Philips says its 276E6 display is the world's first 'quantum dot' monitor, and it's designed to deliver pro-quality colors at a consumer price point. This short video review shows how the E6 shines - and where it falls short. )
The layout of this keyboard is
based on Apple's keyboard. That becomes a problem for Windows users, especially
gamers, because of the location of the ctrl/control key. But that can easily be fixed by
remapping keys.
"... In many ways Treo/Palm and Windows CE anticipated it, but especially the latter tried to bring
a "desktop" UI on tiny devices (and designed UIs around a stylus and a physical keyboard). ..."
"... The N900, N810 and N800 are to this day far more "little computers" than any other smartphone
so far. Indeed, as they ran a Debian Linux derivative with a themed Enlightenment based desktop, which
is pretty much off the shelf Linux software. While they didn't have multitouch, you could use your finger
on the apps no problem. It had a stylus for when you wanted extra precision though. ..."
"... I was reading a BBC news web article and it was wrong too. It missed out emphasising that the
real reason for success in 2007 was the deals with operators, cheap high cap data packages, often bundled
with iPhone from the Mobile Operator. ..."
"... Actually if you had a corporate account, you had a phone already with email, Apps, ability
to read MS Office docs, web browser and even real Fax send/receive maybe 5 or 6 years before the iPhone.
Apart from an easier touch interface, the pre-existing phones had more features like copy/paste, voice
control and recording calls. ..."
"... I remember having a motorola A920 way back in 2003/2004 maybe, and on that I made video calls,
went online, had a touch interface, ran 'apps', watched videos.... in fact I could do everything the
iPhone could do and more... BUT it was clunky and the screen was not large... the iPhone was a nice
step forward in many ways but also a step back in functionality ..."
"... Apple invented everything... They may have invented the iPhone but they DID NOT invent the
"smartphone category" as that article suggests. ..."
"... Microsoft had Smartphone 2002 and Pocket PC 2000 which were eventually merged into Windows
Mobile and, interface aside, were vastly superior to the iPhone's iOS. ..."
"... Devices were manufactured in a similar fashion to how android devices are now - MS provided
the OS and firms like HTC, HP, Acer, Asus, Eten, Motorola made the hardware. ..."
"... The government was looking for a display technology for aircraft that was rugged, light, low
powered and more reliable than CRTs. They also wanted to avoid the punitive royalties taken by RCA on
CRTs. It was the work done in the 1960s by the Royal Radar Establishment at Malvern and George William
Gray and his team at the University of Hull that led to modern LCDs. QinetiQ, which inherited RSRE's
intellectual property rights, is still taking royalties on each display sold. ..."
"... The key here is that Steve Jobs had the guts to force the thought of a useful smartphone, gadget
for the user first and phone second into the minds of the Telcos, and he was the one to get unlimited/big
data bundles. ..."
"... He identified correctly, as many had before but before the power to do anything about it, that
the customers are the final users, not the telcos. ..."
the point is flat on it's back just like the sophistic reply.
Lets take apples first machines they copied the mouse from Olivetti , they took the OS look
from a rank XEROX engineers work, the private sector take risks and plagiarize when they can,
but the missing person here is the amateur, take the BBS private individuals designed, built and
ran it was the pre cursor to the net and a lot of .com company's like AOL and CompuServe where
born there.
And the poor clarity in the BBC article is mind numbing, the modern tech industry has the Fairchild
camera company as it's grand daddy which is about as far from federal or state intervention and
innovation as you can get .
Deconstructionism only works when you understand the brief and use the correct and varied sources
not just one crackpot seeking attention.
CEEFAX, PAL Colour TV, 625 line transmissions, The BBC 'B', Satellite Broadcasting, Digital
Services, the iPlayer, micro:bit, Smart TV services.
There's also the work that the BBC did in improving loudspeakers including the BBC LS range.
That work is one reason that British loudspeakers are still considered among the world's best
designs.
By all means kick the BBC, but keep it factual.
LDS
Re: I thought I invented it.
That was the first market demographics - iPod users happy to buy one who could also make calls.
But that's also were Nokia failed spectacularly - it was by nature phone-centric. Its models where
phones that could also make something else. True smartphones are instead little computers that
can also make phone calls.
In many ways Treo/Palm and Windows CE anticipated it, but especially the latter tried to
bring a "desktop" UI on tiny devices (and designed UIs around a stylus and a physical keyboard).
the iPod probably taught Apple you need a proper "finger based" UI for this kind of devices
- especially for the consumer market - and multitouch solved a lot of problems.
Emmeran
Re: I thought I invented it.
Shortly there-after I duct-taped 4 of them together and invented the tablet.
My version of it all is that the glory goes to iTunes for consumer friendly interface (ignore
that concept Linux guys) and easy music purchases, the rest was natural progression and Chinese
slave labor.
Smart phones and handheld computers were definitely driven by military dollars world wide but
so was the internet. All that fact shows is that a smart balance of Capitalism & Socialism can
go a long way.
Ogi
Re: I thought I invented it.
>That was the first market demographics - iPod users happy to buy one who could also
make calls. But that's also were Nokia failed spectacularly - it was by nature phone-centric.
Its models where phones that could also make something else. True smartphones are instead little
computers that can also make phone calls. In many ways Treo/Palm and Windows CE anticipated
it, but especially the latter tried to bring a "desktop" UI on tiny devices (and designed UIs
around a stylus and a physical keyboard). the iPod probably taught Apple you need a proper
"finger based" UI for this kind of devices - especially for the consumer market - and multitouch
solved a lot of problems.
I don't know exactly why Nokia failed, but it wasn't because their smart phones were "phone
centric". The N900, N810 and N800 are to this day far more "little computers" than any other
smartphone so far. Indeed, as they ran a Debian Linux derivative with a themed Enlightenment based
desktop, which is pretty much off the shelf Linux software. While they didn't have multitouch,
you could use your finger on the apps no problem. It had a stylus for when you wanted extra precision
though.
I could apt-get (with some sources tweaking) what I wanted outside of their apps. You could
also compile and run proper Linux desktop apps on it, including openoffice (back in the day).
It ran like a dog and didn't fit the "mobile-UI" they created, but it worked.
It also had a proper X server, so I could forward any phone app to my big PC if I didn't feel
like messing about on a small touchscreen. To this day I miss this ability. To just connect via
SSH to my phone over wifi, run an smartphone app, and have it appear on my desktop like any other
app would.
It had xterm, it had Perl built in, it had Python (a lot of it was written in Python), you
even could install a C toolchain on it and develop C code on it. People ported standard desktop
UIs on it, and with a VNC/RDP server you could use it as a portable computer just fine (just connect
to it using a thin client, or a borrowed PC).
I had written little scripts to batch send New years SMS to contacts, and even piped the output
of "fortune" to a select few numbers just for kicks (the days with free SMS, and no chat apps).
To this day I have no such power on my modern phones.
Damn, now that I think back, it really was a powerful piece of kit. I actually still miss the
features *sniff*
And now that I think about it, In fact I suspect they failed because their phones were too
much "little computers" at a time when people wanted a phone. Few people (outside of geeks) wanted
to fiddle with X-forwarding, install SSH, script/program/modify, or otherwise customise their
stuff.
Arguably the one weakest app on the N900 was the phone application itself, which was not open
source, so could not be improved by the community, so much so people used to say it wasn't really
a phone, rather it was a computer with a phone attached, which is exactly what I wanted.
Mage
Invention of iPhone
It wasn't even really an invention.
The BBC frequently "invents" tech history. They probably think MS and IBM created personal
computing, when in fact they held it back for 10 years and destroyed innovating companies then.
The only significant part was the touch interface by Fingerworks.
I was reading a BBC news web article and it was wrong too. It missed out emphasising that
the real reason for success in 2007 was the deals with operators, cheap high cap data packages,
often bundled with iPhone from the Mobile Operator.
"Those were the days, by the way, when phones were for making calls but all that was about
to change."
Actually if you had a corporate account, you had a phone already with email, Apps, ability
to read MS Office docs, web browser and even real Fax send/receive maybe 5 or 6 years before the
iPhone. Apart from an easier touch interface, the pre-existing phones had more features like copy/paste,
voice control and recording calls.
The revolution was ordinary consumers being able to have a smart phone AND afford the data.
The actual HW was commodity stuff. I had the dev system for the SC6400 Samsung ARM cpu used it.
Why did other phones use resistive + stylus instead of capacitive finger touch?
1) Apple Newton and Palm: Handwriting & annotation. Needs high resolution.
2) Dominance of MS CE interface (only usable with with a high resolution stylus.)
The capacitive touch existed in the late 1980s, but "holy grail" was handwriting recognition,
not gesture control, though Xerox and IIS both had worked on it and guestures were defined before
the 1990s. So the UK guy didn't invent anything.
Mines the one with a N9110 and later N9210 in the pocket. The first commercial smart phone
was 1998 and crippled by high per MByte or per second (or both!) charging. Also in 2002, max speed
was often 28K, but then in 2005 my landline was still 19.2K till I got Broadband, though I had
128K in 1990s in the city (ISDN) before I moved.
xeroks
Re: Invention of iPhone
The ground breaking elements of the iPhone were all to do with usability:
The fixed price data tariff was - to me - the biggest innovation. It may have been the hardest
to do, as it involved entrenched network operators in a near monopoly. The hardware engineers
only had to deal with the laws of physics.
The apple store made it easy to purchase and install apps and media. Suddenly you didn't have
to be a geek or an innovator to make your phone do something useful or fun that the manufacturer
didn't want to give to everyone.
The improved touch interface, the styling, and apple's cache all helped, and, I assume, fed
into the efforts to persuade the network operators to give the average end user access to data
without fear.
MrXavia
Re: Invention of iPhone
"Those were the days, by the way, when phones were for making calls but all that was about
to change."
I remember having a motorola A920 way back in 2003/2004 maybe, and on that I made video
calls, went online, had a touch interface, ran 'apps', watched videos.... in fact I could do everything
the iPhone could do and more... BUT it was clunky and the screen was not large... the iPhone was
a nice step forward in many ways but also a step back in functionality
imaginarynumber
Re: Invention of iPhone
"The fixed price data tariff was - to me - the biggest innovation".
