A significant number of Western Digital My Book Live NAS owners are reporting that their drives have been totally erased. This has been done remotely by unknown attackers …
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Today Western Digital took the wraps off of two new external storage solutions from its G-Technology product family. The G-Speed Shuttle with Thunderbolt 3, is one that may interest iMac Pro and MacBook Pro owners the most. It’s an external storage unit with dual Thunderbolt 3 ports and up to 48TB of storage in RAID 0, 1, 5, and 10 in a 4-bay transportable form factor.
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Western Digital’s My Cloud Network Attached Storage solutions are among some of the most consumer friendly options on the market. Many of the other cloud-enabled hard drives out there can be much more complicated and look like you have a server in your living room.
WD has been a trusted name in consumer storage for years, so it doesn’t come as much surprise it would bring this tech to the masses. Personally, I think everyone should have some kind of NAS-like technology made available to them these days, so we were excited to hear about Western’s Digital’s next generation personal NAS drives…
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Western Digital today has released its newest desktop external RAID drives. The new My Book Duo models feature options with up to 20TB of storage, include USB-C and USB-A ports, and have a 3-year warranty.
Earlier this year, I wrote several guides to boost the speeds of older Macs by swapping their internal hard drives for super-fast solid state drives (SSDs). As readers have confirmed, their older iMacs, MacBooks, and Mac Pros have seen dramatic improvements with new SSDs. But some people were left with a question: what should I do with my Mac’s old hard drive? Throw it away?
A great answer: put it in an external hard drive enclosure and keep using it! My latest How-To shows you how easy it is to reclaim your Mac’s old drive by installing it in a nice USB enclosure such as Akitio’s SK-3501U3 (shown here), which I chose because of its Mac-matching design, reasonable sub-$40 price, and compatibility. External enclosures are also ideal options if you want to choose a high-quality hard drive mechanism for yourself, rather than taking a risk on whatever might be hidden inside a fully-assembled external drive. I’ll explain that, and much more, below…
I feel old saying this, but having used computers since before external hard drives existed, I can say with certainty that buying a hard drive is easier today than it’s ever been before. For traditional drives, prices are low, options are numerous, and capacities are so high that your only choices are “enough space,” “more than enough space,” and “way more than enough space.” I could point you towards a gigantic 5-Terabyte $139 Seagate USB 3.0 hard drive right now and end this article without another paragraph. Since Apple doesn’t even sell a Mac with that much disk space, you could back up five (or more) computers to that drive without running out of room. Or you could store a decade worth of digital photos alongside a giant media library. For $139!
But buying an external hard drive isn’t necessarily that simple. There are a bunch of factors worth considering before making a purchase, including everything from reliability to portability, design, capacity, speed, and connectivity. Some hard drives are really cheap but have a higher chance of failing after a year or two of heavy use. So in this How-To, I’m going to discuss the big issues you need to consider, and guide you towards the best external hard drive for your needs…
Be sure to follow 9to5Toys to keep up with the best gear and deals on the web: Twitter, RSS Feed, Facebook, Google+ and Safari push notifications.
Today’s can’t miss deals:
Last Call updates:
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iPad Keyboard cases:
Western Digital Red 4TB NAS optimized 3.5″ hard drive $140 shipped (Reg. up to $200)
iTunes gift cards: $100 for $85, buy one-get one 30% off, spend $25 or more and save 15%
9to5Toys Specials:
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More deals still alive:
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Microsoft/Google/Android:
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Today’s can’t miss deals:
Last Call updates:
Lowe’s Coupon: 10% off online orders (includes Nest Thermostat). Some exclusions apply… http://t.co/7q7RR8c2rE pic.twitter.com/VwZn8FnkWS
— 9to5Toys (@9to5toys) April 17, 2014
RAVPower 10400mAh Power Bank for $26 shipped (Reg. $35) http://t.co/ZIFlKuhRXy
— 9to5Toys (@9to5toys) April 17, 2014
Sling Media Slingbox 350, stream live HDTV to your iPhone/iPad $99 shipped (45% off)
Western Digital Hard Drives:
Adobe Photoshop Elements and Premier Elements 12 (PC/Mac) $75 shipped (50% savings)
2-pack of D-Link DCS-930L wireless network cams with iOS/Android app: $50 shipped (Reg. $160)
Logitech UE 4000 Headphones $19 + $5 shipping (Reg. $100) http://t.co/4V7VkgRYmE
— 9to5Toys (@9to5toys) April 17, 2014
Staples is going to be taking $10 off $50 iTunes gift cards next Monday and Tuesday ONLY. 1 per customer. pic.twitter.com/6Ik8w1Gjsc
— 9to5Toys (@9to5toys) April 17, 2014
Other deals from today:
New games/apps:
Pixelmator (Mac) $15, Windows Store gift cards (apps/xbox games) 20% off, The Lorax (Android) $1: http://t.co/VMuJ3E2ZyJ— 9to5Toys (@9to5toys) April 17, 2014
More deals still alive:
New products/useful info:
Microsoft/Google/Android:
Be sure to follow 9to5Toys to keep up with the best gear and deals on the web: Twitter, RSS Feed, Facebook, Google+ and subscribe to the new Safari push notifications feature.
