For about 5 years, I had a Quantum Pioneer SG 2.1GB HDD, which I had to give to someone as a replacement, and that beauty is still working great in a very old computer, somewhere. In the meantime, I added a Seagate drive to my computer. This one was a 8.4GB one, but after that, hell broke loose. I jumped straight to a 80GB one, after less than a year I got it replaced, because it died, then I got a 250GB one, then a new computer with a 320GB drive, and now, less than a year after the last purchase, I am thinking about a 1TB drive, and I can't say I am upgrading frequently...


All the above has a close connection with the latest news regarding the HDD market, because this is what happens everywhere - HDDs are so cheap, that it's a pity not to grab more and more storage as you move on, since any new drive gets full pretty soon, no matter how large it may be. I know, there are people who can still live their lives with a "tiny" 40GB or 80GB drive, but I'll leave them aside.

According to IDC, worldwide HDD shipments are expected to grow, despite the economic uncertainty faced by individuals and businesses all around the planet. Even more, disk storage systems shipments will continue to grow until 2012, IDC estimating a 53% yearly growth. Then, it's the end of the world, of course, so no additional forecast.(heh, just joking!)

John Rydning, research director for hard disk drives at IDC, said "Disk drive OEMs are very aware of the different competing storage technologies that exist today, and will exist in the future. They will rightly shrug-off these competing technologies for a later day, choosing instead to capitalize on the healthy and profitable opportunities that lie ahead in the hard disk drive industry."

I know SSDs may seem the way of the future for some, but it will surely take years until they manage to surpass HDDs in volume sales. The reasons are obvious, so it seems I won't be forced to move to SSDs anytime soon, as it happened with the AGP bus, for example.

I must confess something: I love camouflage textures! I don't wear camouflage clothing, because it's not exactly my style, but I like it when I see it, even when it envelops a portable hard drive. Yes, you got that right, it's no mistake - less than a day ago, Iomega announced its new Iomega® eGo(TM) USB 2.0 Camo Portable Hard Drive, probably world's first hard drive with a camouflage pattern textured case.


Ralf San Jose, global product manager for HDD products, Iomega Corporation, says that "Unlike mundane, run-of-the-mill looking branded portable hard drives, Iomega's eGo Portable Hard Drive line features a palette of bright colors that knocks the socks off anything else in the market. With the new eGo Camo Portable Hard Drive, Iomega adds a style of adventure and intrigue to the eGo color kaleidoscope. No self-respecting 'camo' lover will be without it. Expect to see more exciting additions like the new Camo to the Iomega eGo drive line in the future," and I must agree with him, but let's check the technical specifications of this product, shall we?

Available worldwide for $149.95, the Iomega 250GB eGo(TM) Camo Portable Hard Drive USB 2.0 doesn't need any additional power supply, and features the DropGuard(TM) technology, which allows full protection from drops of up to 51 inches (129 cms), while other manufacturers stop around 40 inches. Wait, don't drop it yet, because there's even more - with the help of the Power Grip band placed on the eGo Camo Drive, the eGo can even handle drops of almost 60 inches!

...just be sure you won't use this hard drive to play football with your friends, and I am sure you'll be happy with it!

Slowly, but surely, SSDs are getting into the mainstream. The good old hard disk drives we used in the past decades may still hang around for a few years, but their end is coming closer and closer with each new price drop for SSDs. Anyway, today I don't have news about any price drop, but there's something that may lead to such a thing - new SSDs coming from Super Talent!


What's new? Well, the new drives deliver higher performance than current models, and they are available in capacities up to 120GB. According to Joe James, Super Talent's marketing director, "These new SSDs are a rugged, lightning fast, low power storage alternative for mobile professionals and enthusiasts. With such overwhelming benefits, MasterDrive SSDs are sure to revolutionize mobile storage."

Despite the fact they are not the fastest drives on the market, the Super Talent MasterDrive MX, based on multi-level cell [MLC] NAND flash memory and MasterDrive DX, based on single-level cell [SLC] NAND flash memory provide very good performance, with 120MB/s read speed and 40MB/s or 70MB/s write speed depending on the model and flash memory organization, according to Super Talent.

Both MasterDrive SSDs use the Serial ATA-300 interface and are compatible with a wide range of desktops and notebooks, while the prices go between $299, for the 30GB MasterDrive MX, and $1299(ouch!) for the 60GB MasterDrive DX.

Although it may not be so well known in some markets, Fujitsu always produced good hard drives, and now they are releasing their first hardware-encrypted 2.5-inch drive, with the new MHZ2 CJ model. If you feel that someone's watching you all the time and software data security is never enough, then I am sure you'll be delighted to hear about Fujitsu's latest drive for those like you...


The Fujitsu MHZ CJ is the first consumer-class device to feature full encryption with 256-bit AES key, while being available in 80GB, 120GB, 160GB, 250GB as well as 320GB capacities, for the Serial ATA-150/300 interface. Anyway, performance is not a weak spot, especially if we think about the fact this is basically a hard drive for laptops - 7200rpm rotational speed, 16MB of cache, and a declared average read seek time of 10.5ms, followed by a write seek time of 12.5ms being good even for desktop computers.

While Seagate offers 128-bit encryption for some of its drives, Fujitsu's 256-bit encryption is better, and the drive comes with a feature which allows all data stored on the disk to be erased instantly, in less than a second!

Humm...it seems that thieves stealing laptops have less chances with each day to steal personal data, too, and that's nothing but good news for the rest of us.

One year ago, IT analyst predicted that SSDs won’t be posing much of a threat for the good ol’ HDDs sooner than 2011, but looks like somebody underestimated Toshiba and its powers. Toshiba is one of the first SSD makers that sought to improve capacities and cut down prices and they sure know what they are doing as they recently announced some competitive plans for their upcoming SSD lineup.

Toshiba thinks it can quadruple the capacity of its solid-state drives by 2009, and at the same time cut the production costs. Toshiba semiconductor chief Shozo Saito claims that process refinements will let the improved SSDs store up to four data bits per memory cell and shrink the chip-making process to 30 nanometers by the end of 2009, allowing the company to offer a 512GB drive in that timeframe.

Having SSDs that can store that much info is one thing, but knowing that a 128GB solid-state drive is currently priced around $1,000, what would Toshiba do in order to make the bigger drives more affordable? The Japanese are confident that by fitting more data into a given space, they will also be reducing the cost of making flash memory itself. Moreover, Saito points out that the company can reduce the price of making SSDs by as much as 40 to 50 percent every year, resulting in far less expensive drives at greater storage levels.

While I’m happy to hear SSDs will soon reach 1TB capacities, I can’t really figure out the prices for such storage devices. Sure we need more and more storage space, but we also want these devices to cost as low as the current HDDs and that won’t be happening sooner than analysts previously predicted.