In my experience, the iphone killed the "all you can eat" fixed price data tariffs
I purchased a HTC Athena (T-Mobile Ameo) on a T-Mobile-Web and Walk contract in Feb 2007. I
had unlimited 3.5G access (including tethering) and fixed call minutes/texts.
When it was time to upgrade, I was told that iphone 3G users were using too much data and that
T-Mobile were no longer offering unlimited internet access.
For fun, I put "first smartphone" into Google. It wasn't Apple's. I think a BBC editor may
have temporarily said that it was.
As for Apple inventing the first multitouch smartphone, though -
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-38552241 claims, with some credibility, that Apple's engineers
wanted to put a keyboard on their phone. The Blackberry phone had a keyboard. But Steve Jobs wanted
a phone that you could work with your finger (without a keyboard).
One finger.
If you're only using one finger, you're not actually using multi touch?
nedge2k
Apple invented everything... They may have invented the iPhone but they DID NOT invent
the "smartphone category" as that article suggests.
Microsoft had Smartphone 2002 and Pocket PC 2000 which were eventually merged into Windows
Mobile and, interface aside, were vastly superior to the iPhone's iOS.
Devices were manufactured in a similar fashion to how android devices are now - MS provided
the OS and firms like HTC, HP, Acer, Asus, Eten, Motorola made the hardware.
People rarely know how long HTC has been going as they used to OEM stuff for the networks -
like the original Orange SPV (HTC Canary), a candybar style device running Microsoft Smartphone
2002. Or the original O2 XDA (HTC Wallaby), one the first Pocket PC "phone edition" devices and,
IIRC, the first touchscreen smartphone to be made by HTC.
GruntyMcPugh
Re: Apple invented everything...
Yup, I had Windows based smartphones made by Qtek and HTC, and my first smartphone was an Orange
SPV M2000 (a Qtek 9090 ) three years before the first iPhone, and I had a O2 XDA after that, which
in 2006, had GPS, MMS, and an SD card slot, which held music for my train commute.
Now I'm a fan of the Note series, I had one capacitive screen smartphone without a stylus (HTC
HD2), and missed it too much.
nedge2k
Re: Apple invented everything...
Lotaresco, I used to review a lot of the devices back in the day, as well as using them daily
and modifying them (my phone history for ref:
http://mowned.com/nedge2k ). Not once
did they ever fail to make a phone call. Maybe the journalist was biased and made it up (Symbian
was massively under threat at the time and all sorts of bullshit stories were flying about), maybe
he had dodgy hardware, who knows.
Either way, it doesn't mean that the OS as a whole wasn't superior to what Nokia and Apple
produced - because in every other way, it was.
imaginarynumber
Re: Apple invented everything...
@Lotaresco
"The weak spot for Microsoft was that it decided to run telephony in the application layer.
This meant that any problem with the OS would result in telephony being lost....
Symbian provided a telephone which could function as a computer. The telephony was a low-level
service and even if the OS crashed completely you could still make and receive calls. Apple
adopted the same architecture, interface and telephony are low level services which are difficult
to kill."
Sorry, but if iOS (or symbian) crashes you cannot make calls. In what capacity were you evaluating
phones in 2002? I cannot recall ever seeing a Windows Mobile blue screen. It would hang from time
to time, but it never blue screened.
MR J
Seeing how much free advertising the BBC has given Apple over the years I doubt they will care.
And lets be honest here, the guy is kinda correct. We didn't just go from a dumb phone to a
smart phone, there was a gradual move towards it as processing power was able to be increased
and electronic packages made smaller. Had we gone from the old brick phones straight to an iPhone
then I would agree that they owned something like TNT.
Did Apple design the iPhone - Yes, of course.
Did Apple invent the Smart Phone - Nope.
IBM had a touch screen "smart" phone in 1992 that had a square screen with rounded corners.
What Apple did was put it into a great package with a great store behind it and they made sure
it worked - and worked well. I personally am not fond of Apple due to the huge price premium they
demand and overly locked down ecosystems, but I will admit it was a wonderful product Design.
Peter2
Re: "opinion pieces don't need to be balanced"
"I am no fan of Apple, but to state that something was invented by the State because
everyone involved went to state-funded school is a kindergarten-level of thinking that has
no place in reasoned argument."
It's actually "Intellectual Yet Idiot" level thinking. Google it. Your right that arguments
of this sort of calibre have no place in reasoned argument, but the presence of this sort of quality
thinking being shoved down peoples throats by media is why a hell of a lot of people are "fed
up with experts".
TonyJ
Hmmm....iPhone 1.0
I actually got one of these for my wife. It was awful. It almost felt like a beta product (and
these are just a few of things I still remember):
It had no kind of face sensor so it was common for the user to disconnect mid-call via
their chin or cheek;
It's autocorrect functions were terrible - tiny little words above the word in question
and even tinier x to close the option;
Inability to forward messages;
No email support;
No apps.
I think it's reasonably fair to say that it was the app store that really allowed the iPhone
to become so successful, combined with the then Apple aura and mystique that Jobs was bringing
to their products.
As to who invented this bit or that bit - I suggest you could pull most products released in
the last 10-20 years and have the same kind of arguments.
But poor show on the beeb for their lack of fact checking on this one.
TonyJ
Re: Hmmm....iPhone 1.0
"...The original iPhone definitely has a proximity sensor. It is possible that your wife's
phone was faulty or there was a software issue...."
Have an upvote - hers definitely never worked (and at the time I didn't even know it was supposed
to be there), so yeah, probably faulty. I'd just assumed it didn't have one.
Lotaresco
There is of course...
.. the fact that the iPhone wouldn't exist without its screen and all LCD displays owe
their existence to (UK) government sponsored research. So whereas I agree that Mazzucato is
guilty of rabidly promoting an incorrect hypothesis to the status of fact, there is this tiny
kernel of truth.
The government was looking for a display technology for aircraft that was rugged, light,
low powered and more reliable than CRTs. They also wanted to avoid the punitive royalties taken
by RCA on CRTs. It was the work done in the 1960s by the Royal Radar Establishment at Malvern
and George William Gray and his team at the University of Hull that led to modern LCDs. QinetiQ,
which inherited RSRE's intellectual property rights, is still taking royalties on each display
sold.
anonymous boring coward
Re: There is of course...
I had a calculator in the late 1970s with an LCD display. It had no resemblance to my phone's
display.
Not even my first LCD screened laptop had much resemblance with a phone's display. That laptop
had a colour display, in theory. If looked at at the right angle, in the correct light.
Innovation is ongoing, and not defined by some initial stumbling attempts.
juice
Apple invented the iPhone...
... in the same way that Ford invented the Model T, Sony invented the Walkman or Nintendo invented
the Wii. They took existing technologies, iterated and integrated them, and presented them in
the right way in the right place at the right time.
And that's been true of pretty much every invention since someone discovered how to knap flint.
As to how much of a part the state had to play: a lot of things - especially in the IT and
medical field - have been spun out of military research, though by the same token, much of this
is done by private companies funded by government sources.
Equally, a lot of technology has been acquired through trade, acquisition or outright theft.
In WW2, the United Kingdom gave the USA a lot of technology via the Tizard mission (and later,
jet-engine technology was also licenced), and both Russia and the USA "acquired" a lot of rocket
technology by picking over the bones of Germany's industrial infrastructure. Then, Russia spent
the next 40 years stealing whatever nuclear/military technology it could from the USA - though
I'm sure some things would have trickled the other way as well!
Anyway, if you trace any modern technology back far enough, there will have been state intervention.
That shouldn't subtract in any way from the work done by companies and individuals who have produced
something where the sum is greater than the parts...
... in the same way that Ford invented the Model T, Sony invented the Walkman or Nintendo invented
the Wii. They took existing technologies, iterated and integrated them, and presented them in
the right way in the right place at the right time.
And that's been true of pretty much every invention since someone discovered how to knap flint.
Not so sure, Singer did a little more with respect to the sewing machine - his was the forst
that actually worked. Likewise Marconi was the first with a working wireless. Yes both made extensive
use of existing technology, but both clearly made that final inventive step; something that isn't
so clear in the case of the examples you cite.
Equally, a lot of technology has been acquired through trade, acquisition or outright theft.
Don't disagree, although your analysis omitted Japanese and Chinese acquisition of 'western'
technology and know-how...
Anyway, if you trace any modern technology back far enough, there will have been state intervention.
Interesting point, particularly when you consider the case of John Harrison, the inventor of
the marine chronometer. Whilst the government did offer a financial reward it was very reluctant
to actually pay anything out...
Aitor 1
Apple invented the iPhone, but not the smartphone.
The smartphone had been showed before inseveral incarnations, including the "all touch screen"
several years before Apple decided to dabble in smartphones. So no invention here.
As for the experience, again, nothing new. Al thought of before, in good part even implemented.
The key here is that Steve Jobs had the guts to force the thought of a useful smartphone,
gadget for the user first and phone second into the minds of the Telcos, and he was the one to
get unlimited/big data bundles.
He identified correctly, as many had before but before the power to do anything about it,
that the customers are the final users, not the telcos.
The rest of the smartphones were culled before birth by the Telecomm industry, as they demanded
certain "features" that nobody wanted but lined their pockets nicely with minumum investment.
So I thank Steve Jobs for that and for being able to buy digital music.
Apple didn't invent the smartphone. The iPhone wasn't as good as many of the other phones the
likes of Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Motorola were selling to the mobile networks. The real breakthrough
was that Apple circumvented the buying process.
There has always been a battle between the mobile phone networks and the handset manufacturers.
The networks see phones as a necessary evil for selling airtime. Anything which sells more airtime
or chargeable services is a good thing. Anything which reduces the customers likelihood to buy –
such as a high handset price – is a bad thing.
And the network wants to own the customer. We'll get back to Apple in a moment but first a bit
of a brief history lesson.
Back in the early 2000s, before 3G the mobile networks had the purchasing of handsets down to
a fine art. They would look at the cost of the components, know what a handset cost to build and
then offer the manufacturer a little less than the total. I saw this when I worked for both Motorola
and Sony Ericsson. We'd propose a new handset to a network with a price of $80, and a cost to us
of $60, and the network would offer us a huge promo, millions of units at $58. They'd argue that
their volumes would let us get the cost down to under $50 and then when we sold to other people at
$80 we'd make more money. Sometimes we took the deal, particularly if the order spanned a number
of models and some of the other models were more lucrative.