Today’s can’t miss deals:
Last Call updates:
Twelve South BackPack for Mac – Shelf for iMac and Apple Displays $27.74 (Reg. $35) http://t.co/LU3W8voPAd pic.twitter.com/rYARSZfdWd
— 9to5Toys (@9to5toys) February 21, 2014
Bose AE2 fold-flat headphones $80 shipped (Reg. $150)
Kingston HyperX 3K 240GB SATA III 2.5″ Solid-State Drive $140 shipped (Reg. $210)
Gaming Headsets: Logitech G430s w/ surround sound: $40 (Reg. $80), Turtle Beach Z300s: $128 (Reg. $200), more
Ending Soon:
Other great deals from today:
Yamaha RX-V375 5.1 Channel 3D 4K A/V Home Theater Receiver $190 shipped (Reg. $300) http://t.co/csj6veKj2w
— 9to5Toys (@9to5toys) February 20, 2014
More great deals still alive:
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Today’s can’t miss deals:
Last Call Updates:
Western Digital My Passport Ultra 2TB portable USB 3.0 hard drive $90 shipped (Reg. $180)
iPhone 5/5S Wallet Case $7 shipped (Reg. $30)
Monoprice $10 off $30 Coupon: Save on cables, headphones, chargers, more
Cowboom 20% Off Sitewide: Save on iPads, game consoles, laptops, more
iOttie One-Touch iPhone Car Windshield/Dashboard Mount $12 shipped (Reg. $25)
Other great deals from today:
More great deals still alive:
Star Wars: The Complete Saga (Episodes I-VI) on Blu-ray $60 (Reg. $140) http://t.co/HAqox7WJd5
— 9to5Toys (@9to5toys) January 2, 2014
Be sure to follow 9to5Toys to keep up with the best gear and deals on the web: Twitter, RSS Feed, Facebook, Google+ and subscribe to the new Safari push notifications feature. Also, check out our updated Daily Deals page (for iPad/iPhone) featuring the day’s best deals from across major US retailers.
Today’s can’t miss deals:
Giveaway: Dropcam Pro Wi-Fi video monitoring camera ($200 value)
Save $50 on any Apple iPod Touch 32GB (newest version) $250 shipped (Reg. $300)
RAVPower deluxe 14000mAh portable power bank $35 shipped (Reg. $43)
Pebble Smartwatch in Red or Black: $90 shipped ($60 off) with .edu email ($120w/o)
Logitech UE Mini Boom portable Bluetooth speaker $72 shipped (Reg. $100)
Best Buy has several PlayStation 4 bundles in stock w/ free shipping starting at $450. Delivers by 12/24 http://t.co/0WpAcUH3uQ
— 9to5Toys (@9to5toys) December 16, 2013
Other great deals from today:
Dell UltraSharp 24” UHD 4K monitor $1,169.99 after coupon code T2LLG$98G7$F19 (MSRP $1,400) http://t.co/bYTTgLuQQH
— 9to5Toys (@9to5toys) December 16, 2013
The best deals that are still alive:
Be sure to follow 9to5Toys to keep up with the best gear and deals on the web: Twitter, RSS Feed, Facebook, Google+.
Today’s can’t miss deals:
Staples $50 eGift card for $40: Save on gadgets, tech accessories, office supplies, more
Call of Duty: Ghosts $45,76% off Rockstar games incl. GTA, Max Payne: starting at $3, iOS freebies, more
Synology unleashes its most affordable 2-bay NAS ever, the DS214se for $160
Other great deals from today:
The best deals that are still alive:
Mac software bundles:
New product announcements & reviews:
Be sure to follow 9to5Toys to keep up with the best gear and deals on the web: Twitter, RSS Feed, Facebook, Google+.
