Samsung HDD 500 GB notebook

Capacity and price have been the advantages of traditional hard drive technology over the increasingly popular solid state disk drives. Samsung is the first HDD manufacturer to ship a gigantic 500 GB 2.5” hard drive (Fujitsu was first to announce such a drive), which is almost 16 times the capacity of the mainstream SSD (if we can call the SSD mainstream) and twice what is currently considered the higher-end of mainstream notebook hard drives (250 GB).

You won’t be able to achieve any speed records with Samsung’s 5400 rpm Spinpoint M6 drive, but three 2.5” platters holding 167 GB each is the highest capacity currently available for notebooks. You could store up to 160,000 high-resolution digital images, 125 hours of DVD movies or 60 hours of HD video on the drive, Samsung said.

The suggested retail price of $299 is about twice what would currently pay for a 5400rpm 250 GB hard drive, and about 50% more than what 320 GB 2.5” drives (Hitachi was the most recent manufacturer to announce such a drive) are going for currently. SSDs cannot compete on price with these large-capacity hard drives yet.

Vendors such as Dell are currently charging somewhere between $210 and $300 for a 32 GB SSD and $510 for a 64 GB SSD ($850 including a separate 200 GB HDD). If you were to purchase such a drive in retail, you would have to calculate about $400 for a 32 GB SATA SSD (IDE models are available from about $180). 64 GB versions are currently selling for about $2000, 128 GB versions for $3100 and up and 256 GB SSDs recently showed with prices starting at about $7500.

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New Samsung 1 TB HDD

Samsung sent over a press release revealing the new Spinpoint F3 line of high-density hard drives that only use two platters. Operating at 7200 RPM rotational speed, the new line provides up to 1 TB (Terabyte) of storage, meaning the drive's two platter disks would consist of 500 GB each. By using only two disks, the drives use less power and offers 30-percent higher performance than a three-platter drive in the same 3.5-inch form factor.

“Our customers require not only additional capacity but also high performance for their server and desktop storage systems, while promoting a green environment,” said Choel-Hee Lee, vice president of marketing, Storage Systems Division, Samsung Electronics. “The massive capacity-per-platter and high-performance features of the new Spinpoint F3 make it an attractive solution for driving the growth of high-density storage.”

Samsung also stated that the Spinpoint F3 series is compliant with the Restriction of Hazardous Substances directive (RoHS), and uses SilentSeek and NoiseGuard to "achieve a quiet operation system." The drives also use a 3.0 Gbps SATA interface, Native Command Queuing features, and a 16 MB / 32 MB buffer memory.

The 1 TB Spinpoint F3 drive is scheduled to ship in August, however the 500 GB version (using 250 GB per platter we assume) is now available worldwide.

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Sony Computer Entertainment Europe boss Andrew House says PSP Go’s $249/€249 price point is based on a “premium” associated with new hardware.

Speaking to MCV, House explained that PSP Go’s price wasn’t set in a bid to protect retailers’ margins – which will be hit by the handheld’s download-only software model - or to cover Sony’s research and development costs.

“Those aren’t the factors,” he said. “When you introduce a new piece of hardware you have the opportunity to say there is a certain premium that is associated with it, and we took that into account.

“As with all hardware launches you look at the business model, the cost structure, and the necessarily level of profitability, and you use that to set the wholesale price. Much as we do with any other hardware.”

PSP Go has yet to be officially priced for the UK market, but multiple indie retailers told us earlier this week that they were downbeat about the recently announced system’s prospects.

Chips MD Don McCabe told us that he isn’t currently planning on stocking PSP Go upon its October 1 release, while Grainger Games purchasing director Chris Harwood said that PSP “appears to have died as a format.”

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Zotac's Ion Board On Windows 7: Nvidia Re-Arms Intel’s Atom : Introduction

We’ve done a ton of Atom-oriented content, from reviewing the processor’s merits on its own, to pitting it against Athlon and Nano, to testing it in a ready-made machine and evaluating performance under Windows Vista. When we say the CPU is an enabler in the netbook market, but sorely lacking as a solution to your desktop needs, we’re basing that judgment on almost a year’s worth of power and performance data.

Of course, we’re also grouping Intel’s accompanying 945G-series chipsets in with that opinion, since they have been, up until now, the only core logic accompanying Atom processors.


Earlier this year, we were able to take a sneak peek at the first platform with Atom support able to go up against Intel’s own anemic Atom-oriented chipsets: Nvidia’s Ion. First encountered at this year’s CES, we were impressed by just how much modern connectivity and GPU muscle the company had crammed into its proof-of-concept design. We were told to expect more Ion-related news in the months to come.

Now, almost six months later (and after the announcement of Acer’s AspireRevo nettop), we’re seeing the first mini-ITX motherboard based on the Ion concept, which means the do-it-yourselfers out there now have their own path to pursing an Ion-based platform. Will they want to, though? That’s the question we’re setting out to answer here.

