External enclosures are a great way to have high capacity data storage on the go. Data can also be a critical factor for users in the media business or who work with data centers. Some of the top tier hard drive companies have made their own all in one enclosure with hard drive included. However, one of the known major causes of hard drive failure is due to excessive heat buildup caused by a lack of a proper cooling system.

Also, a majority of hard drive manufactures only allow a 1 year warranty on their all in one external hard drives. This can be fatal for someone who has just lost their data and has to spend a significant amount of money in order to recover their data. There are other external enclosures in the market that provide a cooling system to help prevent this, but the physical placement of the cooling system does not always allow for the optimal airflow to cool the hard drive. Going above and beyond, the MB080U3S-1SB Blizzard is the next generation of external enclosures dedicated for maximum performance in cooling.

The games market went to Hell in May. Diablo III topping retail software sales for the month, according to the latest sales figures from NPD, and helped fuel a resurgence in the PC games space. Other top performers included Max Payne 3, which launched the same day as Diablo III, as well as Sniper Elite V2 and Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Future Soldier.
While action titles continued their dominance of the top 10, 2K Sports' NBA 2K12 held the fifth spot for the second straight week. Blizzard continued to show its impact in the PC market with Diablo III at number 1, the first time since July 2010 that a PC-only title has accomplished that feat. The game that did it in 2010? StarCraft 2, another Blizzard mainstay.

Total video game sales continued to shrink, down 28 percent from last year. However, the PC market jumped 230 percent from the same time last year to $80 million, fueled by Diablo III sales. The overall spend in May, including digital sales and microtransactions was estimated to be $1.17 billion.

From the launch day server meltdown to the way everyone you know seems to be playing, it's pretty clear that Diablo III is quite popular. But just how popular? Blizzard announced today that it sold 3.5 million copies within the first 24 hours, which supposedly makes it the fastest-selling PC game of all time. On top of those 3.5 million copies were another 1.2 million doled out free to World of Warcraft Annual Pass subscribers. After a week, Blizzard says, Diablo III was up to 6.3 million players--not including South Korean game rooms, where it's estimated to have a 39% share. "We're definitely thrilled that so many people around the world were excited to pick up their copy of Diablo III and jump in the moment it went live," CEO Mike Morhaime said in the announcement.

"We also regret that our preparations were not enough to ensure everyone had a seamless experience when they did so. I want to reaffirm our commitment to make sure the millions of Diablo III players out there have a great experience with the game moving forward, and I also want to thank them for their ongoing support." As well as rolling out sneaky little balance updates, Blizzard is investigating reports of nasty hacks, and preparing to launch the real-money auction house on May 29.

Shacknews is reporting Diablo III is pretty popular. So popular, in fact, that the servers have been overloaded by the flood of clickmaniacs trying to play when it launched at midnight. As Diablo III requires players be online to play, even by themselves, there are a lot of sullen faces around this morning, staring glumly at 'Error 37' messages. Still, some are able to play. There's a little good D3 news in that Blizzard is helping out Australian fans who pre-ordered from GAME, after the failing retailer said it wouldn't honour their orders but would keep their money.

"Due to high concurrency the login servers are currently at full capacity. This may cause delays in the login process, account pages and web services," a Blizzard representative said of Error 37. "We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause and thank you for your patience while this is being resolved." A message on the login screen notes, "We're also aware of issues affecting character creation and are working to resolve them at this time." Hang in there, then. As for the land down under, after GAME entered administration earlier this week, it told Diablo III pre-orders that they wouldn't receive their game, but nor could they get a refund. Blizzard kindly stepped in to save them, explaining that those with proof of preordering can buy a digital copy through Battle.net then submit their GAME receipt for a refund. You'll need to buy before May 21, and send your receipt in by June 30, though.

