intel has revealed its latest SSDs, and while there have been advances internally, it's the design of its new "Ruler" SSD form-factor that's probably most striking. Named, unsurprisingly, after its long and skinny shape, the new drive may look unwieldy but it has been designed with a very specific purpose in mind. Namely, maximizing how much storage you can fit into a single rack.

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Gadgets with USB-C are on the rise, adding yet another plug type into the mix for consumers to be mindful of. This makes flash drives particularly tricky, as you likely need an adapter or two to use the drive with all of your gadgets. Silicon Power wants to change that with its new Mobile C50 'triple-interface' flash drive, one that sports all three major USB connectors on a single device.

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Aside from the flexibility to plug almost any type of peripheral, one of the promises of the Thunderbolt 3 connector that Intel and Apple are pushing is speed. Taking advantage of the increase in data transfer bandwidth, Drobo is launching its new 5D3 RAID storage solution that not only keeps your data safe and intact, it can also charge your laptop or even be your computer's connection to a 4K or 5K monitor.

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The cloud storage wars just got a bit more interesting. Box just recently announced its Box Drive offering to practically replace shared network folders at work. Now Google is also expanding the scope of its own Google Drive cloud solution but with a nod towards regular consumers instead of the enterprise. With the upcoming Backup and Sync tool, users on Windows and macOS will be able to select whole folders to sync with Google Drive, making it easy as pie to store all your data on the mothership.

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Computing devices are getting more powerful, more varied, and more ubiquitous, but the data storage in these devices hasn't changed that much. We are still beholden to the HDDs, SSDs, and eMMCs or UFS of yesteryears. In fact, the storage story has become even more complicated because each device has its own storage that you have to manage or keep in sync with other devices.

Enter cloud computing and cloud storage, with its promise of being able to access your data anytime, anywhere. Well, as long as you have an Internet connection, that is. It is an inescapable fact of modern day computing life and it pays to know the choices you have. Here are ten of the top cloud storage options this half of the year.

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The Xbox faithful are most likely having a great time at E3 this week. In addition to the long-awaited announcement of the Xbox One X, which previously went by "Project Scorpio", announcements like the expanded backwards compatibility library and new games seem to show that there is no better time to be an Xbox gamer than now. Or at least in the next few months. Jumping on that train of thought, Seagate is announcing its new Game Drive Hub for the gaming console, which gives owners not only more room for their games but also more ports for their peripherals.

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As fast as smartphones might be, the one part of them that is relatively slow is the internal data storage. Most smartphones still use the old eMMC type storage, considered one of the slowest. A few OEMs now use the faster UFS storage, which some companies have used as a bragging right. One such company is Huawei, who has been advertising the fast storage tech on its Huawei P10 and even Huawei Mate 9 flagships. That is, until it was caught actually using the older eMMC on some models.

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In early January, Seagate and DJI announced a new partnership between the two companies that would result in storage solutions for drone operators. Today we're seeing the first of those products, the new joint-branded Seagate DJI Fly Drive, a portable storage drive with a microSD card slot. The drive is available in capacities up to 2TB, and most notably it contains a microSD card slot for shuttling videos from a drone's camera (such as one from DJI) to the Seagate drive itself.

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Synology has taken the wraps off a trio of new products, the DiskStation DS1517+ and DS1817+, as well as the new Expansion Unit DX517. The two tower servers bring with them 5-bay and 8-bay arrangements, respectively, both featuring a PCIe slot with support for either the maker's M2D17 M.2 SATA SSD adapter or the 10GbE network interface card. Both of the products, as well as the Expansion Unit, are available to purchase now.

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