Nvidia’s Ion: Stepping Out

That first Ion concept was truly stacked. It included lots of USB 2.0, analog 7.1-channel output, optical output, DVI, HDMI, Gigabit Ethernet, and SATA storage connectivity. As you already know, that box’s capabilities come from the Nvidia GeForce 9300 chipset, which the company is now calling its Ion Graphics Processor (IGP—get it?).


As a quick recap, the GeForce 9300 (or IGP as we’ll call it from here on out) is a single-chip solution that combines the functionality common to most northbridge and southbridge chipset components.

Exceptional I/O includes support for up to five PCI slots, six SATA 3 Gb/s ports, a total of 20 PCI Express 2.0 lanes across five links (1 x 16-lane and 4 x 1-lane), integrated Gigabit Ethernet, 12 USB 2.0 ports, and HD Audio.

The northbridge-y features include a dual-channel memory controller able to accommodate either DDR2-800 modules or DDR3 at speeds of up to 1,333 MHz. Nvidia claims front side bus speeds of up to 1,333 MHz, supporting Atom, Celeron, Pentium 4, and Core 2 processors. Temper your excitement about those modern memory and bus settings, though. The Atom 330 soldered onto Zotac’s board sports a 533 MHz FSB and communicates with DDR2 modules-only.

And then there’s the integrated graphics. Derived from Nvidia’s G86 GPU, the IGP sports 16 shader processors and relies on shared system memory. The graphics core runs at 450 MHz while the shaders operate at 1,100 MHz—down a bit, actually, from the GeForce 9300 we reviewed last October.

With the chipset specifics out of the way, let’s take a look at how Zotac has turned Nvidia’s IGP into a mini-ITX motherboard.

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Asus And DFI: Core i7 Micro-ATX Motherboards Compared : ATX Without The Waste

With support for full-sized components and up to four expansion cards, the Micro ATX format has always been more than adequate for the majority of high-end builds. Yet while enthusiasts have typically cited inadequate quality or design as the primary reason for not considering this option, manufacturers have cited lack of demand as a reason for not putting their best efforts into a board this small. A few attempts by manufacturers to win loyalty among space-conscious enthusiasts have mostly been rejected by a market that maintained its traditional view of the former problems.

The popularity of Micro ATX portable gaming enclosures is finally starting to break the cycle of negative assumptions as customers are forced to make a decision about what hardware to put inside. Current top products are undoubtedly as feature-laden as many of their full-sized counterparts, incorporating high-end devices and support for even the largest dual-slot graphics cards in CrossFire and SLI. Always a target of upper-range Micro ATX motherboard sales, professional media and home theater enthusiasts may instead choose to load up to three media-centric devices in addition to a single-slot graphics card. With this much flexibility, confessing that they don’t actually need more expansion room could be the hardest problem for many builders.

Yet few of us will even consider smaller devices until we can see that they function as well in every respect as the larger parts they replace, so today we’ll compare these against the fastest of our full-ATX samples. Before we go into the details of that test, let’s take a closer look at the features we so eagerly endorsed.


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When I first looked at Nvidia’s Ion platform last month, I tested in three different ways: as a desktop PC, as a gaming system, and as a home theater machine.

Of course, this meant a lot of extra time was spent actually using the configuration that Zotac sent my way. During the course of testing, I convinced myself that I’d never be truly happy with Ion as a desktop system, even under Windows 7—the operating environment I used, assuming Vista would be too cumbersome. It was just too slow. Sitting there waiting for menus to pop and apps to open just isn’t my gig—and I suspect many of the enthusiasts who read Tom’s Hardware would feel the same about a new technology purchase.

I also wasn’t impressed enough with Ion’s gaming performance to recommend it in such a role. Sure, I could jog around Ironforge using Fair settings in World of Warcraft, but who spends close to $200 on a motherboard/processor for that? When it comes to gaming, you could do much better for the money, or even a little more money.

Intel suggested that Ion was overkill last week at Computex, and it was right. Nvidia’s GeForce 9300 platform is more chipset than the Atom processor can handle. Though, to be fair, we’re expecting more out of the architecture here than Intel designed it to deliver.

Nevertheless, if there was one segment in which I suspected Ion might be able to succeed, it was the HTPC market, where GeForce 9300 could offload playback of HD video content and, hopefully, factor Atom right out of the picture.

Ion In The Theater

Given the platform’s GeForce 9300 foundation, which includes the latest generation of Nvidia’s PureVideo (VP3) technology, hardware offload of MPEG-2, VC-1, and AVC (H.264) is fully enabled—a good omen for using an Atom-based PC in a home theater environment.

