SSDs might be catching up to the trusty HDD in capacity, but this first-of-its-kind, 2-terabyte, 7200 RPM drive from Hitachi serves as a reminder that for speedy mass storage people can still afford, the old standby still remains king.

The Hitachi Deskstar 7K2000, is a 3.5-inch drive that fits inside any compatible computer or enclosure. As expected, the drive uses the SATA interface and is Energy Star-rated. Hitachi didn’t reveal pricing, but said they were shipping the drive immediately. So be on the lookout.

[ Dvice ]

Highly sensitive details of a US military missile air defence system were found on a second-hand hard drive bought on eBay.

The test launch procedures were found on a hard disk for the THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defence) ground to air missile defence system, used to shoot down Scud missiles in Iraq.

The disk also contained security policies, blueprints of facilities and personal information on employees including social security numbers, belonging to technology company Lockheed Martin – who designed and built the system.

British researchers found the data while studying more than 300 hard disks bought at computer auctions, computer fairs and eBay.

The experts also uncovered other sensitive information including bank account details, medical records, confidential business plans, financial company data, personal id numbers, and job descriptions.

The drives were bought from the UK, America, Germany, France and Australia by BT’s Security Research Centre in collaboration with the University of Glamorgan in Wales, Edith Cowan University in Australia and Longwood University in the US.

So if you ever plan on selling one of your old hard drives, DON’T!

[ Daily Mail ]

As previously suggested, it’s got a a single 640GB internal SATA drive with 7200RPM, with the only option for expansion being via the four USB 2.0 ports in the back. We’re also looking at a 1.6GHz Atom 230 processor, 1GB RAM, Windows Home Server software and support for Apple’s Time Machine. Mum’s the word on price, but if you’re looking to start saving early, suggested retail price is just under four Benjamins.

Thanks [ Engadget ]

Are you serious about backing up and protecting your company’s data? I mean really, really serious? Because if you are, you’ll want to take a look at Axxana’s Phoenix System which includes this nearly indestructible Black Box solid-state disk array. It’s designed to sit on-site and in the event of a worst-case-scenario it’s built to withstand earthquake level shocks up to 40 G’s and 5,000 pounds of pressure in case this thing gets buried in rubble.

In terms of fire, it can also endure direct flames with a temperature of 2000 degrees F for an hour, or 450 F for up to 6 hours. It can even survive being submerged up to 30 feet underwater, in the event your corporate HQ goes all Atlantis. And for an added bit of peace of mind the Phoenix Black Box is also equipped with wi-fi and 3G antennas allowing you to remotely retrieve your data should you not have access to the array. As for the cost? Well not surprisingly it’s not listed on the Axxana website, but anyone seriously interested in this type of data protection probably wouldn’t be concerned with the price anyways.

[ Axxana Phoenix System ] via [ OhGizmo ]

The IONITX-A-U and IONITX-B-E come with Atom N330 Dual Core and Atom N230 Single Core processor respectively, and they both feature MCP79 chipset and built-in GeForce 9400 graphics processor to support PureVideo HD, CUDA and PhysX technologies.
Equipped with HDMI, DVI and VGA outputs, they offer two DDR2 memory slots to support maximum DDR2-800. As we can see, the CPU and GPU share a large aluminum cooling rib with an eye toward total quietness.

Zotac IONITX-A-U and IONITX-B-E will be available first in Japan at Yen29980 (US$303) and Yen19980 (US$202) respectively.

More details in the picture below:

[ ExPreview ]

11 MB for about $10.000 . What a bargain :O

or $9239 for 18 MB.

These 2 ads below look really funny now but it wasn’t cheap to have your personal computer at that time.

After being on the tip of gamers’ tongues last summer, NVIDIA’s PhysX technology has cooled a bit in terms of sheer popularity. That said, we’ve no doubt that the buzz will be back in force after this one clears the airwaves. NVIDIA has just announced that it has nailed down a tools and middleware license agreement for Sony’s PlayStation 3, effectively bringing the aforesaid physics tech to what’s arguably the most potent game console on the market today. As a result of the deal, a PhysX software development kit (SDK) is now available to registered PS3 developers as a free download for use on the SCEI Developer Network. What exactly this means for future PS3 games remains to be seen, but one’s things for sure: it’s only up from here.

Thanks [ Engadget ]

This has to be the craziest PC we have seen here at geeky gadgets, built by the guys at Puget Systems in cost a massive $16,000 to build.

So what exactly does spending $16,000 on a custom PC get you? This crazy PC features four quad core Opteron processors, 32GB of RAM and 8 hard drives in various RAID configurations

As you can see from the photos, the $16,000 PC features a custom water cooling system, with a massive external radiator which features nine 120mm fans.

The massive external fans run at 5V which means they are almost silent, but they manage to keep the processors running at 45 degrees C under full load and at 36 degrees C at idle.

The $16,000 PC features two VelociRaptor hard drives in RAID 1 and six 1TB hard drives in Raid 5, that is a serious amount of hardware in one single PC.

Western Digital’s new 8TB ShareSpace is a monster of a storage system for you media hoarders who want to share your good between multiple computers.

The new 8TB model is available as of this week for $1,700, which is a lot of money for a networked storage device until you do the math: 12 cents per GB.

The ShareSpace is DLNA Certified for media streaming to devices like the Xbox 360 and PS3, and features improved read/write speeds of up to 30% for large media files. Current ShareSpace owners can download a firmware patch to get these improvements for themselves.

It’s pricey, yes, but if you get this thing configured as a RAID array and load it up with all of your music and video, it’d be the ultimate centralized streaming storage box for your home.

[ Western Digital ]

Here’s a good reason to start saving for next fall’s Black Friday: HD Guru says Honeywell will sell an 82inch 1080p LCD in the US this year.

Honeywell – better known for top secret government contracts – is really just licensing its all-American name to the Taiwan-based Soyo, who will be producing the 300-pound monster of a TV set. Features include 120Hz motion-blur reduction, a 178-degree viewing angle, 3 HDMI inputs (only 3?), and a stated dynamic contrast ratio of 120,000:1. Its model number is the painfully long MT-HWGWT8218AM.

Sharp and Samsung, competing LCD producers, have shown off the 82inch size, but according to Gary at HD Guru, neither promised to product true HDTVs for public consumption just yet. Price is TBD, but while any 82inch TV is definitely going to cost you something, it might not be as expensive, coming from a tier 2 (or tier 3) company like Soyo/Honeywell. Get the details, including its sick 5-year warranty, at HD Guru.