For Motorola "more lucrative" meant clamshell phones such as the V60 and 3G phones such as the
A830 (codenamed Talon) and the A920 smartphone (Paragon).
The important thing that was going on here is that 3G shifted the power balance. In 2003 the only
manufacturers who could ship in quantity were Motorola and NEC. Vodafone was so desperate for 3G
phones it had set up Orbitel, a joint venture with Ericsson to make 3G handsets. Unfortunately these
were made by people used to building high spec military equipment so while the manufacturing was
superb and they worked well, the production rate at the factory in Nottingham was relatively weak.
Suddenly the handset manufacturers could up the ante on what they sold phones for. They could
play the volume game the other way. If a network wanted some A830s they would also have to buy some
GSM phones at a sensible price.
It set the scene for Apple to make a move – even though I suspect Apple never realised this.
The incumbent manufacturers all worked within the framework the mobile network buyers laid out.
They had a consumer segmentation model, which classified types of consumers – Stay-at-home-mom, smart
businessman, blue collar worker and the like. They'd have snazzy names thought up at ideation sessions
with lots of Powerpoint and post-it notes.
The segmentation model would then be translated into phone specs. The stay at home mom might be
called "Ellie Ballet", and the specs would say she wanted better headphones, a 2MP camera, bar phone
with a five day battery life, and a retail price of under $50.
The business phone could be $300 but it needed to be 3G and offer lots of services which would
drive more revenue to the network.
All phones had to support the current obsession of the network: Vodafone Live, Orange Signature,
T-Mobile My Faves. As ever all driven by usage and loyalty.
So when Motorola
touted the ill-fated Odin, Ericsson offered
Pamela and Nokia any one
of a number of concepts, the networks demurred. They didn't fit in to the consumer segmentation planogram,
were too expensive and most importantly moved the ownership of the customer from the network to the
handset manufacturer.
Into this war came Apple, with a frankly inadequate phone. It was $300 and 2G, didn't have MMS
and the Bluetooth was rubbish. It would never have made it past the handset buyers. Apple wanted
customers to use side-loading of music from iTunes. The networks had rebelled against Nokia trying
something similar with
Ovi.
Apple also wanted the networks to re-engineer their voice mail to support Visual Voicemail, something
Motorola failed to do with the P1088.
But Apple didn't sell to the handset buyers. Apple had a secret weapon: Steve Jobs, and he met
with Ralph de la Vega, the big cheese at AT&T. And de la Vega welcomed the new rival to the evil
handset manufacturers he'd been doing battle with. It also had cool. So even though the iPhone had
a commercial model which included revenue share and a dozen red flags that would have seen any of
the established players shown the door, AT&T took the iPhone.
And Apple was right, customers didn't want Live, Signature or My Faves. Customers did want email,
music and open internet access. So the iPhone became an nifty customer acquisition tool. Networks
were faced with two options, take the iPhone and give all your portal revenue plus a chuck more cash
to Apple or lose customers to a rival who did take the iPhone. The proposition was so powerful, O2
which had decided to go from 2G to 3G and bypass EDGE (kind of 2.5G) reversed the major engineering
decision and rolled out EDGE just to support the iPhone.
Even though sales have started to dip, the iPhone still currently dominates, and history has been
re-written to say that Apple invented the smartphone. Apple didn't, but the real irony is that when
the networks went with Apple to defeat Nokia, Ericsson and Motorola they ended up handing the vast
majority of the profits in the mobile phone business to Apple. ®
(arstechnica.com)
243
Posted by
BeauHD
on Friday December 02, 2016 @08:25PM
from the
snap-crackle-pop
dept.
New submitter
npslider
writes:
The "USB Killer," a USB stick that fries almost everything that it is plugged
into,
has
been mass produced
-- available online for about $50. Ars Technica
first wrote about this diabolical device
that looks like a fairly humdrum
memory stick a year ago. From the report: "The USB Killer is shockingly simple
in its operation. As soon as you plug it in, a DC-to-DC converter starts
drawing power from the host system and storing electricity in its bank of
capacitors (the square-shaped components). When the capacitors reach a
potential of -220V, the device dumps all of that electricity into the USB data
lines, most likely frying whatever is on the other end. If the host doesn't
just roll over and die, the USB stick does the charge-discharge process again
and again until it sizzles. Since the USB Killer has gone on sale, it has been
used to fry laptops (including an old ThinkPad and a brand new MacBook Pro), an
Xbox One, the new Google Pixel phone, and some cars (infotainment units, rather
than whole cars... for now). Notably, some devices fare better than others, and
there's a range of possible outcomes -- the USB Killer doesn't just nuke
everything completely."
You can
watch a video
of EverythingApplePro using the USB Killer to fry a variety
of electronic devices. It looks like the only real defense from the USB Killer
is physically capping your ports.
(theverge.com)
106
Posted by
BeauHD
on Wednesday November 30, 2016 @04:40PM
from
the
devil-is-in-the-details
dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge:
Seagate and Amazon have
partnered up on a
$99 1TB
external hard drive
that
automatically backs up everything stored on it to the cloud
. The Seagate
Duet drive's contents are cloned to Amazon Drive, so you can be pretty
confident that your important stuff will be safe. Getting set up with the cloud
backup process requires plugging in the drive, signing in with your Amazon
account -- and that's pretty much it, from the sounds of it. Drag and drop
files over, and you'll be able to access them from the web or Amazon's Drive
app on smartphones and tablets. If you're new to the Drive service, Seagate
claims you'll get a year of unlimited storage just for buying the hard drive,
which normally costs $59.99 annually. Amazon's listing for the Duet (the only
way to buy it right now) confirms as much, but there's some fine print: Offer
is U.S.-only; Not valid for current Amazon Drive Unlimited Storage paid
subscription customers; You've got to redeem the promo code within two months
of buying the hard drive if you want the year's worth of unlimited cloud
storage; If you return the Duet, Amazon says it will likely reduce your 12
months of unlimited Drive storage down to three, which beats taking it away
altogether, I guess.
(infoworld.com)
57
Posted by EditorDavid
on Saturday November 26, 2016 @03:34PM
from the
on-board-with-OSHWA
dept.
An anonymous reader quotes InfoWorld on the
new certifications from the Open Source Hardware Association
:
The goal
of certification is to
clearly identify open-source hardware
separate from the mish-mash of other
hardware products. The certification allows hardware designs to be replicated.
For certification, OSHWA requires hardware creators to publish a
bill-of-materials list, software, schematics, design files, and other documents
required to make derivative products. Those requirements could apply to circuit
boards, 3D printed cases, electronics, processors, and any other hardware that
meets OSHWA's definition of open-source hardware...OSHWA will host a directory
for all certified products, something that doesn't exist today because the
community is so fragmented.
After signing a legally-binding agreement, hardware makers are allowed to use
the Open Hardware mark, which one of their board members believes will help
foster a stronger sense of community among hardware makers. "People want to be
associated with open source."
(crowdsupply.com)
101
Posted by EditorDavid
on Saturday November 26, 2016 @06:34PM
from the
RISC-y-business
dept.
"Did you ever think it would be great if hardware was open to the transistor
level, not just the chip level?" writes
hamster_nz
, pointing to a new
Crowd Supply campaign for the OnChip Open-V microcontroller, "a completely free
(as in freedom) and open source 32-bit microcontroller based on the
RISC-V
architecture."
hamster_nz
writes:
With a
completely open instruction-set architecture and no license fees for the CPU
design, the RISC-V architecture is well positioned to take the crown as the 'go
to' design for anybody needing a 32-bit in their silicon, and Open-V are
crowd-sourcing their
funding for an initial manufacturing run of 70,000 chips
, offering options
from a single chip to a seat in the design review process. This project is
shaping up to be a milestone for the coming Open Source Silicon revolution, and
they are literally offering a seat at the table. Even if you don't end up
backing the project, it makes for very interesting reading.
Their crowdfunding page argues "If you love hacking on embedded controllers,
breaking down closed-source barriers, having the freedom to learn how things
work even down to the transistor level, or have dreamed of spinning your own
silicon, then this campaign is for you."
(bravotv.com)
170
Posted by EditorDavid
on Sunday December 04, 2016 @04:39PM
from the
TSA-PSA's
dept.
America's Transportation Security Administration has been making some
surprising announcements on social media. An anonymous reader writes:
A TSA
spokesperson says
70 laptops were left behind in just one month
at an airport security
checkpoint in Newark. "And yes, there are plenty of shiny MacBooks in that
pile," reported BravoTV, "which can cost in the $2,000 range new." The TSA
shared an image of the 70 laptops on
their Instagram page
and
on
Twitter
, prompting at least one mobile project designer to
reclaim
his laptop
. "The most common way laptops are forgotten is when traveler's
stack a bin on top of the bin their laptop is in," the TSA warns. "Out of sight
out of mind."
The TSA is also sharing pictures on social media of the
70 guns they confiscated
at security checkpoints in one week in November, reporting they've also
confiscated a
blowtorch
,
batarangs
,
and a replica of
that
baseball bat from "The Walking Dead"
. They're reporting they found 33
loaded firearms in carry-on luggage in one week, and remind readers that
gun-carrying passengers "can face a penalty as high as $11,000. This is a
friendly reminder to
please leave these items at home
."
(arstechnica.com)
209
Posted by
BeauHD
on Monday December 05, 2016 @04:20PM
from the
loading-bar
dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica:
Millions of Americans
still have extremely slow Internet speeds
, a new Federal Communications
Commission report shows. While the FCC defines broadband as download speeds of
25Mbps, about 47.5 million home or business Internet connections provided
speeds below that threshold. Out of 102.2 million residential and business
Internet connections, 22.4 million offered download speeds less than 10Mbps,
with 5.8 million of those offering less than 3Mbps. About 25.1 million
connections offered at least 10Mbps but less than 25Mbps. 54.7 million
households had speeds of at least 25Mbps, with 15.4 million of those at 100Mbps
or higher. These are the advertised speeds, not the actual speeds consumers
receive. Some customers will end up with slower speeds than what they pay for.