Today’s can’t miss deals:
PSA: Buyers in the market for a new Synology NAS might want to hold off on current closeouts and wait for the DS214 http://t.co/Mna4T0e64H
— 9to5Toys (@9to5toys) October 16, 2013
Other great deals from today:
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Mac software bundles:
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From 9to5Toys.com:
A large majority of the deals we cover each day come from a variety of ‘Daily Deal’ websites or are so popular that they don’t even last 24 hours. We know you can’t be at your computer every second, so we’re going to round up the best deals each day to make sure you have a fair shot at the deals you want. Be sure to follow 9to5Toys.com so you never miss a deal... Twitter, RSS Feed, Facebook, Google+.
Other great deals we love:
From 9to5Toys.com:
A large majority of the deals we cover each day come from a variety of ‘Daily Deal’ websites or are so popular that they don’t even last 24 hours. We know you can’t be at your computer every second, so we’re going to round up the best deals each day to make sure you have a fair shot at the deals you want. Be sure to follow 9to5Toys.com so you never miss a deal... Twitter, RSS Feed, Facebook, Google+.
The Steve Jobs Video Bundle: Lectures On The Man, His Legacy & The Future Of Technology $15Portable Storage Deals:
From 9to5Toys.com:
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Amazon is having a 1 day SanDisk Storage sale across its lineup of products including: USB Sticks, Micro/SD Cards and SSDs. These are the lowest prices we’ve seen on many of these products.
Standouts include:
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The fast keep getting faster. Western Digital announced two new speedy new platter drives aimed at Mac users today. The Thunderbolt “My Book VelociRaptor Duo” is a speed improvement on WD’s previous Thunderbolt Drives coming from the addition of two 10,000RPM internal HDDs (the speed of the drives is actually still the bottleneck here —Thunderbolt is very fast).
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Extreme speed of WD VelociRaptor drives inside. With the extreme speed of two 10,000 RPM WD VelociRaptor drives inside united with the revolutionary speed of Thunderbolt technology your creative inspirations have never moved so fast.
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Enhanced workflow efficiency. The dual Thunderbolt ports make it easy to daisy chain more drives for even greater speeds and higher capacity. Add peripherals to further enhance your productivity.
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User-configurable for speed or double-safe data protection. Customize this dual-drive storage system to your needs – RAID 0 for speed, RAID 1 for data protection, JBOD to use the drives individually.
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Did you know… My Book VelociRaptor Duo is a bootable external device supported by Mac OS X. For additional information, please click here.
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Western Digitial also upped the speed of its Mac Portable Drives (which we’ve reviewed favorably) with USB 3.0 and sizes up to 2TB:
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Ultra-fast USB 3.0 connectivity. With the blazing-fast connectivity of USB 3.0, this drive lets you access and save files in record time. Reduce transfer time by up to 3 times when compared to USB 2.0 transfer rates.**Performance may vary based on user’s hardware and system configuration. |
Massive capacity in a small design. This compact enclosure offers up to a massive 2 TB of storage. It’s the ideal companion for anyone with lots of photos, movies, videos and files that they want to take with them.
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Password protection secures
your drive. Use WD Security utility to set password protection and hardware encryption and protect your files from unauthorized use or access.
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Both Press releases follow:
Hard-drive maker Western Digital is the first-ever to unveil a 2TB capacity 2.5-inch portable external hard drive.
Western Digital announced the drive will first be put into the My Passport family, which previously only offered up to 1TB of storage, but the doubled-capacity external is still a condensed single-volume drive. 9to5Mac reviewed the Western Digital My Passport Studio in September 2011 and walked away very impressed with the 1TB 2.5-inch flavor.
Like the earlier version, the larger My Passport is available in various colored finishes that make its shell resilient to abrasions. The device is NTFS reformatted but easily reformatted to Mac OS, and it supports USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 for trucking large amounts of data.
More information is available below.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=FX-My424O7g]
We first profiled the Western Digital MyBook Thunderbolt Duo at CES in January and noted the extraordinary speed of the drives, especially when daisy chained (above find 780MB/s read, 600+MB/s write). Today, Macrumors notes that Western Digital is making the drives available for $599 (4TB) and $699 (6TB). While those prices are steep, they fall in line with new Thunderbolt parts across the line.
We’ve reviewed the much slower Firewire/USB Western Digital Studio 6TB drives and came away impressed. Those retail for around $430 currently ($270 less than the Thunderbolt version) but use energy efficient (read: slower) internal drives and slower Firewire 800 connectivity options.