ORIGIN PC is celebrating the launch of Blizzard Entertainment's highly anticipated action-role-playing game, Diablo III. For launch day only, every ORIGIN high-performance PC will come bundled with a free Diablo III Standard Edition and on ORIGIN PC's Facebook page you can enter to win the highly coveted, sold-out-everywhere DIABLO III Collector's Edition. ORIGIN PC owners around the world will be able to return to Tristram to discover the dark secrets of the fallen star and begin their new quest to save the Sanctuary from the inevitable demonic invasion.

As Blizzard winds up to launch StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm later this year, it's also preparing to finally roll out some features fans have been asking for since before SC2: Wings of Liberty launched back in 2010. These include resuming multiplayer matches from replays, playing in other global regions, and watching replays together with other folks. These features and more should be patched in "at or around the launch of Heart of the Swarm," production director Chris Sigaty wrote in a blog post. Resuming from replays will help tournaments go smoother, as SC2's lack of a LAN mode means that problems with a Internet or Battle.net connections can spoil a match.

Rather than starting over from scratch or having judges rule on whether to award the win to one player, they'll be able to pick up where they left off. Global play will let you, as you can probably guess, play on other regional servers around the world, rather than being limited to your home region. Multiplayer replay viewing is a feature from the original StarCraft but cut from the sequel, for when you fancy watching a replay with some chums and discuss the game together. Multilanguage support, a clan/group system, and unranked matchmaking are also in the works.

Today Shacknews is reporting that Diablo III will be open to the public for beta testing. The open beta weekend begins this afternoon at 12:01pm Pacific, then will run until 10:00am on Monday, Blizzard explains in a Diablo blog post. All you need to play is a Battle.net account. You can download the client in advance, so you don't miss a second. The beta is relatively small, packing the first part of Diablo III's first act, but you will be playing Diablo III. Unlike proper closed beta testers, open beta players won't receive 'Beta Bucks' to spend in the auction house and cannot post in the beta forums.

Diablo III launches for PC and Mac on May 15. The closed beta test will wrap up on May 1.

ShackNews is reporting Activision Blizzard is being sued by Worlds Inc., for violating a patent on virtual worlds. The firm claims that games like Call of Duty and World of Warcraft violate its patent, and are requesting "fair compensation." The patent covers a "system and method for enabling users to interact in a virtual space," reports Games Industry International. That may sound broad, but the company did manage to get an undisclosed settlement out of NCSoft for City of Heroes in 2010. "Technologies created by Worlds have helped the businesses of virtual worlds gaming and the sale of virtual goods to grow into a multi-billion dollar industry," said Worlds CEO Thom Kidrin. "While we are pleased to see that the gaming industry and its rapidly growing customer base have enthusiastically embraced our patented technologies, we deserve fair compensation for their use." No response yet from Activision Blizzard.

The end is nigh! Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. today announced that Diablo III, the next chapter in its critically acclaimed action role-playing game series, will be unleashed from the Burning Hells on May 15.

Starting that day, gamers with a thirst for fast-paced action and adventure will be able to purchase Diablo III at retailers throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, South Korea, Southeast Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and the regions of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau. In addition, gamers in the regions above as well as in Mexico, Argentina, Chile, and Brazil will be able to buy Diablo III digitally via Blizzard's Battle.net website.

Blizzard announced that its highly anticipated title, Diablo III, will not ship with Player vs. Player (PvP) gameplay, because its development and refinement is holding Blizzard back from meeting the April 17, 2012 launch date. "The PvP game and systems aren't yet living up to our standards," said Jay Wilson, Game Director. The PvP component will instead be added to the game as a patch, months after the game's launch. The patch will include PvP arenas, achievements, and a matchmaking system. The arenas, according to Wilson, will be "as brutal, bloody, fast-paced, and awesome as we know they can be."

A slip-up by online marketplace Amazon.com saw the release-date of Blizzard's hotly anticipated hack-and-slash RPG title, Diablo III getting leaked. That date is April 17, 2012. The date has since been removed from Amazon. What makes this slip-up a credible leak and not an error, is the fact that Blizzard has been talking about a Q2, 2012 launch for the game.

