| MacUpdate Weekend Sale | :This weekend MacUpdate has slashed prices on Painter 12 and Painter Lite. Painter 12 retails for $429, but has been reduced by 54% to $199. Painter Lite has seen a 58% price cut from $69 to $29. Hurry, because these deals are only available until May 19th 2013. |
Western Digital today announced the availability of the My Passport Ultra line of portable hard drives, which combine additional layers of data protection with USB 3.0 connectivity, a slim design, and four color choices to offer mobile consumers a safe way to protect digital content while traveling.
Building on from its 7mm release last year, Western Digital has started shipping its first hard drives and solid state hybrid drives (SSHD) that measure 5mm (0.2-inches) thick. The new WD Blue and WD Black 2.5-inch drives are made to allow for even thinner notebook and ultrabook designs, while still providing a sizable amount of storage for the end user.
WD, a Western Digital company, announced today the availability of its new My Net AC1300 HD Dual-Band Router and My Net AC Bridge, two new additions to its My Net family of HD dual-band routers. The two new devices combine 802.11ac Wi-Fi technology with WD's own FasTrack technology, which prioritizes high-bandwidth entertainment services in order to improve streaming performance at home.
Western Digital has rolled out a new version of the My Book Studio external hard drive, aimed towards users wanting more speed without switching to Thunderbolt. The update adds USB 3.0 connectivity, which provides data transfer speeds claimed to be three times faster than the USB 2.0 version, while also allowing for legacy connections through USB 2.0 and FireWire 800.
WD announced today an expansion of its line of high capacity and high speed external storage drives with the My Book Thunderbolt Duo 8 TB and My Book 4 TB external hard drive models. The new drives are compatible with both Mac and PC setups, and the Thunderbolt Duo 8 TB offers the largest storage available on any My Book drive from WD.
WD on Thursday showed off its latest additions to its portable hard drive lineup with the My Passport Edge. Available for Windows PCs and Macs, the sleek drives will have USB 3.0 connections and 500GB capacities. The all-aluminum design is said to match that of the MacBook and MacBook Air notebooks, while also being compatible with Apple Time Machine in the Mac version.
WD on Tuesday has updated its TV Live and TV Live Hub media players with new, country-specific and worldwide services and features. Existing owners of either product will get access to the features thanks to a downloadable software update. The new services include Red Bull TV, ABC iview, Acetrax, Maxdome, the BILD TV-App, and the AOL On Network.
Western Digital on Monday timed the launch of a larger VelociRaptor drive with the NAB media expo. The new, 1TB capacity almost doubles the prior 600GB peak and is seen as a way to give video editors the capacity they need while still giving performance above and beyond conventional disk drives. It continues to spin at 10,000RPM versus the usual 7,200RPM and comes inn an "Ice Pack" heatsink that cools it down while serving as a mount for a 3.5-inch drive bay.
Western Digital on Wednesday started shipping a new version of its Scorpio Blue hard drive tailored for ultrabooks and otherwise thin notebooks. At 7mm tall, it fits in spaces where regular 9.5mm drives won't but can still have as much as 500GB of space. The design has the simultaneous upside of lower power consumption and is purportedly the most efficient spinning hard drive in the field.
Atlanta-based Skitter has launched a streaming service to offer TV broadcasts directly over the Internet to Roku or WD Live set-top boxes. The service is currently available in Portland, Oregon, with plans to expand to 5 other metro markets by the end of June. What differentiates Skitter from previous efforts to offer live TV over the web is that the company has negotiated licenses for retransmission rights with broadcasters such as ABC, NBC and CBS in each of the markets it serves.
Western Digital just added a new 2TB capacity for its Mac OS X-oriented My Passport Studio external hard drive range. Other capacities include 500GB, 750GB, and 1TB, and the all-metal hard drive is compatible with Apple's Time Machine back-up feature out of the box. There is no power adapter needed when users plug it in using the USB 2.0 interface or one of the two FireWire 800 ports, which also boosts transfer speeds.
Western Digital undertook a major remake of its My Passport portable hard drives on Tuesday that both claimed a first in capacity and gave it a fresher design. The new versions are the first to ever have 2TB of storage in a portable-sized drive. WD hasn't said how the drive is arranged, although it's more likely to be two 1TB disk than the still-distant single 2TB drives.