Additionally, the chipset was said to support 7.1-channel LPCM audio over its HDMI output. Now, this feature is more important than you might realize at first. If you’re watching Blu-ray content on a big-screen TV in a home theater, there’s also a good chance you’re using six- or eight-channel surround sound. There are actually a few different ways to achieve multi-channel audio with your HTPC. Perhaps most familiar to the PC crowd is through a TOSLINK optical (or S/PDIF coaxial) output connected to your receiver. You can transmit encoded Dolby Digital and DTS signals over an optical cable, but not Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD Master Audio—the two optional, lossless formats commonly featured on Blu-ray movies.

In order to play back TrueHD (with a maximum bitrate of 18 Mb/s) or DTS-HD (with a maximum bitrate of 24.5 Mb/s), you have to use an HDMI 1.3 connection. Hallelujah, Ion has that.

From there, you have two options. You can either pass the encoded Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD signal to your receiver, which performs the decode and plays back the lossless studio soundtrack in all of its glory, or use your DVD software to decode the signal and pass multi-channel linear PCM over the HDMI output (so long as it’s supported).

The problem with the former is that it requires a protected audio path—otherwise your decoding software will fall back to lossy codecs like Dolby Digital and DTS. We’re still waiting on a chipset that’ll do this, but right now the only component in the lab capable of it is Asus’ Xonar HDAV 1.3 sound card, a $200+ add-on. Incidentally, this is how you get your receiver to light up with the TrueHD or DTS-HD logos (meaning the receiver is leveraging its built-in decoding capabilities).

The problem with the latter is that it requires specific platform support. For instance, ATI’s 780G/790GX will only pass stereo LPCM (you can do AC3 and DTS, though). Nvidia's GeForce 9300 and Intel's G45 both support 7.1-channel LPCM over HDMI.

As an aside, and for the record, this is the way Sony’s Playstation 3 is able to serve up TrueHD and DTS-HD playback. You don’t get the little lights on your receiver flashing Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD Master Audio, but you can view the playback status as a movie is playing and see the PS3 is doing the decoding, then sending uncompressed LPCM to your receiver.
Well, Ion supposedly supported multi-channel LPCM via HDMI. However, in my initial review, I revealed that, despite Nvidia’s claims, Ion wasn’t outputting multi-channel audio in either Windows Vista or Windows 7, in either PowerDVD 9 or TotalMedia Theater 3. Had it been a persistent flaw, that would have been a deal-breaker for Ion as an HTPC solution.
Fortunately, I was able to work with both Nvidia and CyberLink to get PowerDVD 9 working properly under Windows 7. The latest build, 1719, properly enables multi-channel LPCM output via HDMI on Windows 7 (TotalMedia Theater still doesn’t work).

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Why is Microsoft dropping the Xbox 360 price so fast?

The Xbox 360 is on track to have 2 million sales in the UK by next week, according to industry number crunchers at Chart-Track, as Microsoft continues its Baked Beans strategy of slashing the price in quick succession.

Microsoft’s 360 strategy has become more than apparent since the most basic model, the Arcade rejig of the old basic package, is being sold for less than the Nintendo Wii ; one of the main selling points of which had been its low cost for mass appeal.

Microsoft announced a series of price cuts in the run up to Easter, putting the cheapest 360 models RRP to £199.99, with the top-end Elite model going for £259.99, and the move seems to have paid off with an increase in sales – 40 percent in the first week after the price cut was announced, though this naturally tapered off the following week, only to increase again over Easter.

The strategy puts the Xbox 360 firmly in the mass-appeal end of the market. Where once Microsoft had touted the console as a next-gen, extremely premium product with plenty of high-end nifty features, from the hard drive and graphics through to the online play ; now the console is battling in under the £200 wire, a price-point that traditionally sees a console break open new swathes of the market.

The PlayStation 2 had a renaissance in sales when it sneaked in under the barrier, and it is an ongoing example that low-low prices still shift a lot of hardware – the now extremely low-priced PS2 was one of the surprise strongest sellers over the Easter period, having already put in a strong performance over Christmas.

The 360, despite having been launched in 2005, has seen the likes of the PlayStation 3 – a year old on the UK market in March – catch up quite quickly. The PS3 reached the 1 million milestone in February, in less time than the PS2, which took 50 weeks to sell 1 million units. The Xbox 360 in contrast took 60 weeks to sell 1 million units, and is only now reaching the 2 million mark whilst the momentum of the PS3 is propelling it to catch up quite quickly.

The ace in Microsoft’s deck used to be that it brought the 360, which we must remember is only the second generation console from Microsoft taking on the previously completely undisputed champion, to market a good while before Sony ; cannibalising market share by sheer virtue of being on the market. Now that the PS3 is proving quite successful in its first year (though still not as successful as Sony would like), Microsoft is slashing the price of the 360 aggressively.