Blizzard Entertainment has reportedly laid off about 600 employees, about 10 percent of which are positions related to game development. It's reported that the people working on World of Warcraft are not affected. The company says that the decision came after a review of business needs. The company's game development and publishing schedules as a result of these job cuts, are not affected, the company says. It's still looking to hire game developers in some positions.

Diablo III has many gamers waiting for it with the anticipation of some Biblical event - the third-coming of Blizzard's popular hack-and-slash game. However, its makers worry that this anticipation could turn into over-hype, which could damage the game's market success once launched. A community manager at Blizzard Forums posted this carefully-worded note, in one of the countless threads in which fans drool rainbows over the upcoming game:

On a more serious note, I too worry that we won't be able to meet the expectations people have built up for themselves. Part of my job is managing people's expectations, so... eh... stop it. Stop thinking about how awesome this game could be. Just imagine it's a new M. Night Shyamalan movie. Sure Sixth Sense was amazing and Unbreakable had it's moments, but this right here is the sequel to The Village ... or The Happening ... or Signs ... or any of the movies besides the two I first mentioned. So just like, lower those expectations, but still definitely buy the game please, and everything will be just fine.

This fine-tuning of public opinion away from over-hype to healthy PR could work wonders for the game's success.

Activision Publishing, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Activision Blizzard, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATVI), announced today that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 crossed the $1 billion mark in sales since its launch on November 8, 2011, according to Charttrack and retail customer sell-through information. Highlighting the trend of interactive entertainment gaining a greater hold of audiences worldwide, the game achieved this milestone in just 16 days, eclipsing the record set in 2009 by the feature film "Avatar," which reached the $1 billion milestone in 17 days.

While 2011 box office revenue is on the decline - down 4 percent this year at $9.4 billion, compared with $9.8 billion in 2010 -- the number of people purchasing and participating in gaming is on the rise, with no sign of slowing.(1) With more than 30 million gamers, the Call of Duty community now exceeds the combined populations of the cities of New York, London, Tokyo, Paris and Madrid.

Shattering its own day-one sales records, Activision Publishing, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Activision Blizzard, announced that its highly-anticipated Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 has become the biggest entertainment launch ever with an estimated sell-through of more than $400 million and more than 6.5 million units in North America and the United Kingdom alone in the first 24 hours of its release, according to Charttrack and retail customer sell-through information.

This marks the third consecutive year that the Call of Duty franchise has set day one launch records across all forms of entertainment, something no other entertainment franchise in any medium has ever accomplished. Last year, in North America and the United Kingdom , Activision's Call of Duty: Black Ops had estimated day-one sell-through of $360 million and in 2009, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, set day-one records with estimated sell through of $310 million, according to Charttrack and retail customer sell-through information.

On November 8, 2011, millions of fans attended more than 13,000 midnight openings at retail stores worldwide. According to Microsoft, after just two days, the number of gamers playing simultaneously on Xbox Live set a new peak concurrency record.

SteelSeries, a leading manufacturer of professional gaming peripherals and creator of the MMO Gaming Mice based on Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft and World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, today announced their latest custom product for World of Warcraft players. The SteelSeries World of Warcraft MMO Gaming Mouse Legendary Edition is a finely crafted weapon of precision balancing style and function. This sleeker, more compact option shares the enhanced features of the previous World of Warcraft mice including in-game integration and superior illumination and software functionality.

"We've established an incredible partnership with Blizzard Entertainment and the amazing World of Warcraft community. We've taken all the excellent suggestions and feedback we've received, merged it with the latest gaming technology, and come up with a truly unique lineup of MMO Mice for World of Warcraft players." said Bruce Hawver, SteelSeries CEO. "The new Legendary Edition allows us to meet the needs of gamers looking for a smaller, less complex gaming mouse that delivers the same impressive functionality found in the original and Cataclysm versions."