Western Digital acted on a two-month promise by shipping its range-topping MyBook Thunderbolt Duo drives. The desktop external disks use the headroom of the 10Gbps spec, along with RAID, to supply speeds faster than most individual internal drives, even on a system like a MacBook Air. In a hands-on (above) with a RAID 0 stripe, we saw real speeds of 750MB per second in reads and 640MB per second in writes, rendering it faster than a high-end solid-state drive.
Western Digital struck a deal late Tuesday to divest some of its 3.5-inch desktop hard drive assets to Toshiba. The pact would see WD buy Toshiba's storage group in Thailand, as well as give away other elements, as a condition of WD's buyout of Hitachi's storage group. By the completion of the deal, Toshiba could make desktop 3.5-inch hard drives for home users, and it could improve its ability to make specialized drives for pro uses.
Western Digital gave a more formal debut to its first Thunderbolt-equipped drive at Macworld|iWorld on Thursday. The My Book Thunderbolt Duo uses the fast 10Gbps port to feed two 3.5-inch hard drives at speeds that would be impractical for FireWire 800. On a 6TB Thunderbolt Duo, peak transfer speeds can hit over 250MBps (2Gbps), making the only bottleneck the drives themselves.
Western Digital on Tuesday brought out its next-generation WD TV Live media box and companion WD TV Live Hub. The new version has a revamped, tray-based interface and now has Spotify music. Listeners with a Spotify Premium account can stream at the full 320Kbps with support for making playlists, sharing, and getting access to others' content through profiles and the song inbox.
Today's deals from DealNN include price drops on hard drives, iPad cases, and more. Cowboom.com is now offering the WD Elements SE 1TB External USB 2.0 Portable Hard Drive as its Deal of the Day, complete with data transfer rates up to 480Mbps, support for both PC and Mac computers, and a compact design that's said to fit in your pocket. Currently featured at DealNN, this hard drive has now dropped to $69.99 in price and offers savings of up to $60.
A freshly spotted FCC filing reveals Netgear will soon release a new networked home media player, the NeoTV 200. Judging by the early specs, it will act as a competitor to Apple's TV and WD's TV Live products. It will stream Netflix and Pandora content but has no USB, SD or eSATA ports.
Western Digital on Wednesday shipped its first 1TB notebook drive thin enough to fit most portables. An upgraded Scorpio Blue measures 9.5mm tall and is thin enough that a MacBook Pro or most other thinner but regular-sized notebooks can take the capacity. The slimming down comes through fitting 500GB per platter and cutting out the third platter that had been needed on earlier drives.
A pair of looks at the upgraded AirPort Extreme and Time Capsule has shown more upgrades and changes than first thought, including a slightly misleading view of the hard drive. One breakdown shared between AppleInsider and iFixit has shown that the new AirPort Extreme and presumably Time Capsule output about 2.8 times more power, at 392.64mW, than the previous version. A test wasn't immediately possible, but the potential existed for as much as a 60 percent range boost, though only in ideal conditions.
WD on Wednesday announced the release of its WD Nomad rugged case made to house its My Passport portable hard drives. It will also protect them from drops from up to seven feet, as well as moisture and spills. The polycarbonate exterior is paired with a shock-absorbing elastomer interior.
Today’s deals from DealNN include price breaks on portable hard drives, iPhone speaker systems, and more. Macmall.com has recently lowered the cost of the refurbished Western Digital My Passport Essential SE 750GB USB 2.0 Portable Hard Drive, which includes transfer speeds up to 480Mbps, built-in WD SmartWare technology, and a 90 day warranty. Currently, this particular hard drive is featured at DealNN and has dropped in price from $129.99 down to $64.99.
Western Digital on Monday upgraded its AV-GP hard drives to provide extra space for frequent media users. New 2.5TB and 3TB versions match the capacity of the best regular drives but are designed for always-on use and a relatively low power draw. Both of them are optimized for very heavy recording demands and can grab as many as 12 simultaneous HD video streams.
Western Digital put out one of the largest capacity dual-disk external drives on Thursday by introducing a 6TB version of the My Book Studio Edition II. The drive pairs two of the still-rare 3TB drives, optionally in a RAID mirror or stripe, and is aimed primarily at creative pros who deal with very large photos or videos on a regular basis. It comes pre-formatted for Macs; it can be reformatted for Windows, but it needs at least Vista or 7 to see more than 2.1TB.