This will, Microsoft hopes, not without some merit, give the 360 some more momentum, opening the console to new consumers with a lower pain threshold than previous price points invokes, convincing them that the 360 is the far better option to the PS3. The effort is also aimed at cutting into Nintendo in a way the console had not been able to previously, through a two-pronged price and marketing effort.

It is no mistake that the lowest-end model of the 360 has been rebranded the “Arcade” edition, invoking family friendly visions to compete with the established Wii reputation as a console for all. Price and the perception of a mass family friendly appeal will sell more consoles than all the hardcore, high-end credentials in the world ; a position that Microsoft and others can thank Nintendo for creating in the past few years between the DS, Wii and a host of cute, intelligent, and different games.

So, Microsoft will hit 2 million Xbox 360’s in the next week. It has, with the introduction of the high-priced PS3 and low-priced Wii into its once lonely position as the next-gen console on the market, decided to go the route of tapping into the vast fields of low-price, mass-appeal consumers ; rather than try to play an expensive game with Sony, where the marketing battle to attract just one high-end gamer costs a lot more than it does to slash the price of a unit by £50 and make soothing noises at the masses willing to pay £200, but not £210, for their console.

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65 Nm GPUs For Xbox 360 Now In Production, Xbox '540' Coming In 2009

Taipei (Taiwan) - News about refreshed Xbox 360 consoles are trickling, which is about time given the fact that the console will celebrate its third birthday later this year. The Taiwan Economic News is reporting that first wafers with 65 nm GPUs are leaving the production lines, joining the 65 nm Xenon CPU. Rumors about a Blu-ray Xbox 360 remain alive and we are hearing first information about a possible mid-cycle refresh for the console, which will include the ’Valhalla’ SoC.

It has been almost a year since Chartered has begun taking the Xbox 360 Xenon CPU from 90 nm to 65 nm and it really was just a matter of time until other hardware would follow. According to the Taiwan Economic News, TSMC has initiated first wafer starts of the 65 nm Xenos GPU and Northbridge. Microsoft apparently has ordered 10,000 300 mm wafers from TSMC at this time.

As it is the case with any die-shrink, Microsoft should see substantial economic advantages from this move, supporting the company’s ongoing strategy to reduce the production cost of the console (the reduction of the Xbox 360 production cost has been one of the key reasons why Microsoft’s entertainment division has been able to notably increase its profits over the past seven quarters). If the 65 nm Xenos "v2" scales down linearly from 90 nm, the new die size should be around 125 mm2, while the eDRAM chip will remain at 70 mm2. The new production process should yield about 35% more GPUs per wafer than before.

TSMC will continue to be in charge of the wafers, while Nanya will be delivering the flip-chip packaging substrates. ASE combines the silicon and substrate and is responsible for QA.

Quite honestly, we were a bit surprised to hear that Microsoft did not decide to die-shrink both the CPU and GPU at the same time, especially because two different foundries are manufacturing the chips. However, our sources at TSMC explained that Microsoft has the same production philosophy as Nvidia : Wait for a manufacturing process to mature and then run the initial wafer order. Apparently, the transition was simulated in detail by ATI and the tapeout happened without problems, at least according to our sources close to ATI. Keep in mind that ATI is only a contracted partner for Microsoft : Both the CPU and GPU are officially Microsoft parts, and the Ballmer-Gates company is the only one in the console segment following through with such a strategy.

The Xbox 360 is scheduled to ship in an "all 65 nm" package (Jasper platform) this August. Consumers won’t notice the refresh, unless Microsoft decides to put a Blu-ray drive into the Xbox 360. We were not able to receive a confirmation either way, and we keep digging to find out if the Asustek subsidiary Pegatron will manufacture regular Xbox 360’s or units with an integrated Blu-ray drive. In any case, Celestica, Pegatron and Wistron will have a busy summer cranking out millions of refreshed Xbox 360 consoles.

A more dramatic and perhaps visible change will happen next year : TSMC plans to begin producing the Valhalla chip, which will be the foundation of the mid-cycle refresh of the Xbox 360, thus called ’Xbox 2.5’ or simply ’Xbox 540’ (360+180), in fall of 2009. We learned that this new chip is apparently much more than a die-shrink and end up as a system-on-a-chip design. This change is likely to enable to redesign the Xbox 360 casing and go towards a slim-design, much like what Sony did with the Gen1 and Gen2 PS2. We believe that TSMC will use a 45 nm process for this Multi-Chip-Module package (CPU+GPU+eDRAM).

There are also some interesting pieces of information that Microsoft is shopping for a more efficient cooling solution - efficient in more ways than just one : Several people close to the cooling industry told us that Microsoft approached them and asked for better and cheaper cooling than what is used in the Xbox 360 right now. Some may claim that the current Xbox 360 cooler design is already as cheap as it gets, but we have no doubts that Microsoft will find a way to drop the cost once again.