As the game industry waits for E3 to kick off next week, SteelSeries, a leading manufacturer of professional gaming peripherals today announced a co-branding partnership with Blizzard Entertainment on the SteelSeries Diablo III family of products. The Diablo III Mouse, Diablo III Headset, and two Diablo III QcK mousepads - Witch Doctor and Barbarian Editions, were co-designed with technology, hardware, and illumination features that support the look and feel of the third installment of Blizzard Entertainment's highly anticipated, mouse-intensive Diablo series.

"The level of excitement for the Diablo III release is massive. When the opportunity was presented to partner up with Blizzard for a new family of co-branded peripherals, we knew that they had to be engineered for this particular type of gameplay by being both durable and able to bring out the Diablo III theme onto a player's desktop," said Kim Rom, SteelSeries CMO. "The mouse offers both simplicity for new players and unprecedented durability that will support the series' distinctive mouse-driven gameplay, while the headset optimizes the high, spine-chilling snarls of otherworldly creatures and the booming lows of a barbarian battle cry. Together, the headset and mouse will help immerse players into the game through their extended comfort, compelling designs and high performance."

PNY Technologies, a global leader in flash memory cards, USB flash drives, solid state drives, high speed HDMI cables, computer memory upgrade modules, consumer graphics cards, and professional workstation graphics cards, today announced the XLR8 GeForce GTX 570 1280MB GDDR5 graphics card.

PNY's XLR8 GeForce GTX 570 Enthusiast Edition offers incredible performance and stunning gaming effects. With cutting-edge Microsoft DirectX 11 technology and full support for all the premium GTX gaming technologies, such as NVIDIA Surround, 3D Vision, PhysX, and SLI, the GTX 570 screams performance. PNY's latest graphics card also features the new innovative thermal design for a quiet gaming experience. The GTX 570 delivers a fully immersive stereoscopic 3D experience, for the ultimate in PC gaming.

Today, SteelSeries, the leading manufacturer of professional gaming peripherals and creator of the original World of Warcraft MMO Gaming Mouse, announces a new MMO gaming mouse co-developed with Blizzard Entertainment. With a unique exterior that evokes the armored plating of Deathwing the Destroyer, the World of Warcraft: Cataclysm MMO Gaming Mouse delivers superior ergonomics and an intuitive button layout with advanced software functionality.

"Since the release of the original World of Warcraft MMO Gaming Mouse in 2008, we've received feedback from thousands of World of Warcraft players, both Horde and Alliance, on how they've customized their World of Warcraft mice and what they would like us to do next," said Bruce Hawver, SteelSeries CEO. "For two years, our R&D team worked hard with Blizzard Entertainment to incorporate the great feedback and to enhance the mouse technology and game integration. The new Cataclysm mouse is the result of that collaboration: it provides a wide range of customization options and delivers a more comfortable, intuitive, and ultimately better experience."

PNY Technologies, Inc. ("PNY"), a global leader in flash memory cards, USB flash drives, solid state drives, high speed HDMI cables, computer memory upgrade modules, consumer graphics cards, and professional workstation graphics cards, debuts the latest graphics card from NVIDIA: the Verto GeForce GT 430 1024MB DDR3.

PNY's new GeForce GT 430 gives PCs the ultimate performance upgrade. Now users can power up their digital media PCs with the GT 430 to enjoy games, videos, and photos. The GT 430 delivers PhysX and CUDA technology for an even more dynamic and realistic experience with incredible performance improvements. Experience high definition with the native HDMI port, for unsurpassed HD visuals and sound. Consumers can accelerate HD video and photo editing, take mainstream gaming to the next level on the latest DirectX 11 game titles, and upgrade home theater PCs for the ultimate in viewing theater quality Blu-ray and 3D movies.

Alongside the July 27th launch of Blizzard Entertainment's StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, SteelSeries is pleased to announce the release of original co-branded gaming peripherals for gamers eager to jump back into the epic struggle between the protoss, zerg and terran races.