Upload speeds are poor for many Americans as well. While the FCC uses 3Mbps as
the upload broadband standard, 16 million households had packages with upload
speeds less than 1Mbps. Another 27.2 million connections were between 1Mbps and
3Mbps, 30.1 million connections were between 3Mbps and 6Mbps, while 29 million
were at least 6Mbps. The Internet Access Services
report released last week
contains data as of December 31, 2015. The
11-month gap is typical for these reports, which are based on information
collected from Internet service providers. The latest data is nearly a year
old, so things might look a bit better now, just as the December 2015 numbers
are a little better than previous ones.
(androidauthority.com)
103
Posted by
BeauHD
on Monday December 05, 2016 @05:40PM
from the
high-dynamic-range
dept.
OLED panels have always been known to have higher contrast ratios than LCD
panels, but that may be about to change with Panasonic's recently
announced
LCD IPS display. The display
boasts a 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio
, which is up to 600 times more contrast
than some of the company's conventional LCD panels that tend to offer around
1800:1 ratios, and rivals OLED specifications. Android Authority reports:
Panasonic has accomplished this through the use of its new light modulating
cell technology, which allows the company to switch off individual pixels in
the display using a secondary control layer. Typically, LCD backlights mean
that either the entire or only large parts of the display can be dimmed at any
one time. OLED panels switch off lights entirely for a black pixel to offer
very high contrast ratios, and this new LCD technology works on a very similar
principle. This is particularly important for reproducing HDR video content,
which is becoming increasingly popular. Furthermore, this new light modulating
cell technology allows Panasonic to increase the peak brightness and stability
of the display, which can reach 1,000 cd/m2 while also providing HDR colors.
Many other HDR TV panels top out in the range of 700 to 800 cd/m2, so colors,
highlights, and shadows should appear vivid and realistic.
Panasonic plans
to ship the new display starting in January 2017 with sizes ranging from 55 to
12 inches.
(betanews.com)
114
Posted by msmash
on Wednesday December 07, 2016 @04:20PM
from
the
future-is-here
dept.
Reader
BrianFagioli
writes:
Today, the Bluetooth Special Interest Group
announces the
official adoption of the previously-announced Bluetooth 5
. In other words,
it is officially the next major version of the technology, which will
eventually be found in many consumer devices. So, will you start to see
Bluetooth 5 devices and dongles with faster speeds and longer range in stores
tomorrow? Nope -- sorry, folks. Consumers will have to wait until 2017. The
Bluetooth SIG says devices should become available between February and June
next year.
In a statement, Bluetooth SIG reminded the specifications of
Bluetooth 5 -- "Key feature updates include four times range, two times speed,
and eight times broadcast message capacity. Longer range powers whole home and
building coverage, for more robust and reliable connections."
(theverge.com)
46
Posted by
BeauHD
on Wednesday December 07, 2016 @05:00PM
from
the
all-in-one
dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge:
T-Mobile just revealed
its answer to ATT's NumberSync technology, which
lets customers use one phone number across all their connected devices
.
T-Mobile's version is called
Digits
and it will
launch in a limited, opt-in customer beta beginning today before rolling out to
everyone early next year. "You can make and take calls and texts on whatever
device is most convenient," the company said in its press release. "Just log in
and, bam, your call history, messages and even voicemail are all there. And
it's always your same number, so when you call or text from another device, it
shows up as you." When it leaves beta, Digits will cost an extra monthly fee,
but T-Mobile isn't revealing pricing today. "This is not going to be treated as
adding another line to your account," said COO Mike Sievert. "Expect us to be
disruptive here." And while its main feature is one number for everything,
Digits does offer T-Mobile customers another big perk: multiple numbers on the
same device. This will let you swap between personal and work numbers without
having to maintain separate lines and accounts. You can also give out an "extra
set" of Digits in situations where you might be hesitant to give someone your
primary number; this temporary number forwards to your devices like any other
call. You can have multiple numbers for whatever purposes you want, based on
T-Mobile's promotional video.
(theverge.com)
118
Posted by
BeauHD
on Tuesday December 20, 2016 @02:00AM
from the
very-particular-set-of-skills
dept.
An anonymous reader writes from a report via The Verge:
Dutch film student
Anthony van der Meer had the unfortunate pleasure of having his phone stolen
while having lunch in Amsterdam. Unsatisfied with the response from the
Amsterdam police, who register an average of
300 stolen phones per week
, Meer decided to find out what kind of person
steals a phone. He downloaded DIY security software on a decoy Android phone,
intentionally got the phone stolen, and
was able to spy on his thief for weeks
. He recorded the ups and downs of
his covert investigation and turned it into a 22-minute documentary called
Find My Phone
. Meer
preloaded the decoy device with an anti-theft application called
Cerberus
, which allows the owner of
the device to access any file on the phone remotely, as well as discretely
activate the phone's camera and microphone. Meer and his friends were able to
navigate the technicalities of surveilling the thief with relative ease. They
even snapped a close-up of the guy's face. The hard part, it turns out, was
getting the preloaded phone stolen in the first place. It took Meer four days
to get his device pilfered in a city with
high
rates of theft
because concerned citizens kept coming to his rescue.
(theverge.com)
66
Posted by
BeauHD
on Tuesday December 20, 2016 @05:00PM
from the
access-denied
dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge:
Today
, ATT
introduced a new service for automated blocking of fraud or spam calls. Dubbed
ATT Call Protect
, the system identifies specific numbers believed to be
sources of fraud, and
will either deliver those calls with a warning or block them outright
.
Users can whitelist specific numbers, although temporary blocks require
downloading a separate Call Protect app. The feature is only available on
postpaid iOS and Android devices, and can be activated through the MyATT
system. Phone companies have allowed for manual number blocking for years, and
third-party apps like Whitepages and Privacystar use larger databases of
untrustworthy numbers to preemptively block calls from the outside. But ATT's
new system would build in those warnings at the network level, and give
operators more comprehensive data when assembling suspected numbers. More
broadly, marketing calls are subject to
the national Do Not Call registry
. Specific instances of fraud can still be
reported through carriers or directly to police.
DisplayPort 1.2 and Daisy Chaining- What you need to know , August 3, 2014 By
Krisr2005 Verified Purchase (
What's
this? ) This review is from: Dell UltraSharp U2414H 23.8" Inch Screen LED Monitor (Personal
Computers) I bought three of these monitors at the same time, as well as 3 DisplayPort 1.2 cables
(I TRIPLE checked this because of how I wanted to configure the system). My setup is somewhat unique,
so this review is primarily for those that want to have a single displayport 1.2 cable driving all
three monitors in a daisy chain setup. The idea is relatively simple: Your graphics card output going
into monitor 1 input. Then you connect a cable on monitor 1's displayport OUTPUT to monitor 2's displayport
input. Repeat for up to a total of FOUR monitors. Sounds like an easy way to rid yourself of wires
and have a clean setup right? Well, here's my experience.
Some background. This monitors are revision A01, my graphics card is a Gigabyte 7870. It has two
mini DPs, a DVI out and am HDMI out. I used the supplied adapter from the graphics card for a mini
DP to full sized DP, then hooked in the Cables Matters Displayport 1.2 cable to my first monitor.
I daisy chained the other two according to Dell's instructions. BY DEFAULT the Dell's DisplayPort
1.2 capability is OFF. With it off you will definitely get no signal in a daisy chain configuration,
from any of the monitors. To fix this, on monitor 1 (the monitor with the direct input from the graphics
card) touch the menu button directly to the left of the power button. Make sure the monitor registers
your touch- you will know if it does because the monitor will display a message saying it has no
signal and you can select a different input by clicking the menu button. Once the menu comes up with
different inputs, make sure the DisplayPort option is selected and HOLD the green checkmark button
for approximately 8 seconds. A menu will come up asking if you would like to switch to DisplayPort
1.2. Make sure enable is selected and click the green checkmark. Repeat these steps on each monitor
EXCEPT the last monitor in your DisplayPort daisy chain configuration. This one should stay in DP
1.1a mode.
Alright! So now everything is set up correctly and it should be smooth sailing from here on out
right? Well.. not in my case. I experience a plethora of issues: one of more of the monitors will
flicker, one or more of the monitors not coming on at ALL, one of the monitors will randomly shut
off while the other two work properly and wont reinitialize. Essentially what it feels like to me
is that the monitors aren't able to adequately send the signals to each other. I can't tell if this
is a throughput issue, some type of handshake issue, graphics card drivers issue, etc. It's somewhat
confusing honestly; in my experience all three monitors will initialize and display (albeit in a
mirror mode NOT an extended mode) before Windows loads. My theory is that post-Windows, the signal
sent to the monitors is displayport 1.1. The monitors don't seem to have a problem sharing a displayport
1.1 signal and displaying in mirror mode, but what's the point of that? That's not why people are
getting three monitors! We want monitor extension, eyefinity, etc. When Windows loads, I THINK that
the graphics card switches to DP 1.2 mode. So it appears like its a Windows issue or drivers issue
but I think its a DP 1.2 issue. This could be two things. A cable/throughput issues or a monitor
issue. AMD software has a displayport troubleshooting program, and when I can get all three monitors
to actually work and display, the displayport program shows a total bandwidth of 20gb/s and each
monitor is taking approximately 4.5 gb/s. So that says to me that its not throughput.. which leads
to the only thing left.. the monitors themselves.
I believe these monitors have a serious issue with DP, specifically 1.2. I think DP 1.1a works
fine.. but if you want to daisy chain you are REQUIRED to use DP 1.2 because of the throughput limitation
of 1.1a. In this monitor's current state, I would not recommend this type of configuration. You can
still use the HDMI inputs or the mini or full-sized DP (make sure 1.2 is turned off) and everything
should work fine.. but for the sake of this review, I wanted to speak directly to the issue of DP
1.2 and daisy chaining.
I will update my review after I get my setup hooked up via HDMI for all three monitors. My plan
is to use two Mini DP to HDMI adapters and hook two monitors up using that configuration, and my
third monitor will simply be an HDMI connection from my graphics card to monitor.
So should you be concerned that this monitor doesn't really function properly in DP 1.2 mode?