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Microsoft Revises Memory Placement in Latest Xbox 360 Hardware

While Sony’s hardware revisions for its PlayStation 3 console appear to almost always be in the interest of cutting costs, Microsoft’s changes to the Xbox 360 seem to be aimed at both cost and improving reliability.

The fresh-to-market new Xbox 360 “Go Pro” package now with a 60 GB hard drive may appear only to be the old model with 40 additional GB, but under the hood is a minor but deliberate change that could improve heat dissipation.

As discovered in the blog of Ben Heck, the latest Xbox 360 motherboards rolling off the line from a June 20 production does not feature memory chips that are mounted to the underside of the motherboard. Instead, it appears that the memory capacity of the chips that do share the same side as the CPU and GPU have simply been doubled.

This change not only saves Microsoft on production costs from having to place chips on the backside, but also cuts down on heat emanating from a place with no active cooling.

Aside from the change in memory configuration, the rest of the motherboard is unchanged. The layout is the same as the “Falcon” boards from the latter half of 2007, which swapped out the 90nm CPU for a shrunken 65nm chip.

The next major revision in the Xbox 360 hardware is codenamed Jasper, which will see the GPU move to the 65nm process sometime this fall. Most believe the heat generated by GPU is the root cause for most Xbox 360’s that fall to the “Red Ring of Death,” so while the incremental improvements may have improved reliability, it’s the arrival of Jasper that most are anxiously awaiting.

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Microsoft Shows Windows 7 Hardware Tricks

Today Microsoft pimped the upcoming Windows 7 to its hardware partners, rallying hardware engineers to begin development and testing

Attendees of today’s Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) 2008 got a big treat straight from Microsoft, as the company finally revealed not only the "new innovations" found in the upcoming Windows 7 operating system, but encouraged hardware engineers to begin developing for the platform by distributing the application programming interface (API) complete pre-beta. Microsoft also provided a pre-beta release of Windows Server 2008 R2 to WinHEC attendees as well.

Many features Microsoft demonstrated today included "Devices and Printers," an area within Windows 7 where consumers interact with all the devices connected to the PC, whether it’s a Bluetooth headset, a USB flash drive or a wireless network printer. "Device Stage" was a bit more complex, specializing in connected devices such as cell phones, digital cameras and multifunction printers that require interaction other than just a standard setup. Device Stage will provide customized device information that can be updated at any time, and will even give direct access to services such as photo printing, ring tones and more. Many companies have already jumped on board, including HP, Sony, Brother, Epson, Motorola, Nikon, SanDisk and Canon.

"Mobile Broadband" demonstrated how Windows 7 would connect to the Internet through a wireless modem. "Windows Touch" was probably the biggest feature showcased today, allowing attendees to move through the operating system by a simple touch of the screen. Apparently, Windows 7 will also incorporate multi-touch technology, giving consumers the ability to zoom in, zoom out, and rotate images with their fingers.

"We’ve done a great deal of work in Windows 7 to enable new scenarios with our hardware partners, and we are excited by the partner innovation we have shown today," said DeVaan, senior vice president of the Windows Core Operating System Division at Microsoft. "Windows 7 presents tremendous opportunities for hardware developers. This innovation will enable our hardware partners to provide customers with even greater choice in rich computing experiences."

Also shown at WinHEC was Microsoft’s Windows Server 2008 R2. According to the company, it is working with developers, independent software vendors, and original equipment manufacturers to implement full use of the latest advancements in 64-bit technology as well as multicore and manycore processing and power management efficiencies.

Although no firm release date has been set, Microsoft plans to unleash Windows 7 to the unsuspecting public sometime between Q4 2009 and Q1 2010. A beta release is planned for early 2009. The release of Windows 7 will arrive twenty years after the launch of Windows 3.x back in 1990. As of Saturday, November 1, Microsoft officially stopped issuing licenses for the long-forgotten, dusty operating system.

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Microsoft BPOS: Managing The Cloud : Administering BPOS Is Easier Than You Might Think

Here’s the truth: a ton of documentation has been written around Microsoft’s Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS), Microsoft’s cloud-based messaging and communication platform. Most of this documentation is very succinct and worth reading as you dig into adopting BPOS services. But when it comes to managing BPOS, the admin has a remarkably easy job. Yes, there are elements of the platform that can require some serious technical skills, particularly in the LAN configuration and large-scale migration stages, but in terms of application and user management, BPOS is an admin’s dream. All of the heavy lifting is performed back in Microsoft’s data centers. By and large, the admin has only two tasks: adding users and assigning services to those users.


