disk drives

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Flash drives: your mileage WILL vary

Flash is an alien technology for disk users. I've noted before that flash drives can have really terrible write performance, but until I ran into it myself I had no idea how bad flash write performance could be.Last month I wrote see Five things you never knew about flash drivesFlash...

Tags: Solid State Disk, Disk drives

Blog posts 2007-07-30

Sorry about your broken RAID 5

You didn't know?I'm sorry I was the one to tell you that RAID 5 is broken today and will be well and truly broken in 2009 (see Why RAID 5 stops working in 2009), but somebody had to do it. The good news is that the industry is ahead of...

Tags: Disk drives, RAID, RAID 5, Robin Harris, unrecoverable read error

Blog posts 2007-07-24

Why RAID 5 stops working in 2009

The storage version of Y2k? No, it's a function of capacity growth and RAID 5's limitations. If you are thinking about SATA RAID for home or business use, or using RAID today, you need to know why.RAID 5 protects against a single disk failure. You can recover all your data...

Tags: RAID, Disk drives

Blog posts 2007-07-18

Disk drive life depends on . . . luck

What is the primary determinant of drive life? I've read the latest research and talked to insiders. There are so many variables that the best answer is just . . . luck. Why is that? Is there anything you can do?Many variables - and some that aren'tThe recent Carnegie Mellon...

Tags: Infrastructure, Disk drives

Blog posts 2007-07-05

Death of a disk

It even happens to storage bloggersThings are quiet today at Mojo manor. My external 160 GB disk died. It passed quietly. No grinding noises. No SMART warning. No real warning at all, but for the last couple of months I'd been feeling a little anxious about that drive. Call me...

Tags: Disk drives

Blog posts 2007-06-27

Blu-ray vs HD DVD: game over

Blu-ray wonThe sturm und drang over the Blu-ray vs HD DVD battle has come to naught. After a bit of jostling Blu-ray has taken an unassailable lead over HD DVD. Blockbuster's Matthew Smith, SVP of merchandising, says "The consumers are sending us a message. I can't ignore what I'm seeing."...

Tags: Marketing, Disk drives

Blog posts 2007-06-20

How to REALLY erase a hard drive - Update

A new version of HDerase.exe has been releasedGo direct to UCSD's Center for Magnetic Recording Research website to download version 3.2.HDerase.exe accesses an ATA disk drive's internal Secure Erase commands to wipe a disk clean. Merely deleting a file doesn't delete your data: the data is still on the disk...

Tags: Disk drives, Security

Blog posts 2007-06-15

The five weirdest things about flash drives

Flash drives only look like disks. In fact, nothing works the way you'd think. Flash is really different from magnetic recording, and those differences have a big impact on flash drive performance. How well vendors manage flash oddities has a huge impact on performance and even drive lifespan.The five...

Tags: Solid State Disk, Software, Disk drives

Blog posts 2007-06-11

WD's surprising little drive

IIRC, it was just 15 years ago that Maxtor shipped the first 1 GB, 3.5" drive. The usual things happened: database admins all swore it was "too big," techies said it cost too much, and regular users wondered if they could ever fill it up.DBA's still kvetch about disk size...

Tags: Disk drives

Blog posts 2007-06-07

Intel's latest memory problem

Intel can't seem to catch a break. First their highly-touted FB-DIMMs deliver nothing beyond cost and heat. Now their highly-touted Robson technology is getting beat up.HP: are they or aren't they?In HP says no to Intel's Turbo Memory, David Meyer reports from London thatSteve Doddridge, senior notebook technology consultant for...

Tags: Disk drives, Solid State Disk

Blog posts 2007-06-06

Additional Resources

SysCheckUp 2.1.1 (Windows)

SysCheckUp is software designed for Windows systems (32-bit only) to keep your computer running at maximum performance. The innovative repair tool can repair multiple problems including: missing desktop icons, missing taskbar, missing drives, no audio, and denied access to the task manager and control panel. The registry cleaner can remove...

Tags: Software, Registry, E.piphany, Microsoft Windows, SysCheckUp

Software downloads 2009-11-25

WinTools.net Ultimate 9.11.1 (Windows)

A suite of tools for increasing the operating system performance. WinTools.net cleanly removes unwanted software from disk drives and dead references from the Windows registry. WinTools.net puts you in control of the Windows start up process, memory monitoring and gives you the power to customize desktop and system settings to...