Notably B&H Photo and Video is selling the Western Digital MyBook Thunderbolt Duo already with $50 discounts (6TB – $649, 4TB- $549) and tax only in New York but without solid shipping dates.
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From 9to5Toys.com:
A quick roundup of storage options from 9to5Toys at Amazon this weekend:
SDHC Cards:
16GB Amazon Class 4: $14.38; Transcend Micro Class 4 w/adapter: $12.98 (pictured)
32GB Sandisk Class 6: $29.95 Transcend Class 10: $32.95
USB Sticks:
8GB Kingston: $6.95
16GB Kingston: $13.99, Sandisk $14.72 Transcend: $13.99
32GB Sandisk: $28.99
64GB Lexar: $61.10
I had some time to demonstrate some of the upcoming Thunderbolt accessories from external drive makers at CES earlier today. We briefly discussed a few others from OCZ, LaCie, Belkin and Elgato earlier in the week. First up is the Western Digital MyBook Thunderbolt Duo:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FX-My424O7g]
These are going to compare nicely to the Promise RAID setup that has similar speeds, but it does not have a price or release date yet. The vibe seemed to be like Q2 with perhaps an announcement at Macworld.
Next up is the Hitachi G-Drive series of Thunderbolt Drives, and these drives are 8TBs…
A trusted tipster has provided us with the details on Apple’s Black Friday (November 25th) 2011 sale. The sale is very similar to Apple’s offerings in past years, but does give better discounts to higher capacities of the iPads and iPods. The deals on the Mac end cover the iMac, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro, while the iPod nano and iPod touch are the discounted iPod offerings. The Macs will be $101 less, the iPads will go from $41-$61 discounts depending on capacity (16GB, 32GB, 64GB), the iPod nano will shave off $11 for both 8GB and 16GB storage sizes, the iPod touch will follow the iPad’s lead of bigger discounts for bigger capacities, ranging from $21-$41 discounts.
The biggest break is the base level MacBook Air which will now start at $898, but both Best Buy and Amazon have it now for $849.
Apple will also (images after the break) discount accessories. On the Apple in-house accessory list is $11 off the iPad 2 Smart Cover (comes out to $28 for the polyurethane and $58 for the leather), $11 off ($58 in total for each) for the Apple Wireless Keyboard and Apple Wireless Magic Trackpad, $5 off ($45 total) for a $50 iTunes/App Store/iBookstore gift card, in addition to discounts on the AirPort Extreme, Time Capsule, and AirPort Express. Third-party accessories such as Western Digital hard drives, the mophie JuicePack Air, Speck CandyShell iPhone 4/4S case, Jawbone Up, a Griffin Universal Remote Control system for the iPod touch, the Jawbone Jambox, a Phillips clock radio, and more are also on sale. Check out the entire sale with the rest of the leaked pamphlet after the break:
We’ve been messing around with a damn fine looking set of portable hard drives for the past few days from Western Digital called My Passport Studio and My Passport Mac. They are encased in an all-aluminum shell, the My Passport Studio comes with two FireWire 800 ports as well as a Mini USB port around back; the latter only has a Mini USB port. The speed tests on these guys (see results below) was pretty average for 2.5-inch Firewire hard drives at just under 80MB/sec read, making the slight premium Western Digital is asking for these mostly “an aesthetic upgrade”.
…not that there is anything wrong with that. You can feel the quality in these drive enclosures. The aluminum shell is going to protect these from more drops than a plastic casing and these drives look the part of a high quality Mac setup. These drives are also so whisper quiet that the only way to know if they are running is the white LED on the back (much better than the front). As you can see from the pictures, both the Studio (formatted Windows) and Mac go well with a Unibody MacBook.
On the downside, these are slightly heavier than your typical hard drive at half a pound. Still though, that’s a small price to pay for quality. They are available now for $189.99 from Amazon for the Studio and $159 for the 1TB Mac
Press release follows:
From 9to5toys.com:
MacMall via eBay Daily Deal offers the factory-refurbished Western Digital Elements 3TB USB 2.0 External Hard Drive, model no. WDBAAU0030HBK-NESN, for $99.99 with free shipping. That’s $0.03/GB, $20 below our mention of a new unit from three days ago, and the lowest total price we’ve seen for this drive. (It’s $18 below the current price low for a new unit.) This drive uses GreenPower technology to reduce power consumption by up to 30%.
A Western Digital warranty applies; however, MacMall does not mention the length of this warranty on the product page.