Only if you MUST run a daisy chain configuration. The main difference between DP 1.1a and 1.2 is
throughput. You need that extra throughput to send enough signal through the cable to allow all three
monitors to get a "chunk" of data. 1.1a cant push enough data through the cable, so you can't daisy
chain. DP1.2 is also needed for high resolutions, for the same throughput reasoning. More data, more
throughput required. The dell is a 1080P monitor so that's not an issue. Help other customers
find the most helpful reviews Was this review helpful to you?
Report abuse |
Permalink Dell UltraSharp
U2414H 23.8" Inch Screen LED Monitor B00GTV05XG Dell Computers
Dell UltraSharp U2414H 23.8" Inch Screen LED Monitor Computers & Accessories
DisplayPort 1.2 and Daisy Chaining- What you need to know I bought three of these monitors
at the same time, as well as 3 DisplayPort 1.2 cables (I TRIPLE checked this because of how I wanted
to configure the system). My setup is somewhat unique, so this review is primarily for those that
want to have a single displayport 1.2 cable driving all three monitors in a daisy chain setup. The
idea is relatively simple: Your graphics card output going into monitor 1 input. Then you connect
a cable on monitor 1's displayport OUTPUT to monitor 2's displayport input. Repeat for up to a total
of FOUR monitors. Sounds like an easy way to rid yourself of wires and have a clean setup right?
Well, here's my experience.
Some background. This monitors are revision A01, my graphics card is a Gigabyte 7870. It has two
mini DPs, a DVI out and am HDMI out. I used the supplied adapter from the graphics card for a mini
DP to full sized DP, then hooked in the Cables Matters Displayport 1.2 cable to my first monitor.
I daisy chained the other two according to Dell's instructions. BY DEFAULT the Dell's DisplayPort
1.2 capability is OFF. With it off you will definitely get no signal in a daisy chain configuration,
from any of the monitors. To fix this, on monitor 1 (the monitor with the direct input from the graphics
card) touch the menu button directly to the left of the power button. Make sure the monitor registers
your touch- you will know if it does because the monitor will display a message saying it has no
signal and you can select a different input by clicking the menu button. Once the menu comes up with
different inputs, make sure the DisplayPort option is selected and HOLD the green checkmark button
for approximately 8 seconds. A menu will come up asking if you would like to switch to DisplayPort
1.2. Make sure enable is selected and click the green checkmark. Repeat these steps on each monitor
EXCEPT the last monitor in your DisplayPort daisy chain configuration. This one should stay in DP
1.1a mode.
Alright! So now everything is set up correctly and it should be smooth sailing from here on out
right? Well.. not in my case. I experience a plethora of issues: one of more of the monitors will
flicker, one or more of the monitors not coming on at ALL, one of the monitors will randomly shut
off while the other two work properly and wont reinitialize. Essentially what it feels like to me
is that the monitors aren't able to adequately send the signals to each other. I can't tell if this
is a throughput issue, some type of handshake issue, graphics card drivers issue, etc. It's somewhat
confusing honestly; in my experience all three monitors will initialize and display (albeit in a
mirror mode NOT an extended mode) before Windows loads. My theory is that post-Windows, the signal
sent to the monitors is displayport 1.1. The monitors don't seem to have a problem sharing a displayport
1.1 signal and displaying in mirror mode, but what's the point of that? That's not why people are
getting three monitors! We want monitor extension, eyefinity, etc. When Windows loads, I THINK that
the graphics card switches to DP 1.2 mode. So it appears like its a Windows issue or drivers issue
but I think its a DP 1.2 issue. This could be two things. A cable/throughput issues or a monitor
issue. AMD software has a displayport troubleshooting program, and when I can get all three monitors
to actually work and display, the displayport program shows a total bandwidth of 20gb/s and each
monitor is taking approximately 4.5 gb/s. So that says to me that its not throughput.. which leads
to the only thing left.. the monitors themselves.
I believe these monitors have a serious issue with DP, specifically 1.2. I think DP 1.1a works
fine.. but if you want to daisy chain you are REQUIRED to use DP 1.2 because of the throughput limitation
of 1.1a. In this monitor's current state, I would not recommend this type of configuration. You can
still use the HDMI inputs or the mini or full-sized DP (make sure 1.2 is turned off) and everything
should work fine.. but for the sake of this review, I wanted to speak directly to the issue of DP
1.2 and daisy chaining.
I will update my review after I get my setup hooked up via HDMI for all three monitors. My plan
is to use two Mini DP to HDMI adapters and hook two monitors up using that configuration, and my
third monitor will simply be an HDMI connection from my graphics card to monitor.
So should you be concerned that this monitor doesn't really function properly in DP 1.2 mode?
Only if you MUST run a daisy chain configuration. The main difference between DP 1.1a and 1.2 is
throughput. You need that extra throughput to send enough signal through the cable to allow all three
monitors to get a "chunk" of data. 1.1a cant push enough data through the cable, so you can't
daisy chain. DP1.2 is also needed for high resolutions, for the same throughput reasoning. More data,
more throughput required. The dell is a 1080P monitor so that's not an issue.
Krisr2005 August 3, 2014
Track comments by e-mail Tracked by 5 customers
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Newest first Showing 1-10 of 13 posts in this discussion Initial
post : Aug 4, 2014 10:18:18 AM PDT
Oz says: Are you running an Nvidia gpu? Because i heard that Nvidia gpu's recognize this monitor
as an HDTV and thus compromise the S-RGB, i've been seriously considering these,
and that issue has been a bit of a fear, holding me back, apparently it works fine with AMD but not
Nvidia.
Reply to this post
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Ignore this customer
Stop ignoring customer
3 of 3 people think this post adds to the discussion. Do you?
Posted on Aug 21, 2014 5:35:40 AM PDT
Last edited by the author on Sep 2, 2014 10:05:58 AM PDT
m0vs3h8r says: UPDATE: 9/2/14
MST is now working for me, even after rebooting or powering up after a shutdown. The only thing
I did was remove the Dell Display Manager program from my startup configuration. I don't know if
it was conflicting with Intel's display manager or what, but it seems to be OK now.
This is a common issue with this monitor. If you do a google search on 'U2414H DP Issues' you
should easily find the Dell forum expounding on the issue. It even quotes two professional reviews
on the subject. From everything I've been able to find, daisy-chaining monitors in DP 1.2a is unreliable.
I have a brand new Asus Z97-Plus motherboard with an Intel I7-4790K. I'm not using a graphics card,
yet. I'm using the integrated Intel Graphics HD 4600. I constantly need to power off the monitors
to recover them after I restart the computer. I also need to do this when my system simply puts the
displays to sleep. Maybe I only need to cycle the power to the first in the chain, but I have all
three on a power strip so I just do all three at the same time. The power button itself doesn't cut
it.
The fit and finish of this monitor is very good in my opinion. It's perfect for a multi-monitor
layout since the bezel edges are super thin. After a few minutes, you don't even really notice the
line/gap between monitors. This is the very reason why I chose the monitor for a displayport chain.
I bought one to see if I liked it, then bought the next two after verifying the monitor was decent.
No problems until I started daisy-chaining.
One last thing... I just bought my monitors in the last two weeks from Amazon. Two of them (maybe
all of them) are A00, not the A01 KRIS2005 mentioned. I'd double-check, but I'll probably have to
power-cycle them again :-)
3 stars is extremely reasonable for a product that did not deliver according to it's specifications
and marketing information.
Like so many others on the Dell forums I am one of those who bought 4 of these monitors precisely
for the daisy chain and it doesn't work.
Would you buy a high end car, wind up getting a different car delivered and be convinced if the
salesman explains that it's still an excellent car, it has 4 wheels and drives well?
The issue isn't whether the product is good as a standalone. The product was marketed to be able
to daisy chain and a lot of us bought a few of them and it doesn't work. Dell isn't even acknowledging
it's a problem. [When you have so many complaints any person with some sense would realise there's
a problem going on.]
Reply to this post
Permalink |
Report abuse |
Ignore this customer
Stop ignoring customer
7 of 7 people think this post adds to the discussion. Do you?
Daisy chain works initially and then the monitors start to exhibit what's known as the "Keeps
going into power saving mode".
I understand it doesn't occur for you and I'm happy for you. If it was just one or two chaps in
the forums maybe it's an isolated incident. There are TONNES of people complaining about the same
issue.
5 of 5 people think this post adds to the discussion. Do you?
Posted on Aug 15, 2016 8:41:03 PM PDT
The Squirrel says: I have 3 of these monitors in 1.2 dasy-chain mode. You must not have the last
one in the chain with the 1.2 enabled. You must also download the driver for the monitor for windows.
That will resolve the issue.
I like this product because it works great in my workstation and delivers blazing fast USB 3.0
performance.
My only complaint, and the reason I didn't give it five stars, is that it requires
a driver. I definitely expected it to be plug-and-play - automatically detected and installed
by my Windows 7 operating system. Maybe it works that way with Windows 8, but I had to download
a driver from the manufacturer's website to get it work.
That said, once the driver was installed, it has been working perfectly and is VERY fast.
I love that they didn't waste any space, packing as many ports into the rear panel as they
could fit, and the two internal ports are an added bonus. You could connect them to your desktop
tower's front-panel USB ports if you were so inclined (though I didn't - I'm using a desktop USB
3.0 hub instead).
My desktop machine didn't come with USB 3.0 ports, so this expansion card is a welcome upgrade.
I *love* how fast USB 3.0 is, and have been upgrading all my devices to USB 3.0 since I got this
product.
Overall, this is a good product for the money. Just be prepared to download and install a driver
to get it working on your machine after you have it physically installed.
"... You can't fix them and you can't upgrade them. You're going to need a specialist. This is long way from something like the Cube that Apple brags about in their recently announced, grossly over-priced, hardware fetish book. This is like watching the Ds become the anti-populist, neolib party. ..."
"... A Mac now is almost like an iPhone. Just one step apart. The next move will be Apple processors (A12 or 20) in laptops, to avoid hackintoshes. So, they can charge 4 times the ordinary price of memory, battery, disk and anything else. Good business for them. All for Designed in California! ..."
"... The object is max profits not best or most user friendly tech. But I love my iPad, and as a retiree I don't need pros for anything. Still, I would have thought workers would be the targets ..."
"... Does this mean if the motherboard burns out, you'll lose all your data as well? ..."