Tags: Performance, Tool, Godlike Developers, WinTools.net, WinTools.net Ultimate, Microsoft Windows, Productivity, Performance Management, Operating Systems, Software, Human Resources, Workforce Management

Software downloads 2009-11-24

Is it time to go quad-core?

Quad core, Chris?You have told us over and over that all you need is Google. You don't need a real OS, real apps, or any processing power to speak of. All you need is a browser, preferably Chrome. Why on Earth would you need a quad core...

Tags: Processors, cloud computing, quad-core, laptop computer, virtualization

Discussion threads 2009-11-23

Macrium Reflect 4.2 build 2097 (Windows)

Macrium Reflect is an award winning backup and disk imaging solution for Vista, XP and Server 2003. Reflect can backup files and folders into a compressed mountable archive file or your entire PC into a single image. Using this image you can restore the entire disk, partition or individual files...

Tags: Disk, CD, Image, Macrium Software, Macrium Reflect, Backups, Microsoft Windows, Operating Systems, Software

Software downloads 2009-11-23

SuperAntiSpyware Free Edition 4.31.1000 (Windows)

SuperAntiSpyware, a next generation product, with its Multi-Dimensional Scanning and Process Interrogation Technology will detect spyware and remove over 1,000,000 pests such as Vundo, ZLob, SmitFraud, WinFixer, VirusRay, and VirusHeat. Repair broken Internet connections, desktops, registry editing, and task manager. The program provides complete and custom scanning of hard drives,...

Tags: Registry, Microsoft Windows, SuperAntiSpyware, Spyware, Adware & Malware, Spyware, Cyberthreats, Rootkits, Viruses And Worms, Security

Software downloads 2009-11-23

Macrium Reflect Free Edition 4.2 build 2097 (Windows)

Macrium Reflect Free Edition. An award winning disk imaging solution for free. A complete disaster recovery solution for your home and office. Protect your personal documents, photos, music and e-mails. Upgrade your hard disk or try new operating systems in the safe knowledge that everything is securely saved in an...

Tags: Disk, Imaging, Microsoft Windows, Macrium Software, Disaster Recovery, Document Management, Backups, Data Management, Enterprise Software, Software, Finance, Managerial Accounting

Software downloads 2009-11-23

Google makes Chrome OS open source today

Contrary to rumors, Google did not release a beta version of its much anticipated Chrome operating system today. And nothing is coming anytime soon: the final version is at least a year away, the mega giant web company said. But there was some significant news for the...

Tags: Google Inc., Web, Operating System, Netbook, Netbooks, Nettops & MIDs, Open Source, Operating Systems, Hardware, Software, Paula Rooney

Blog posts 2009-11-19

Disks: why size means performance

OK, Smarty pants...How do I use only the outer-most sectors of my 500GB disk?Performance != reliabilitySeagate has progressively gotten worse with reliability - that's why they cut the 5-year warranty back down to 3 years. Western Digital has made great strides with reliability though. WD isn't focussing on...

Tags: Serial ATA, SSD, SAS Institute, SAS Drives, performance, disk

Discussion threads 2009-11-18

Advanced Windows Unattended Installation 2.6 (Windows)

If you work as a system administrator in an organization and maintain a lot of computers, you are sure to have come across the situation when you had to buy a consignment of computers and install all kinds of software on each of them. The direct consequence of such a...

Tags: Computer, Unattended Installation Systems, Tools & Techniques, Microsoft Windows, Productivity, Management, Operating Systems, Software

Software downloads 2009-11-17

Synology Disk Station DS409slim - NAS server

Synology Disk Station DS409slim is a true miniature powerhouse in the network-attached storage device market. It's the first 2.5-inch hard drive-based NAS server we've reviewed that offers hot-swappable capability. However, that is its least impressive feature. The server did well in our performance tests and, like other Synology products we've...

Tags: Network-attached storage (NAS), Storage, disk, DS409Slim, NAS, NAS server, hard drive, server, RAID

Product reviews 2009-11-16