If this sounds too easy to be true, believe it. This author, a non-IT professional, tried out two admin BPOS accounts over the past month and can attest that, at least at a small business level, BPOS is simple enough for practically anyone to manage. For larger organizations, the simplicity of Microsoft’s platform translates into far less hours spent on traditional management tasks. That means higher ROI up front on IT hours and even more rewards down the road as less “stuff” goes wrong and workers have more uptime.
In this article, we’re going to take a closer look at BPOS from an administrator’s perspective. What’s entailed in starting the BPOS experience? What does it take to manage services for users? We’ll make this a quick tour but ensure you leave with a fairly comprehensive idea of what’s in store for BPOS managers as they transition from on-premise servers to Microsoft’s services-based model.

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10 TB for $1,000: Tom’s Hardware's Über RAID Array : The 10 TB Array

Need more capacity? Want more hard drive performance? Knowing that hard drive prices are about to drop below $80 for a 1 TB drive, we decided to create the ultimate RAID array, one that should be able store all of your data for years to come while providing much faster performance than any individual drive could. Twelve Samsung 1 TB hard drives helped us to reach speed records and an impressive 10 TB net capacity.



Some of you may want to argue over this performance statement. After all, doesn’t everyone know that hard drives don’t stand a chance against solid state drives (SSDs)? It’s true. More and more high-end SSDs can now exceed 200 MB/s read and 100 MB/s write throughput with virtually zero access time—numbers that are becoming standard for more and more high-end SSDs. However, lofty SSD costs remain an issue, which is where good old hard drives kick in.

While hard drives can’t match an SSD’s quick access times, higher throughput can be achieved by using more than one drive in a striping RAID mode—and throughput is still the top characteristic people care about on their desktop systems. In addition, hard drive capacities exceed SSD capacities by many times over and also beat SSDs in terms of cost per gigabyte. For example, $1,000 won’t buy you more than 1 TB in SSD capacity, and even to get close requires taking a step or two down in performance. Meanwhile, with hard drives, we had 12 x 1 TB at our disposal. The only reason we didn’t use larger hard drives was constrained availability in quantities of ten or more.

The Idea: Massive Hard Drive Storage Within a $1,000 Budget

The prospect of using up to 12 3.5” hard drives in RAID certainly isn’t very applicable for desktop PCs. Twelve drives require a lot of space, a suitable SATA RAID controller, and they produce a noticeable amount of heat, noise, and vibration, as well. Still…it’s cool, and we’ll soon see what a massive RAID array using conventional hard drives can actually do.

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PhotoFast G-Monster-V5 256GB SSD Sneak Peek

There is a ton of activity in the solid state drive market, with new products announced seemingly on a weekly basis. One SSD product that generated some buzz out at Computex last month was the PhotoFast G-Monster-V5, due to its claimed 270MB/s read and write speeds. It wasn't available back then, however, we just got our hands on one for a quick evaluation and thought we'd give you a sneak peek at the goods.

We'll be doing a more thorough evaluation of this drive in the days ahead, but we wanted to show you some pictures and preliminary numbers to whet your appetites.




The drive you see here is a $999, 256GB PhotoFast G-Monster-V5. To an OS, the drive appears as a single volume, but internally the drive is comprised of a trio of components--two 128GB SSD modules and an adapter that "converts" the drive to a RAID 0 array. Each of the SSD modules is equipped with 128GB of Samsung MLC NAND flash memory, 64MB of Elpida cache memory (128MB total), and its own Indilinx controller.


As you can see from these HD Tach and ATTO benchmark results, the drive definitely puts up some impressive scores, in terms of reads and writes. According to ATTO, once the drive reached the 512K transfer size mark, it offers about 262MB/s reads and writes. And in the HD Tach test reads and writes are both in the 225 - 229MB/s range.

We'll be working with the drive for the next few days and will update you all with more information when we're done with our evaluation.

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T-Mobile myTouch 3G Available For Pre-Sale

Although the T-Mobile myTouch 3G won’t be available nationwide until August 5th, current T-Mobile customers can pre-order the phone to ensure they’re one of the first to get their hands on this much anticipated phone. Starting today, current T-Mobile customers can visit www.T-MobilemyTouch.com to order the company’s latest Android-powered device. T-Mobile is making the deal even sweeter by announcing that existing customers who order the phone during the pre-sales period from July 8-28 can qualify for delivery before the national retail launch.

The T-Mobile myTouch 3G was designed by HTC and boasts of a sleek and lightweight look and feel. The handset has a full touchscreen with a virtual keyboard and many customization options. In order to deliver a rich mobile experience, T-Mobile and Google have partnered to offer one-touch access to Google mobile services such as Google Search by voice, Google Maps with Street View, YouTube, and Picasa.

“We’ve heard loud and clear from our customers that a deeper level of personalization matters to them,” said Denny Marie Post, chief marketing officer, T-Mobile USA. “That is why we placed so much emphasis on breaking the mold with myTouch 3G: to provide customers with boundless ways to make their phone a true expression, and extension, of themselves.”

