LaCie, in collaboration with designer PhillippeStarck — the designer responsible for the Virgin Galactic Spaceport — recently released the LaCie Starck Desktop Hard Drive and the LaCie Starck Mobile Hard Drive, born from a 15-year partnership between the two companies.

“Choosing to work with my good friend and exceptional designer Philippe Starck is always exciting. He brings a poetry to his work, and helps us deliver products that combine function and beauty.” said Philippe Spruch, Chief Executive Officer of LaCie. “The new Starck products showcase this amalgamation perfectly with LaCie’s constant innovation and Starck, who is the ultimate designer.”

The two drives both come with a USB 2.0 interface. Both drives feature aluminum cases to serve as both protection for internal components and to aid in heat dissipation. The mobile model features a conveniently placed built in USB 2.0 cable, allowing for easy access without the worry of misplacing or forgetting a cable on the go. The desktop edition features a touch sensitive surface capable of launching an application of the user’s choice. It also features an LED Starck signature symbol which glows orange or green to indicate activity. Both also include LaCie’s Desktop Manager and Backup Assistant software.

These meticulously designed peripherals are available at www.lacie.com as well as other authorized dealers and resellers. The Mobile drive is available in 320GB and 500GB and goes for a starting price $99.00. The Desktop drive is available in 1TB and 2TB flavors and retails for a starting price of $129.00.

“Technological genius explodes exponentially, each time with incredible power whose limits are yet to be known,” said Starck “The power remains, never abating, symbolically characterized by the sculptural magma that one attempts to cleave, to master within this geometrically perfect strongbox. A symbol of strength mastered, of freedom guided, of incandescent magma heeding to the form of its cast. The interpretation is free. But the mystery remains.”

Toshiba announced on ‚ September 9 that it would be releasing a new line of 1.8-inch single platter hard disk drives with capacities up to 160GB. These new products are being targeted towards next-generation portable media players and digital video camcorders.

The new drives, under the unwieldy MKxx34GAL line moniker, offer a thin and light package with the highest single platter storage capacity in the industry, the quietest seek function, and the most efficient power consumption. It appears they will only be available to manufacturers with the 160GB model shipping now and the 60GB, 80GB and 120GB models following later in the month.

“1.8-inch HDDs are key components in a variety of handheld and mobile products that require the combination of high-capacity, durability, cost-effectiveness and reliability in a small and compact footprint,” said Maciek Brzeski, vice president of marketing at Toshiba Storage Device Division.

“With the increasing demand for anytime content access and capture, we continue to see healthy opportunity for 1.8-inch HDDs in portable devices. Our 1.8-inch products have fueled innovation in a variety of markets, and have been installed in many products that are today, common household items.”

Maybe we’ll see one of these in the next iPod refresh?

Product Specifications

Model Number ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  MXX34GAL
———— ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ——–
Maximum Capacity ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  160GB / 120GB // 80GB / 60GB
(Formatted) 1
—————- ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  —————————-
Number of platters ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  1
—————— ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚ —
Areal density ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚ 467 Gb/in(2)
————- ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚ ————
Average seek time ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  15 ms
—————– ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  —–
Rotational speed ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚ 4,200 RPM
—————- ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚ ———
Buffer memory ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚ 8 MB
————- ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚ —-
Interface ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  Parallel ATA
——— ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ————
Interface transfer ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  100 MB/sec rate
—————— ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ———-
External ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  54.0 mm x ‚ 71.0 mm x 5.0 mm dimensions (WxDxH; mm)
———— ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚ —————————-
Weight (g) ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  48 g (max)
——— ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚ ———-
Energy consumption ‚ 0.0019 / 0.0025 // 0.0038 / 0.0050 W/GB efficiency
—————— ‚ —————————————
Shock resistance:
Operating ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚ 5,880 m/s(2) (600 G, 2ms)
Non-operating ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  14,700 m/s(2) (1,500 G, 1ms)
————- ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  —————————-
Acoustics:
Idle ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  14 dB
Seek ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  15 dB
—- ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  ‚  —–

Here at Blast, we’re all about backing up everything digital in our lives. We recently just got our hands on EASEUS Todo Backup, a free backup client for Windows and we are very impressed on how well this product looks and performs. Sure, it’s not as simple as Apple’s Time Machine which has only a single on-off switch, but this product does everything it advertises very well, and it’s absolutely free, so you can’t really complain.

Home screen of the EASEUS Todo Backup software.

The interface is fantastic with large buttons for the most common tasks such as backing up your entire disk or just a few partitions, as well as an option to restore your backed up content. There’s even a clone disk option where everything on your drive is duplicated to another hard drive. On the right hand side of the interface, there is a long, easy to read menu, marked with icons for more advanced options like mounting and unmounting a disk image. EASEUS did an excellent job with navigation and presenting an easy to use application, while maintaining a clutter free workspace.