SteelSeries will offer a complete gaming solution with the StarCraft II Limited Edition Zboard gaming keyboard bundle, which includes the SteelSeries Zboard Base with Z Engine II software, the Zboard Standard QWERTY Keyset for everyday use and the SteelSeries Limited Edition Zboard Keyset (StarCraft II). The specially designed Zboard Keyset (StarCraft II) provides labeled commands, in-game shortcuts, official artwork from the game, and three race-specific mods featuring unique abilities for each of the races. Through its unique Z Engine II software, gamers can also remap every key on the keyboard, guaranteeing a completely customized experience for each and every user.

Razer, the world's leading manufacturer of high-end precision gaming and lifestyle peripherals, has joined forces with Blizzard Entertainment, a premier developer and publisher of entertainment software renowned for creating some of the industry's most critically acclaimed games, to introduce an entire suite of peripherals designed specifically for the release of Blizzard Entertainment's highly anticipated real-time strategy (RTS) game StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty. Featuring a look and feel inspired by the StarCraft universe, this line of peripherals includes the Razer Spectre StarCraft II Gaming Mouse, the Razer Marauder StarCraft II Gaming Keyboard and the Razer Banshee StarCraft II Gaming Headset.

"We are all huge StarCraft players here at Razer, so we are really excited to give gamers a first glimpse at the StarCraft II gaming peripherals," said Robert "Razerguy" Krakoff, president, Razer USA. "The peripherals were created with our newly developed APM (Actions-Per-Minute) Lighting System and feature a gaming-optimized design inspired by the StarCraft universe to complement the on-screen action."

Creative Labs, Inc. today announced the Sound Blaster World of Warcraft Wireless Headset is now available at AAFES, Amazon.com, Apple.com, BestBuy.com, Blizzard.com, Creative.com, Dell.com, Frys.com, Newegg.com and Tiger Direct for $159.99. "As the leading innovator in precision audio for PC gaming we were well positioned to develop a headset that could live up to the high standards set forth by Blizzard Entertainment games," said Steve Erickson, VP and GM for audio and video at Creative. "The Sound Blaster World of Warcraft Wireless Headset is a result of this, providing an unprecedented combination of wireless technology, THX TruStudio PC technology for enriched audio performance and a unique design that stands out from anything else available to gamers."

ASUS today launched a new co-op campaign with NVIDIA, which features a promotion in association with Blizzard Entertainment to include a 14-day trial for Blizzard's popular massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft, along with a collectible door hanger, with select ENGT200 Series graphics cards.

ASUS ENGT200 Series graphics cards are built with superior design acumen to provide the most compelling visual experience available to gamers. These ASUS limited edition graphics cards are up the ante with NVIDIA 3D Vision, making great use of GeForce GPUs. Using special glasses and 120Hz LCD displays or compatible HDTVs, NVIDIA 3D Vision tantalizes gamers with ultra-realistic graphics, vivid stereoscopic images, and immersive depth of field. Up to 400 PC games work out-of-the-box with NVIDIA's 3D Vision, including games such as Resident Evil 5, Borderlands, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Star Trek D-A-C, Dark Void, and Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King.

NVIDIA's recently released GeForce 196.75 WHQL drivers are causing problems with some users reporting "intermittent low FPS", in the words of Blizzard's technical staff. It notes that the drivers have a bug in its fan-speed control that causes graphics cards to overheat when running applications such as Warcraft 3, World of Warcraft and StarCraft 2 Beta. Not only does bad fan control result in bad application performance, but can also damage the graphics accelerator. Blizzard on its part advised users to revert to older versions of the GeForce driver. Version 196.21 (older WHQL-signed driver) can be downloaded from here.

Update (3/5): NVIDIA has withdrawn the 196.75 WHQL drivers from its website. The company is working to resolve this issue.