You can customize the myTouch 3G with widgets, icons, and wallpapers that can be added directly from the home screen. The myTouch 3G also supports the Android Market for easy access to thousands of applications for further customization of the device.

T-Mobile also plans to launch a new application within the Android Market called the AppPack next month. The AppPack will highlight a variety of applications in order to help customers further personalize their myTouch 3G, manage their T-Mobile accounts, and make the most of their T-Mobile experience.

A variety of accessories and pre-designed shell patterns will be available soon at retail and online stores. Customers will be able to design their own custom shells using a dedicated Web site as well. T-Mobile also plans to offer five accessory packs for the phone, including a music bundle with portable speakers and a fitness pack that includes a fitness belt and arm band.

The myTouch 3G will be available at T-Mobile retail stores and online starting August 5 for $199.99 with a two-year agreement.

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Audio-Technica ATH-ANC7b Cans Kill The Noise

Done with Bose? Looking for something new to strap on your cranium? Audio-Technica has just the thing. The company--which is known for designing cutting-edge, high-end cans--has just issued its ATH-ANC7b QuietPoint active noise-canceling over-ear headphones. Sure, they're just improvements upon an earlier model, but aside from providing 85% noise-cancelation, listeners will find better sound quality, comfort and convenience.

According to A-T, these new headphones provide a smoother, more natural tonal balance, and the earcups have been redesigned for greater comfort. In addition, the ATH-ANC7b is supplied with 1.6 m (5.2') and 1.0 m (3.3') detachable cables, and offers easier battery access. Speaking of noise, these employ QuietPoint active noise-cancelation technology that eliminates up to 85% of outside noise, as a miniature microphone in each earcup detects environmental noise, and a corresponding sound-canceling signal is applied. You'll also find large-aperture 40 mm drivers for a wide 10 to 25,000Hz frequency response along with a high 109 dB sensitivity.The headphones fold for storage and come with two detachable cables, a 1/4-inch adapter, an airline adapter and a hard, durable carrying case.

They'll be available in August for $219.95--start saving!

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NVIDIA Quietly Outs 40nm, DX10.1 Desktop Parts

Although the cards haven’t officially been launched, NVIDIA has published the specs and details of their 40nm-based desktop GPUs.

The cards in question are the GeForce GT 220 (codenamed GT216) and GeForce G210 (codenamed GT218) low-end, low-profile cards, both of which are OEM parts built on TSMC’s 40nm process – the same process that TSMC now seems to have sorted out.

The cards are DirectX 10.1 compliant and feature NVIDIA’s latest PureVideo HD engine. PhysX and CUDA are only available on the GeForce GT220. Targeted at the OEM market, these parts will make it into affordable pre-built systems as well as business-class machines.

As graphics cards go, the GT 220 and 210 cards won't compete in terms of 3D performance with the company’s more powerful GPUs, despite the generational process advantage.

The GT220 (pictured below), however, raises a few eyebrows as it has a 128-bit memory interface and 48 processor cores on a low profile PCB. As OEM cards usually get cut down to 64-bit memory interfaces the option to go 128-bit will give system builders an unusual amount of firepower for low-end systems. It features native HDMI but no Displayport. Considering the specs, we wouldn’t be surprised if we walked into an office and saw someone playing Fallout 3 on this one. Performance-wise you're looking at something between a 9500GT and a 9600GT most likely.

GAMBAR


The G210 (pictured below) is more reserved and will do little else other than get Vista / 7’s Aero interface going with all the bells and whistles and some very casual gaming--think along the lines of the Sims. The 512MB of DDR2 and a 64-bit memory interface will severely restrict the performance on this card, no matter how many processor cores are available (16, by the way). On the other hand integrators should eventually be able to get this card running silently with a good passive cooler. The GeForce G210 features a DisplayPort output, VGA and DVI (HDMI 1.3a through an adapter), which matches it to AMD's lower-end 4300-series graphics cards.

GAMBAR

One thing you won’t find on either card is SLI. Although the GT 220 was rumored to support it, the card lacks the fingers to connect a SLI bridge. Although SLI may be supported through the PCIe interface, like some older cards. No power connectors either, so these cards draw all the power they need from their PCIe x16 interface.

You can see the full spec list below.

Graphics

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Blue-LinkBL-U83G

If you intend to buy a Wireless USB adapter for desktop PC, a product that is worth Dilirik. Blue-link have BLU83G external antenna that can be directed 360 degrees according to needs. A more interesting when you feel less, you can buy a longer antenna to get a wireless signal is stronger. Although invited switch space, a signal that is still caught, while in the wireless notebook can not catch the signal.



The included software is quite innovative. You can see the signal strength, signal quality and noise in the surrounding areas. Not only that, with this software you can see how big the data flow that is being sent and received. One thing that is interesting BLU83G access point can be made. I right click on the utility on the taskbar icon and select the access point module.