"... The sad part about this is that Apple is perceived as 'high quality' hardware. More like hardware with planned obsolescence built right into it. On my laptop, a 5 year old Dell Precision M4600, the CPU, GPU, RAM, SSD, and ODD (which can be replaced by a 2nd 2.5" SSD) are all upgradeable. I guess you could replace the display, touchpad, and keyboard as well. ..."
Both the 13 and 15 inch Touch Bar Mac Pros have the SSD (storage) soldered to the logic board.
Looking for a repair or upgrade means replacing the logic board, if such a thing is available.
I'll bet Apple might have saved upwards of 10 cents a machine on that design change. On the consistency
side the same is true for the RAM and the processor. iFixit rates the 13 inch as a
1 out of 10 which means nearly no one has the skills and tools to fix them.
You can't fix them and you can't upgrade them. You're going to need a specialist. This
is long way from something like the Cube that Apple brags about in their recently announced, grossly
over-priced, hardware fetish book. This is like watching the Ds become the anti-populist, neolib
party.
A Mac now is almost like an iPhone. Just one step apart. The next move will be Apple processors
(A12 or 20) in laptops, to avoid hackintoshes. So, they can charge 4 times the ordinary price
of memory, battery, disk and anything else. Good business for them. All for Designed in California!
The object is max profits not best or most user friendly tech. But I love my iPad, and
as a retiree I don't need pros for anything. Still, I would have thought workers would be the
targets
The sad part about this is that Apple is perceived as 'high quality' hardware. More like
hardware with planned obsolescence built right into it. On my laptop, a 5 year old Dell Precision
M4600, the CPU, GPU, RAM, SSD, and ODD (which can be replaced by a 2nd 2.5" SSD) are all upgradeable.
I guess you could replace the display, touchpad, and keyboard as well.
These days, only Clevo laptops are that upgradeable. They just aren't "hip" or good looking.
They also tend to be bulky, but that may be because they are oriented towards the workstation
and gaming type of users as desktop replacements.
Yep, it is basically a iPhone designed to maximize Apple's profit margins.
[Nov 05, 2016] Affordable compact (FIT or bar form factor) 128 GB Flash drives
"FIT" form factor is the best as almost does not protrude from the USB port.
There is a small (orange in case of SanDisk) indicator light and I kind of like it. When it is writing or reading, the light will blink.
They are supposed to be plugged in and seldom pulled out, or pulled out fairly rarely. Perfect for
local backup of OS.
Bar form factor protrude one inch or so. Which in many case is acceptable but still carry some
risks.
Posted by BeauHD on
Tuesday September 06, 2016 @07:30PM from the theory-of-relativity dept.
An anonymous reader writes from a report via The Next Web: T-Mobile
plans to boost its LTE speeds to up to 400 Mbps in the very near future.
The Next Web reports: "The company is getting ready to boost its maximum theoretical
internet speeds to become the
faster carrier in the U.S. by a wide margin. The network will soon support
theoretical speeds up to 400 Mbps -- nearly half the speed of Google Fiber.
There's a two-pronged approach to the upgrade. First is incorporating 4x4 MIMO
(multiple input, multiple output) technology, which will supposedly double the
speed from the current 7-40 Mbps customers tend to experience with T-Mobile
(about the same as Verizon with LTE-A). This upgrade is available now in 319
cities, although it's a moot point because only the S7 and S7 Edge will be able
to use the tech via a software update "later this month." In October, the company
will roll out
256 QAM support to the S7 and S7 Edge (and again, more phones later), which
increases the amount of bits per transmission. T-Mobile says this will lead
to theoretical maximum speeds of 400 Mbps." The Next Web followed-up with
T-Mobile to ask about what the real-world speeds would be after the upgrade.
The company says "customers can expect to see real world peak speeds of 190
Mbps," which is over four times current peaks speeds, but also far below the
theoretical 400 Mbps.
It is silly to expect USB 3.0 write speed at this price range. Good read speed USB 3.0 (over 100
MB/s, some more expensive drives have 400 MB/sec speed) the write speed 27.76 [MB/s] is adequate for most applications.
What's Good
(+) Well-built casing
(+) Activity indicator light present
(+) Design allows for a lanyard to be attached
(+) USB 3.0 read speeds...
What Raises the Eyebrow
(-) ...but USB 2.0 write speeds
Overall: Two stars. Ticks all the checkboxes on the hardware side, but poor write performance
makes it an overall difficult proposition for a USB 3.0 flash drive recommendation
Note: This review is based on the 16GB version
If you've arrived here from my SanDisk Cruzer Blade (SanDisk Cruzer Blade 16GB USB 2.0 Flash
Drive) review, the first thing that you'd want to note that this SanDisk Ultra USB 3.0 fixes the
most glaring hardware issues I had with the Cruzer Blade. The fit is more generous and it has
a flashing orange activity indicator in the body of the flash drive, only visible when it is connected
to the PC.
Similar to the Cruzer Blade, the SanDisk Ultra's design allows for a lanyard to be attached
to it by means of an opening at one end of the flash drive. Unlike the one-piece design of the
Cruzer Blade though, the SanDisk Ultra has a retracting mechanism for the metal USB header, housed
in a well-built plastic casing. The SanDisk Ultra is slightly larger however, measuring at about
5cm (2") long compared to the Cruzer Blade's 4cm (1.6"); this may be an issue if you use a laptop
with exceptionally low ground clearance for the USB ports though I have yet to encounter one.
At the end of my Cruzer Blade review, I mentioned that an extra few dollars for its price will
buy you a USB 3.0 capable flash drive. This SanDisk Ultra is among one of them, but there's a
huge catch; the USB 3.0 speeds are one-way only.
In my general use, the read speeds, copying files from the flash drive to the PC, are indeed
USB 3.0 standards, averaging around 75 MB/s. However, the write speeds, copying files from the
PC to the flash drive, are atrocious, averaging around 8 - 11 MB/s.
I expect those write speeds in a decent USB 2.0 flash drive, not one that advertises itself
as USB 3.0 capable. I almost thought I had plugged the flash drive to the wrong port but nope,
it's from the same port that achieved the 75 MB/s read speeds. For background information, if
you Google search "USB 2.0 speed", the first entry states that the maximum theoretical speed for
a USB 2.0 transfer is 60 megabytes per second (MB/s). So if I'm achieving 75 MB/s read speeds,
the SanDisk Ultra is indeed connected via a USB 3.0 channel, but the write speeds are painfully
limited at the USB 2.0 range.
SanDisk does make a distinction between read and write speeds and you may argue that I am indeed
receiving USB 3.0 capabilities from this drive as promised in the description, where there is
an explicit numerical rate attached only for the read speeds. However, I at least expect some
sort of upgrade in all performance aspects, not just simply maintaining parity with existing standards;
even only achieving a modest upgrade to 16 - 18 MB/s average write speeds, which is slow for USB
3.0 standards, would go a long way in my consumer satisfaction.
This SanDisk Ultra is indeed a better device in the context of a direct replacement for my
Cruzer Blade, but I do not like the marketing doublespeak on the performance capabilities of this
drive. If you're going to market your product as USB 3.0 capable, I don't want to have to second
guess and read all the fine print on the specific, exact instances where the capability applies.
All I ask for is a reasonable performance upgrade from existing USB 2.0 drives; I'd be more than
satisfied with a drop in the read speeds to around 55 MB/s in exchange for an increase in write
performance to 16 MB/s.
There is a faster USB 3.0 flash drive also by SanDisk (SanDisk Extreme CZ80 16GB USB 3.0 Flash
Drive Transfer Speeds Up To 245MB/s- SDCZ80-016G-GAM46 [Newest Version]), but again, it costs
another additional few dollars and these dollars add up and will soon price itself out of my budget
appetite for these type of flash drives.
I will continue using this SanDisk Ultra, but given its USB 2.0 write speeds, I may as well
look for one of those USB 2.0 flash drives with the dual regular and micro-USB form factor for
use with my smartphone. At the very least, this product redeems the SanDisk brand out of my avoid
list.
Wolfixon March 18, 2015
4.0 out of 5 stars
Solid Flash Drive at a Pretty Competitive Price
Test : 50 MB [D: 0.2% (0.1/58.9 GB)] (x5)
Date : 2015/03/18 20:55:27
OS : Windows 8.1 Pro [6.3 Build 9600] (x64)
-- NTFS FORMAT WAS USED --
Checked for bad sectors -- None Found.
You should look for sequential read/writes speeds for transferring large files such as movies,
the middle between sequential R/W and 512KB for pictures, and look at 4K R/W for OSes. I ran Ubuntu
14.10 off the thumb drive, using Rufus to prep it as a bootable drive, and it worked absolutely
fine on my Haswell i5 Intel NUC (teeny tiny bit slow sometimes, but not unusual for flash drives).
Read speeds are solid, hovering around 90MB/s in real world video transfers. Write speeds are
around 45MB/s on average, dropping significantly if there are many small files. I usually get
about 20-25MB/s with 2-3MB files and 8-15MB/s with ~500KB files. These are pretty decent speeds
for what you pay for. The 5 year warranty is excellent and is much, much better than what many
of the competitors are offering (looking at you PNY!)
The case is made of a very nice, matte finger-print resistant black plastic. It is smooth to
the touch and features a glossy plastic indentation where you press in and move forward to open
the thumb drive's USB connection. The USB connection is housed within the device but is still
vulnerable to getting dust and debris inside of it because there is no cover over the port. It
features a small, orange LED indicator light right behind the thumb imprint when it is active,
which is very useful.
Helpful Information: "up-to" speeds mean exactly that. They are achieved under the most optimum
conditions possible. Due to the fickle nature of electronics and software, you should never expect
maximum speeds (although you should expect close). Discrepancies from OS type/version, card reader
(USB 2.0/3.0/PCIe and who makes it), natural variances in NAND (what makes up flash storage),
and HDD (if you use one) limitations can all effect your card's performance. Flash drives of today
are basically stuffed with the NAND that didn't cut it for SSD speeds (>300MB/s with no errors),
and use a very basic controller in most cases (the SanDisk Extreme, Extreme Pro, and a few select
others being exemptions, fitted with an actual SSD controller and high quality NAND for some fantastic
speeds). This is very obvious when you start to see abysmal 4K R/W speeds, as the SSD controllers
can handle those far better than the generic USB controllers. Flash drives also generally increase
in speed as they increase in size. This happens because of what is called parallelism. The bigger
the flash drive, the more NAND dies it has, and thus the more channels it can write to, thus usually
increasing speed significantly. It always pays to buy the biggest you can afford if you want fast
write speeds for this reason (read speeds are usually pretty uniform no matter what size you buy).