Samsung has found a way to build 1TB platters for hard drives, which will allow it to build 4TB hard drives for computers. The news came from CeBIT courtesy of German newspaper Heise and indicates a new record. Currently, companies can only produce 3TB 3.5-inch hard drives, with each platter at 750MB. The breakthrough also applies to notebooks, as Samsung showed off a 2.5-inch, two-platter, 1TB drive that is compatible with most average notebooks thanks to its standard height.
Western Digital on Tuesday announced it has added new online services to its lineup of WD TV media players. The WD TV Live Plus media player will have access to rent or buy new movie releases at the same time as they are launched on Blu-ray or DVD through Blockbuster On Demand in the US. Both the WD TV Lice Plus and the Live will also get newfound Facebook access, letting users upload photos and videos, update their status, view their wall and get News Feed info.
Western Digital has quickly followed up on recent leaks by launching the WD TV Live Hub. Unlike the company's earlier media streamers, it's designed to be fully self-contained and has a full 1TB of space that can hold large amounts of 1080p video and is enough to become a media server for the home. While built to play media directly to a TV, it can share its content to other devices on the local network over DLNA or UPnP and even to Android and iOS hardware.
Seagate and WD will soon release the first 3TB internal hard drives on the market, says Dutch site Hardware.info. Images of the drives have surfaced, with European online retailers listing them for pre-orders as well. The 3.5-inch drives are called the Seagate Barracuda XT and Western Digital Caviar Green.
Origin PC has taken the wraps off its ultimate gaming PC, dubbed the The Big O. It's unique in having built-in slim Xbox 360 gaming console. Both the Xbox 360 and a Core i7 930 overclocked to 4.0GHz are liquid-cooled, and the base system gets 6GB of RAM. There are also two NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480 graphics cards with liquid cooling, and a Rampage III Extreme mainboard is hooked up to the flowing water system to ease overclocking.
WD has worked together with design Sstudents at the California State University to create five new limited edition My Passport Essential portable drives. The limited edition designs are now available online through WD and in Best Buy stores. Boom Box, Black Hole, Cityscape, Fuchsia Leaf and Wave all have custom imprints instead of the usual solid colors.
Western Digital has expanded its line of My Passport SE drives with two new capacities, 750GB and 1TB, formatted in HFS+ for Macs. Despite the higher capacities, both external drives still draw power from a USB connection rather than a dedicated AC adapter.
WD on Monday introduced the My Passport Studio portable drives formatted for Macs. Like the desktop-sized My Books, the 2.5-inch disks sport e-paper displays that show information even when the drive is not powered. The Studios also have a fast FireWire 800 interface, a USB 2.0 port and 256-bit hardware-based encryption.
The flyer for Best Buy's Black Friday/Thanksgiving sale has been leaked on the Internet ahead of its official release thanks to a copy posted today. Among the 'doorbusters' are a $300 PS3 bundle that includes two games, while an Xbox 360 bundle with six games will carry the same sticker price. Another front-page deal involves a 46-inch, 120Hz LED-backlit Samsung HDTV with free home delivery, hook-up and recycling for $1,600, or $1,000 off.
Western Digital has launched two new external hard drives, oriented specifically at Mac users: the My Passport for Mac and My Book Mac Edition. Though only supporting USB 2.0 and not FireWire, the drives are pre-formatted for Macs and advertised as supporting Time Machine as well as other Mac backup software. The My Passport is a general-purpose portable drive, set inside a shock-resistant enclosure; 320 and 500GB versions are available.
WD's compact Passport Essential portable drives are now available in 11 colors, the company announced on Wednesday. Each color is available with a choice of 120GB, 160GB, 250GB or 320GB internal 2.5-inch HDDs. The Passport Essential drives are cleanly styled and simple to use, featuring just one USB connection for power and file transfer, and are compatible with both PCs and Macs. Windows users have the benefit of 128-bit data encryption.
Western Digital on Wednesday introduced its My Book Studio Edition II external dual-drive storage systems. Available with capacities of either 1TB or 2TB, the drives are formatted for Mac computers, but also come with software to make them Windows compatible. Both drives share four interface options, ranging from eSATA and FireWire 800 to FireWire 400 and USB 2.0. Each drive is meant for speed-intensive activities such as video editing, and as such default to a striped RAID 0 configuration; either model can however be configured for a RAID 1 mirrored setup, as necessary.