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cANoNSelphY coMpAcT phoTo pRINTeR eS3 & eS30

At the end of 2008, Canon introduced two compact photo printer with the latest series ES tiny and attractive design, so easy to carry anywhere to print photos.
With the size and shape ergonomis, both printers work with this photo DIGIC II processor speed so that the printed image becomes higher.
EasyPhoto Pack cartridge (ink and photo paper in one package) is available for both models this photo printer. Featured Advanced Face Fine Print, providing optimal results in the face which is in the image and provides natural effects on the skin.
Availability Easy Scroll Wheel makes it easier for users to enjoy featurefeature that has been integrated on both the printer image. In addition, this printer also support the use of 21 different types of memory cards or can print directly from camera with PictBridge connection.
Canon SELPHY ES3 has a LCD screen measuring 3.5 inches while the SELPHY ES30 LCD comes with a smaller size that is 3 inches. Users can also take advantage of Bluetooth (optional) and IrDA (SELPHY ES3 special) to print photos directly from a mobile phone.
Canon SELPHY ES3 resemble itself, built with 1 GB flash memory. User can download your favorite photos to the printer and print them at any time desired. SELPHY ES3 also be supported with the PC Con-nectivity and CD ROM of the Creative Print Extra resources, so users can print with a wide range of frames, clipart, and other personalization.
Datascrip as the sole distributor of Canon SELPHY Compact Photo Printer in India, the Canon SELPHY ES3 with a price of U.S. $ 230, and ES30 with a price of U.S. $ 180.
Info: CANON

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eDIFIeR Mp300 plUS

In general, the notebook has the default speaker sound quality pickup. In fact, besides the need to use for work, notebook at this time also functions as a means of entertainment when you travel. See the need for a quality audio system in the notebook, Edifier speakers offer portable 2.1 newest series, MP300 Plus. Speaker weight of less than 2 kg (1.8 kg) and packed in a special bag is made from Tubular Sub-Woofer size of 2 inches and two midrange / high frequency driver spherical measuring 1.5 inches. Speakers who have mag ¬ netically shielded has re ¬ spons consecutive frequency 230 Hz - 20 kHz (the drivers left and right) and 45 Hz - 200 Hz (Sub-Woofer). The speakers with the RMS ouput power 15 W (2.5 W × 2 W and 9) have the value of this ratio of Signal-to-Noise above 85 DBA. One feature is a system MP300 Plus Electric Intelligent Distortion Control (EIDC), which functions to detect and adjust the volume level automatically so that the occurrence of input overload effect can be avoided. According to the plan, Edifier MP300 Plus will be sold in Indonesia, with prices around U.S. $ 99.

INFO : EDIFIER

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Lotus Notes In Nokia Seri S60

Nokia and IBM on 4 December 2008 announced a cooperation in terms of support for IBM Lotus Notes for a Nokia mobile phone S60 berba ¬ sis. With this cooperation, it is expected that millions of Lotus Notes users can access their email wherever they are through the Nokia device. The same applies to Nokia customers. Through the assistance software for Lotus Domino server called Lotus Notes traveler, allowing them to access email, calendar, address book, journals, to do list in real time. Both parties are very enthusiastic about working with this. "90% e-mail business is expected to dimobilisasikan with the Nokia device, without having to buy servers, middleware, or other additional licenses," said Soren Petersen, Senior Vice President, Nokia in rilisnya. This senada also expressed by Kustiawan Kusumo, Country Manager of IBM Software Group. Kustiawan said, "Through this partnership, IBM helped the development of the business world without the influence of time, distance, or location."

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VIeWSoNIc pjD6210

Early December 2008, the ViewSonic again enliven the market with the release projektor portable projector light weight 2.4 kg, ViewSonic XGA DLP PJD6210. This product has a contrast ratio of 2700:1 and a ViewMatch TM technology can guarantee the display so that images are always clear and obvious.


This technology can also adjust the color tone is automatically for to get the color saturation and perfect accuracy.
PJD6210 many inputs, including support for HDTV signals 720p and 1080i. As such, this product is able to display the hue of life, sharp images, and video quality is good. This projector is ideal for the film it at home or business that want to deliver the perfect presentation.

INFO : VIEWSONIC

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DELL Netbook with Feature Modem 3.5G HSDPA

Dell launches netbook range and latest notebook. In the netbook category, introduced the Dell Netbook Inspiron Mini 9 and Mini 12. Meanwhile, in the notebook category introduced Inspirion Notebook Studio 15 and 13. Inspirion Mini 9 and 12 is a small mobile device that is suitable digunakanoleh anakanak and teenagers who want to remain connected to the Internet. Interestingly, Inspirion Mini 9 is equipped 3.5G HSDPA modem. Dell Inspirion 13 to bring you a performance and a smart appearance. While Dell Studio 15 comes with attractive design and various color options.

INFO

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