Lastly, storage size is sold to you as Gigabytes (GB), but is actually read by your computer as
Gibibytes (GiB) although it still tells you it is GB (which is wrong). (kilo/me/gi-ga)Bytes are
in factors of 10 (1000KB in a MB, 1000MB in a GB, 1000GB in a TB, etc.) While (kilo/me/gi-bi)bytes
are factors of 2 as in binary (1024 bytes in a kibibyte). This discrepancy of 24 bytes is why
you see 16GB as 14.9GB in your computer, or 1TB as 931GB, the bigger the drive the bigger the
discrepancy.
I would recommend this drive if you feel safer with a long warranty. However, I (knock on wood),
have never had to use a warranty on any flash drive I've owned. If you want THE best bang for
your buck, I recommend the 128GB or 256GB PNY Turbo USB 3.0. You get faster speeds, 2x the storage,
and it goes on sale regularly for $34.99 or $69.95, respectively.
Dell USB 3.0 Triple Display UltraHD Universal Dock (D3100)
List Price: $169.99
Price: $107.33 & FREE Shipping. Details
You Save: $62.66 (37%)
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.
The Dell Docking Station - USB 3.0 connects your laptop to up to three additional monitors, various
external devices and the Internet with a single cable. It features a convenient way to expand the
capabilities of your portable PC and customize your desktop computing environment. This sleek, compact
dock unlocks enhanced productivity and entertainment options with highspeed connectivity and support
for Ultra HD 4K displays. It also includes three USB 3.0 ports, as well as two USB 2.0 connections,
ensuring compatibility with a vast array of peripherals, such as external hard drives, printers and
scanners. Moreover, it is a great choice for corporate environments with Wake-On-LAN and PXE boot
(on selected platforms).
By
John
C. Beane, IV on September 18, 2015 Style Name: USB 3.0 Size: Triple Display Verified
Purchase
Some drawbacks, but otherwise a very nice piece of desktop computing awesomeness. Well,
I have been using one of these docks for almost a year now, and I have been extremely impressed.
The picture quality is great, and the functionality is very reliable. I do, however, have two
complaints.
Firstly, the setup is not as simple as it should be. There is firmware available on the Dell
website, as well as on the DisplayLink website, but no native software application for managing
the displays once installed. You are forced to use the Windows display management software, which
is absolutely not user friendly, especially if you are running triple monitors or more. It takes
some time to get everything set up and working properly, but once you get it done, you should
not have any further issues.
Secondly, this dock has a DisplayPort output. If, however, you own or intend to purchase monitors,
like my three Dell U2414H flat panels, with MST (Multi-Stream Transport) capability (aka Daisy
Chaining) you will be disappointed to learn that this dock does NOT support MST. Rather than connecting
multiple monitors to one display output, you have to run a separate video cable for every single
monitor. What's worse, the dock only has one DisplayPort output, the other two outputs are HDMI,
so if your monitors came with DisplayPort cables like mine did, you will have to buy additional
HDMI cables as well...
None of these issues is a deal breaker, and now that I am set up, I am EXTREMELY happy with
the end result, but just a little bit of info I wish I had known prior to making my purchases.
Tyler Youngbloodon November 29, 2014 Style Name: USB 3.0 Size: Triple Display
Verified Purchase I am so glad I got this!
I have a Dell laptop for work that clicks into a (Dell PR03X) docking station. I hate the docking
station. It's just difficult to get the laptop connected to it and the docking station only allows
for 2 extra monitors, not 3. So I had to buy an external USB video card for my 3rd monitor.
I purchased this as a replacement for my PR03X dock and it's an EXCELLENT replacement. For
one thing, I can use it with all my laptops, not just my Dell. I have a Lenovo Yoga (my wife's),
a Macbook Air (2011 with OS 10.9 - which required the software from http://www.displaylink.com/support/mac_downloads.php),
and my work Dell laptop. All 3 work great with this little hub. And it is pretty small and lightweight.
Note: I wasn't really sure how this was going to connect to my laptop(s). It turns out it connects
via a typical USB (2 or 3) port. My Macbook Air has USB 2, while my Lenovo Yoga has USB 3.0. Both
work flawlessly. However, obviously the extra USB ports the device provides won't operate at USB
3 speeds if you're connected to your laptop via a USB 2 port.
Anyway, once you've connected the doc to your laptop (or desktop) via a USB 2 or 3 port, its
ready for up to 3 monitors to be connected to it. Two via HDMI and a third via Dell's DisplayPort
(which you can get a DisplayPort-to-HDMI adapter if needed). So with the laptop screen this gives
you a total of up to 4 displays!
The One Con:
It seems like video playback might be a little choppy when watching a 1080p video clip on YouTube
while connected to a USB 2 port. I'm not sure if this was the internet or a FPS limitation of
the USB video throughput. However, it seems to playback video flawlessly using a USB 3 port.
So if you're considering this for video work or for gaming and you don't have a USB 3 port
to plug it onto, you may find it slightly laggy and you may want to do a little more research.
But again, I see no lag using USB 3.
But if you want to use typical applications like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, ect. - or in my case
a text editor like Sublime Text, this little dock will work great, even when using the slower
USB 2.
TheOriginalgigaon August 6, 2015 Style Name: USB 3.0 Size: Triple Display Verified Purchase
Great for business, probably not for gaming So I read the reviews saying this unit ate
up come CPU cycles while attached and it is true. I've tested this using a Youtube video, an actual
video and general spreadsheet sort of things and here's my findings. First I'm using a new Surface
pro 3 i7 (1.9, turboclock to 3.3 dual core with hyperthreading) 8GB RAM with an HP monitor at
1680x1050 of so you can compare the utilization for other devices. Watching youtube, I average
about 7.3% utilization full screen on the one monitor. While watching a video capable of 1080p
using VLC I averaged about 8%. to note, VLC player spiked to 10% during playback so the actual
player is still utilizaing more cycles. Lastly what seems to take up the most CPU utilization
was moving the mouse around wildly peaking at 30%, sustaining around 26% and droping as low as
6%. As for networking, I pulled a file steady through the Ethernet adapter at 20MBps (approx 160mbps).
I tested with my hootoo usb dongle as well and got the same results so this is more than likely
a limitation on my network (guess what I need to track down and fix). Lastly I tested USB using
a Lexar USB 3.0 drive (older) and maintained a consistant 34MBps write (approx 272mbps) and 42.9MBps
read (343.2 mbps). I didn't list any CPU utilization for these as they used less than 3% at any
given time. Overall I'm very happy with the dock though I've only had it for a short while I think
it was well worth the money. Also you might be asking why I picked this dock over the one built
for the surface. 2 reasons, first this is capable of up to 3 monitors, the surface dock isn't.
ALso I have a giant protecting case on the surface which doesn't fit within the dock and I'm not
the type to take it on and off.
"... If you see ""a USB device has malfunctioned" message you installed need to copy all the data off the WD enclosure -- the next time might be too late (if it is not too late already). ..."
"... Avoid WD external drives at all cost. If the data on the drive are valuable you are playing with fire. ..."
"... Reliability of WD enclosures leaves much to be desired and after a couple of years some dual drive enclosures develop the problem when a customer starts getting system tray messages that "a USB device has malfunctioned". ..."
"... If I understand correctly WD practice what can be called a vendor lock-in. For RAID 1 (mirroring) there is no need to modify the hard drive structure and disks should be perfectly readable if taken from enclosure and connected to the computer SATA controller directly. Of course this is not the case with RAID 0, where striping is used and this information about it needs to be stored somehow. ..."
"... I have spoken with a data recovery company, they have said that if your WD My Book Duo which has the "AES 256 Hardware encryption" feature, if the drive enclosure dies that your data will NOT be accessible even if your hard drives are in perfect working order. ..."
"... I have tested (Raid 1, no encryption, copied files, turn off, extract a disk, connect to Windows 7 with an external device) and Windows do not map the unite, although the disk administrator is able to see the Disk. That means that there is no way to access your data. Incredible how Western Digital really cheats us. They told me that there were no problem to access the disk outside the unite... I have it written. ..."
"... What a firm!! They are not even able to properly inform buyers.... This is really annoying. ..."
"... However, upon fixing the WD Green into an internal mount, the drive was marked as unreadable and requiring a format. This suggests the presence of hardware encryption regardless of user preference set on the My Book. ..."
"... Enforced hardware encryption by the USB-SATA bridge in the enclosure ..."
"... Overall: Two stars. A good value package soured by enforced hardware encryption ..."
"... If you Google search "WD My Book Disable Encryption", you'll find a number of threads and posts on various sites that suggest that there exists enforced hardware encryption by the USB-SATA bridge on WD My Book devices. What this means is that as your data is copied over to the My Book, the USB port on the enclosure encrypts your data on the way in and decryption also occurs at the USB port as the files are accessed. All these occur even if you do not have a password set up to lock the WD My Book. ..."
"... A thread on the WD Community forums titled "NOT using hardware encryption on "My Book Essential"" suggests that this hardware encryption function cannot be disabled. What this implies is that for you to access the files stored on the My Book, you need all parts of the device to be in working order; if the USB-SATA bridge ever fails, there's no way to do an enclosure replacement like you can with a standard external desktop HDD as the encryption keys reside in the original enclosure. Why introduce another point of catastrophic failure is really beyond me. ..."
"... If there is official confirmation that the enforced hardware encryption has been scrapped for this particular WD My Book model, I'll be more than happy to revise this review and up the rating correspondingly. ..."
"... At this point, the only reason it receives more than a single star is because it's still fundamentally functional. I am going to continue using it, but I am going to have to do more shopping research for WD products in general and be on the lookout for replacements for this device. Such a shame really. ..."
"... My belief is that hardware encryption is useless in a device like this because the only way it really would be helpful is if someone, while stealing your hard drive, decides to take the actual drive out of the enclosure ..."