Performance was great as well. In our tests, we were able to successfully backup up our drive and then later restore it. Todo Backup works by making a disk image of your entire drive, essentially duplicating it elsewhere. If a file ever gets deleted or Windows encounters a problem, it’s simple to just restore the files you need off your backup and be up and running again. The program also has a few nice features like the ability to set a priority to a backup, compress your backup to save space, and split your backup among disks. The splitting feature alone is a great because it enables you spread your backup among drives or discs; if you had a large backup that wouldn’t fit onto just one DVD, the spitting feature allows you to place your backup between as many DVDs or CDs as you need. The application also gives you the option to create a bootable disk, meaning if you’re main hard drive were to fail “" woe the day that happens “" you can plug your bootable drive in and run your computer from it.

Advanced configuration options in the EASEUS Todo Backup software.

There are, however, a few things we felt Todo Backup was missing. The ability to back up on to network volumes would have been nice. Also, the the program only allows you to backup the entire disk and doesn’t give you the option to select certain files and folders to backup. It also has limited security; we didn’t see any encryption or security support at all, but clearly this free piece of software is meant for home use and not designed for enterprise users.

For all the features, ease of use, and the fact that it’s completely free, EASEUS Todo Backup is a must download for Windows users looking for an easy to use backup solution. The interface, setup, and feature list are excellent and the program does everything EASEUS advertises. While it may have room to develop, for most users looking for a quick backup, these shortfalls probably won’t be an issue. Definitely give this product a try and test it out for yourself. You can download this free product from the EASEUS website.

When our MacBook Pro was new, we assumed that while a 120 GB hard drive wasn’t exactly the largest Apple offered the max was 250 GB, by the way it was plenty roomy enough to last us. Fast forward to two years later, where it seems that every few days our computer is constantly barking at us that the startup disk is almost full, Parallels runs the computer to a halt, and iPhoto was slow enough before we had to move all of our photos to our Time Capsule. Plus we hate toting around an external. There’s got to be a better solution, right?

It turns out that there are a couple ingenious hackers out there who have realized that the space your optical drive sits in is some very valuable real estate space which could easily be repurposed and filled with another hard drive. One intrepid blogger, Reid, has decided to throw his MacBook warranty out the window, removed the optical drive and replaced it with a 256 solid-state hard drive, seeing as they both run via a SATA connector. Check out his blog to see the nitty-gritty of what he did.

While Reid could have just as easily replaced the optical drive with a standard drive did you know they make 1 TB laptop drives now? solid state drives have many advantages over your standard drives. The flash memory inside a solid state hard drive has no moving parts, so they are more durable and last longer than your standard hard drives. Oh, and they’re FAST. How fast do you say? Reid found a seven-fold increase in speed in benchmark tests he ran.

The best part of all these shenanigans is that in the interest of bettering the human race, Reid is offering to help you trick out your laptop too. He’s posted all the instructions be warned, there’s some soldering required and a list of the $10 of parts you need to purchase from Amazon.com. Or for the slightly more adventurous, he’ll ship you the connector for $30. Or, if the whole performing surgery on your laptop makes you feel a bit queasy, you can ship your laptop to him with the hard drive you want installed, and for $35 plus $14 shipping, he’ll do everything for you.

We haven’t handed our laptop over to Reid €¦yet so remember these caveats: we don’t know Reid, though we’re sure he’s a stand-up guy, so you’re shipping your precious laptop to a blogger while simultaneously voiding your warranty. That being said, comparable services on other sites run $150 plus shipping for an install alone. Granted, MCE will perform a similar service and install a brace that keeps the hard drive from banging around, which might be important if you’re not installing a SSD, but it’s still quite a bit steeper than what Reid is promising.

Either way, with optical drives in notebooks going the way of the dodo, this just may be the life saving hack that will convince us to keep our notebook around for a little while more.

While there isn’t exactly a shortage of portable HDDs on the market, there some products are clearly better choices than others. Depending on if you want a simple backup solution or data storage on a hard drive that’s tougher than your organic chemistry exam, Hitachi has announced its new portable HDD line with something for everyone.

Until now, Hitachi has only manufactured the hard drives inside your computers, but after acquiring Fabrik, Hitachi has announced a new line of external HDDs. The first, the SimpleTOUGH is a ruggedized HDD wrapped in rubber to protect it from up to three meter drops, water, ‚ or “" like the Hitachi rep we spoke with did “" if you drive your neighbor’s one ton truck over it. The unit still manages to remain sleek though, which is no small feat.

The other HDD Hitachi announced is the SimpleDRIVE Mini, a small “" as in size, not capacity “" HDD that’s designed with making backups simple and painless. The drives come in multiple colors come with free backup software for users, as well as 2 GB of online “cloud” storage. Both drives come in 250, 320, and 500 GB sizes for various prices.

On top of these two big announcements, Hitachi also dropped this little gem: the SimpleNET USB/NAS adapter turns any USB device into a networked drive. While it’s not quite capable of streaming HD video, the device can still move files about efficiently from any USB drive, no matter the formatting of the device, useful in our Windows/OS X mixed computing home and office. Hitachi is also openly attracting hackers by installing SHFS server utility which allows any intrepid hacker to edit the underlying Linux code on the device. It’s a simple device now, but who knows what it could become.

These are solid products for Hitachi’s entrance into the HDD market. Hitachi will be expanding their product line over the coming months, rebuilding it so that the entire product line will be new by 2010. While HDDs may not generate a ton of excitement, it’s good to see a big name with quality products enter the market.