Features

• Top 15 Cloud storage tips and tasks

  By Ian Paul | 07 May, 2012 11:31

  No single cloud service can do everything. Some shine when it comes to streaming a cloud music collection from the Web, but stink at syncing desktop folders. Other cloud services are great for sharing photos, but useless for reviewing a document's revision history.

• Hands on with Google Drive

  By Serenity Caldwell | 25 April, 2012 06:48

  Start your engines: Google’s long-rumored Drive service is officially out and ready for a test… well, drive. The search giant’s answer to services like Dropbox, Drive offers 5GB of free online storage space that also syncs with a local folder on the desktop of your Mac or PC. (An Android app is currently available, with an iOS app in the works.)

• 2012: The year storage becomes a celebrity

  By Lucas Mearian | 31 January, 2012 06:58

  While data storage has always been a necessary building block for technology, it's rarely garnered as much attention as it has in the past two years. The reason: Corporate and retail consumers are being forced to store greater amounts of data and they need to make that data more useful - and accessible.

• The evolution of hard disk drives

  By Lucas Mearian | 07 January, 2011 13:22

  A punched card was once the basis for digital information used for computer programs and data storage. They were widely used throughout the first half of the 20th century in processing machines to input data and to store it. Punch cards could be fed into the first commercial computer, IBM 305 system, which then stored the data on hard disks

• Delorean hard drive is perfect for time machine

  By Chris Brandrick | 30 November, 2010 12:16

  Attention all Back To The Future fans: If you're in the market for a new hard drive, then the folks over at Flash Rods have something just for you. Flash Rods latest, known as the Delorean Time Machine Hard Drive, contains a 500GB Seagate drive within the chassis of the much-loved Delorean from the Back To The Future trilogy.

• Burning questions: Virtualisation

  By Jon Brodkin | 26 October, 2010 00:52

  Virtualizing x86 infrastructure isn't just a one-step process -- as servers change, the whole data center must change as well. While server hypervisors such as VMware's ESX, Microsoft's Hyper-V and Xen can make IT more efficient and cost-effective, many of the virtualization advantages can be canceled out when data centers rely on technology and processes that haven't been updated for the virtualization age.

• Share USB storage everywhere

  By Melissa J. Perenson | 25 September, 2010 03:46

  If you thought USB drives were only for attaching to desktop or laptop computers, think again. Various manufacturers provide ways to connect such drives to your network, so you can retrieve files stored on them from across your network, or even via the Internet.

• NASs for the masses

  By David Newman | 27 September, 2010 15:05

  Either because server disks are full or because virtualization is a natural growth path, organizations large and small are moving toward shared storage. For large enterprises, high-capacity storage-area networks make sense, but what about small or mid-sized enterprises new to shared storage?

• What SMBS want

  By Matthew Sainsbury | 08 September, 2010 11:42

  SMBs are smaller than enterprises, but are storage requirements that much different? MATTHEW SAINSBURY reports.

• A waste of space: Bulk of drive capacity still underutilized

  By Lucas Mearian | 29 July, 2010 01:17

  Near the turn of the century, data centers were only beginning to implement Fibre Channel storage-area networks (SAN), with most relying on direct-attached storage (DAS). Data utilization rates were abysmal, with data centers on average using just 25% to 30% of their hard disk drive capacity.

• Beauty shots: Technology to drool over

  By Anne B. McDonald | 29 July, 2010 15:24

  Sling Media's small Slingbox 700U won one of three Best in Show awards given by the Industrial Designers Society of America (ISDA).

• Acronis Drive Monitor Is S.M.A.R.T. about hard drives

  By Preston Gralla | 22 July, 2010 23:59

  Your hard disk is a time bomb, waiting to go off. If you're lucky, like most people, it will never detonate. But if you're unlucky, like some people, you could lose all of your files, works, and applications, with no warning when your hard disk crashes. Acronis Drive Monitor (free) promises to give you warning before that crash, so that you can take action before you're hit with disaster.

• Seagate GoFlex packs streaming and backup punch

  By John E Dunn | 23 July, 2010 00:08

  Seagate has announced a new network attached storage (NAS) drive for the 'Terabyte home', the GoFlex Home.

• Nimble's all-in-one storage combines primary and backup in one box

  By Lucas Mearian | 17 July, 2010 05:41

  Start-up Nimble Storage came out of the development stage this week with its first product -- an array that combines solid state drives (SSD) with high-capacity, cost and performance serial ATA (SATA) hard drives, acts as primary and backup storage and replicates offsite for disaster recovery.

• Lab notes: Kingston vs. VelociRaptor storage smackdown

  By Alex Wawro | 15 July, 2010 10:44

  It's time for a storage upgrade, but your budget won't bear the burden of both a blazing new VelociRaptor hard drive and an extra injection of Kingston RAM. Decision time: if you're looking to improve general performance on the cheap, do you shell out for more RAM or a high-performance hard disk?