Korean silicon giant Samsung is ready with its 1.5TB high-capacity desktop hard drive, under the EcoGreen F2 series. The drive is labeled HD154UI. With this drive Samsung looks to focus on storage rather than performance, giving this drive a spindle speed of 5400 rpm, aided by a 32MB cache. This is where the company gets to brandish energy-efficiency, thus living up to its EcoGreen brand name.

Despite these specifications, the drive manages a decent set of scores on the HD Tune benchmark, churning out read/write speeds of around 105 MB/s sequential, and around 48/72 MB/s random access. It has a rated average seek-time of 8.9ms. This Samsung drive comes in the standard 3.5" form-factor. It uses the standard SATA II interface. The drive features some proprietary acoustic management features such as SilentSeek and NoiseGuard. It will be available in Japan later this week at a price of ¥11,580 (around US $130).

Earlier this week, reports emerged of a simple firmware update going wrong for Seagate, rendering some batches of the company's Barracuda 7200.11 hard-drives useless. The flaw in the said firmware update (version SD1A) locked the drive's microcode, preventing the system BIOS from even detecting the drive, in case the user wanted to restore a drive damaged from the update. SD1A was released to fix stuttering problems caused as a result of a bad implementation of the drives' SATA micro-controllers, the earliest diagnosis of the problem the drives were facing. An employee of Seagate working in its engineering, attempted to explain the SD1A firmware debacle, from the perspective of someone who doesn't work with the company's public-relations.

The SD1A firmware, according to the employee, wasn't given out as a singular release, but rather in several revisions to individual customers on a support-customer level, rather than an all-out public download. That was to address customers quickly, when the issue first surfaced as a flaw with the firmware. The problem actually existed where errors during drive operation was written to the drive's firmware to build on a log. When that log reached 320 entries, it would cause errors during initialization of the drive, when it is powered on, when the drive's firmware micro-code is read by the system BIOS. Errors in that process would cause the drive not to be detected / improperly initialized by the system. In a Tom's Hardware report, the employee explains that normally, a customer would go through the usual process of contacting tech-support for the preventative update and "this firmware had to go through five different checks to make sure it applies to the specific conditions to qualify sending to a customer, before now. 5 chances for us to go 'your drive needs the other (or none) firmware update'." However, management, in order to quell the possibility of liability for drive failures, pushed a general public release of the firmware. "Suddenly, it's down to one check, and even that was more designed for a contingency just in case the wrong firmware was sent out." The SD1A firmware mostly affected 500 GB versions of the Barracuda 7200.11 series, after it was released last week. Seagate pulled back the SD1A firmware after the issue of the firmware damaging hard-drives became chronic. The company later released a newer firmware update that can be found here.

Spire, manufacturer of pc components and world famous for its quality and affordable thermal products today officially announced the Spectrum II. This upgraded version is a great little back-up tool to transfer and back up your valuable data from any IDE/SATA Hard Drive at speeds of up to 480 Mbps. At home, in the office or on the go, simply plug and play and secure your data by utilizing the one touch backup (OTB:optional) on the Spire Spectrum II.

The Spectrum II supports any 2.5" / 3.5" and 5.25" IDE/SATA Hard drive or other applicable device with the support for both PC and MAC Desktops or notebooks. If you want the most versatile back-up device on the market, choose Spectrum II. Don't settle for 1-year warranty as offered by others. Trust the brand with the industry experience and 3-year warranty, Spire - Powered by Innovation.

Transcend Information, Inc., the leading manufacturer of memory products, proudly announces the release of its stylish new 1.8-inch portable solid state drive (SSD) - the SSD18M. Combining the speed and durability advantages solid-state technology with the versatility of eSATA and USB connection interfaces, Transcend's SSD18M is an innovative new type of storage device that offers fashionable good looks and high-capacity mobile storage convenience. Unlike traditional hard disk drives, this handy device is made of reliable NAND flash memory that contains no moving parts, which not only eliminates the possibility of mechanical failure resulting from vibration and shock, but also provides substantial weight savings and reduced power consumption. With both eSATA and USB2.0 interface options, this portable SSD features the ultimate in connection flexibility, offering guaranteed speed along with multi-platform compatibility. Its new high-speed eSATA interface provides a maximum read speed of 90MB/s and write speeds of 50MB/s, while its USB2.0 interface assures maximum compatibility with all types of notebook and desktop PCs.

Team Group has just launched new more roomy and refined 256GB Combo solid-state drives. These MLC drives deliver a super read and write speeds of 170MB/Sec and 100MB/Sec respectively. They use the latest SATA 3gbps interface for internal use in computers or mini-USB when an external connection is necessary. The 2.5-inch Combo SSDs also come in a number of different capacities - 32GB, 64GB and 128GB. All drives ship backed by a 2-year warranty.

According to reports by TechConnect Magazine, the third generation of the SATA interface could be introduced as early as the second quarter of this year. The Serial ATA International Organization (SATA-IO), who have developed the technology, are expected to finalize specifications, with the launch of products sporting the new interface at the same time. The first backwards compatible drives to feature the new interface are expected to be solid state drives (SSD), followed by hard disk drives (HDD) shortly after. The main advancement is doubling the bandwidth from 3Gbps to 6Gbps, but until the official announcement of the final specifications are released, we will not know what further changes are in store.