"... My belief is that in boxes like this, AES hardware encryption probably is just something which adds to the cost of the entire package and in most circumstances probably does not really protect your data from being stolen. And, it seems to me that AES hardware encryption, if I am understanding it correctly, adds another point of failure which might actually cause you to lose all of the data on that drive. ..."
When you have dual drives your priority is reliability. ..., August 5, 2016
This review is from: WD 4TB My Book Duo Desktop RAID External Hard Drive - USB 3.0 - WDBLWE0040JCH-NESN
(Personal Computers)
When you have dual drives your priority is reliability and using RAID 1 (mirroring) provided by
this WD enclosure looks like a reasonable option. But in reality it is not.
Electronics of WD enclosures is not very reliable and you can lose all your data if it fails.
In this case you can't just put a drive in a new enclosure or connect one of the drives to SATA
interface on the computer and read the data (which are intact) and, essentially, lose all your
data despite extra expense to preserve them. Paradoxically you added another "weak point" in addition
to the possibility of hard drive failure -- the failure of the electronics of WD enclosure with
its "hidden" encryption of the drive content.
See other reviews on the topic that cover difficulties of recovering data in case of enclosure
electronics failure. If you see ""a USB device has malfunctioned" message you installed need
to copy all the data off the WD enclosure -- the next time might be too late (if it is not too
late already).
I consider the encryption the hard drives uses by default by WD to be a Trojan horse because
this is not a requirement for this type of consumer products. They want to cater to enterprise
promising fake security via encryption and you are the victim.
Avoid WD external drives at all cost. If the data on the drive are valuable you are playing
with fire.
The manufacturer commented on this review (What's
this?)
Western Digital takes data storage and security very seriously. We regret hearing this encryption/Hardware
Raid misinformation continues to live on these forums, however our customer's feedback is always
appreciated. In the unfortunate event a My Book Duo enclosure should suffer from a malfunction,
the existing data stored in the RAID set can readily be accessed via a replacement enclosure.
Additionally, if security were set on the original enclosure/Raid set, and the user remembers
the password, integration with the replacement enclosure can be accomplished by entering that
password within the prompt upon adding the original drives into the replacement enclosure.
The My Book Duo utilizes Hardware Raid. It's important to understand the difference between
Hardware and Software Raid, it that each individual hard drive can only be read from the Hardware
Raid controller. Which differs from software Raid, assuming the array were utilizing redundancy,
such as Raid1 (Mirror) or JBOD; a single drive can be read from another computer capable of reading
the file system configured on that drive.
If you have further concerns not addressed above, or you need help with your My Book Duo, we
would appreciate the opportunity to provide a positive solution. We can be reached via phone or
Email below. Please be sure to mention this Amazon review within your initial contact as a point
of reference.
Need Help? Please follow the link below for further assistance or contact us at 1(800) 275-4932.
It is unclear from your reply whether you need exactly the same model of enclosure or not. For
example if a customer like me has WD My Book Studio II - 2 TB (2 x 1 TB) USB 2.0/FireWire 800/eSATA
Desktop External Hard Drive with failed electronics (out of warranty) configured as RAID 1 what
are options to recover the information on the drives ?
Reliability of WD enclosures leaves much to be desired and after a couple of years some
dual drive enclosures develop the problem when a customer starts getting system tray messages
that "a USB device has malfunctioned".
If I understand correctly WD practice what can be called a vendor lock-in. For RAID 1 (mirroring)
there is no need to modify the hard drive structure and disks should be perfectly readable if
taken from enclosure and connected to the computer SATA controller directly. Of course this is
not the case with RAID 0, where striping is used and this information about it needs to be stored
somehow.
If RAID 1 does not work this way this is not a consumer friendly product and it should be avoided
at all costs. You are better off using two generic USB enclosures and using rsync or similar utility
for resynchronization of the content of those drives. WD should be avoided like plague. End of
the story.
I have spoken with a data recovery company, they have said that if your WD My Book Duo
which has the "AES 256 Hardware encryption" feature, if the drive enclosure dies that your
data will NOT be accessible even if your hard drives are in perfect working order.
Your data may be fine and dandy on your hard drives but you can not access it. Even if you
are able to find and purchase another exact WD My Book Duo and put the drives in that, it will
NOT work. This is because the hardware encryption is ALWAYS used, even if you never attempt
to use the WD Security app to enable "password" protection. This fact is NEVER made clear in
ANY WD documentation anywhere!
I hope Western Digital can provide a way in firmware updates to either DISABLE the always
on hardware encryption, or to at least give us the ability to EXPORT/SAVE the encryption KEY
that the device is using to encrypt the data, and provide for us a SOFTWARE utility which will
enable us to use that KEY to read our hard drives even if the "Enclosure" stops working.
Here is a similar related post that has not been responded to:
It does not help that some well respected "REVIEW" sites have done really pathetic reviews
of this product which are more like infomercials saying that they observed no performance drop
with encryption enabled or disabled, and of course they did not because they did not know that
"encryption" was/is ALWAYS on regardless of whether they enable "security password key" or
not. They assumed like most reasonable users would that encryption is enabled only when a password/key
is set not that its ALWAYS encrypted whether you enable password or not.
Apparently the "password" you set has nothing to do with the encryption, it is not used
for anything other than some firmware locking. This means in reality that Western Digital will
be perfectly capable to decrypt ANY WD My Book and access your data even when YOU yourself
will not be able to. Yes you can be locked out of your own data but the manufacturer and whoever
else they may share their "Decryption KEY/s" with can access your data.
So the whole thing about if you forget your password your data can't be accessed is a joke,
its not true. Well its true that "YOU" can't access your data but they easily could. They just
won't do it for you but if they needed/wanted they can easily bypass the firmware password
and also decrypt the hardware encryption. In fact some data recovery firms can do that for
you, apparently WD even officially "endorses" some of them, makes you wonder if there's any
profit sharing. It seems that perhaps WD has shared certain "knowledge" with these firms that
enables them to supposedly retrieve the "Encryption Key" from the WD My Book Duo and give you
back access to your data for some BIG $$$.
So again, I am asking for WD to please be upfront about these very IMPORTANT issues since
there is no clear information anywhere, in fact all the documentation seems to imply that your
data is only locked once you've set a password not all the time and with an Encryption Key
that only WD has access to instead of us the users.
There is a solution to all this as I have already mentioned, either allow through a firmware
update the possibility to DISABLE the hardware encryption, and/or provide us a way to Export/Save
the encryption pass/key so that we can access our data even if the WD My Book enclosure dies
for any reason.
Encryption is great and even better when Hardware accelerated for higher performance, but we
should be the owners of the decryption Pass/Key for "our" data.
== end of quote ===
BTW this post never got a reasonable reply from WD customer support. That's tells you something.
All WD customer support stated was
== quote ==
We appreciate your feedback on this matter. Note that there are WD external hard drives that
do not have hardware encryption like the WD elements, the My Book is for customers that want
to have the added security to their data and this is why it has the hardware encryption enabled.
== end of quote ==
But the problem is that customers like me never wanted to have added security. We were just
taken for a ride by the manufacturer.
== quote ===
Patricio_Saiz
Mar 23
Dear all:
I have just bought a MY BOOK DUO 12 TB. Previously I have opened a case asking this issue.
This is incredible but WD also told me that there is no encryption and that you can take a
disk (RAID 1) and directly connect it to the computer.
I have tested (Raid 1, no encryption, copied files, turn off, extract a disk, connect
to Windows 7 with an external device) and Windows do not map the unite, although the disk administrator
is able to see the Disk. That means that there is no way to access your data. Incredible how
Western Digital really cheats us. They told me that there were no problem to access the disk
outside the unite... I have it written.
Well I can send back the unite, but I have loose my time.
What a firm!! They are not even able to properly inform buyers.... This is really annoying.
== end of quote ==
UPDATE - 01/06/2015
------
This is an update on my impressions of the extracted
WD Green HDD from the My Book. Even in my internal mount, the WD Green still exhibits the
5-second spin-up routine if left idle for too long. At this point, I can only conclude that this
characteristic is the default for the WD Green and by extension, the My Book. Other external desktop
hard drives I've used don't show this trait.
Hence, even if I can accept the automatic hardware encryption by the My Book, the default idling
behavior of the HDD is not one I find desirable. I have thus written an addendum to the original
review below to reflect my further thoughts post-review.
UPDATE - 01/01/2015
------
This is an update on my impressions of the
WD My Book after performing a disassembly. Keep in mind however that any attempted disassembly
will void the warranty on the product.
The build of the My Book enclosure is solid. The casing clips tightly to the mounting bracket
while the internal HDD within is securely fitted to the bracket by rubber stoppers. Watching other
YouTube videos on the My Book disassembly, it seems that different models of the My Book use slightly
different mounting setups of the HDD to the bracket, though all of the setups appear to be equally
secure.
Like many of the YouTube disassembly video uploaders, the HDD in my unit was a
WD Green . I've no prior experience with the bare Greens, so I cannot comment much about its
reliability nor speeds at this point.
However, upon fixing the WD Green into an internal mount, the drive was marked as unreadable
and requiring a format. This suggests the presence of hardware encryption regardless of user preference
set on the My Book. Due to this reason, HDD extraction from the My Book is definitely not
recommended, especially if the unit still contains data desired to be retrieved. My opinion on
this feature still stands; good security practices are fine, but make it explicitly known and
make it optional.
Finally, is it worthwhile to purchase a My Book just for the HDD inside if the unit is cheaper
than the price of the bare HDD itself? Unless the My Book at your desired capacity is significantly
cheaper, I would have to say no. First, it takes considerable effort to extract the HDD from the
enclosure. Furthermore, it is almost impossible to reassemble the enclosure after even after a
partial disassembly of the unit. Coupled with the enforced hardware encryption mentioned above,
any data stored will likely be forever lost should an extraction attempt fail. Moreover, the warranty
of the My Book will be voided if disassembly is attempted; it is probably more worthwhile to just
pay a little extra for the warranty coverage on the bare HDD itself.
Overall, my rating of the WD My Book remains unchanged and the original review can be viewed
below.
ORIGINAL REVIEW
------
What's Good
(+) Reasonably priced for 4TB of external storage
(+) Well-ventilated enclosure design
(+) Rubber feet at bottom of enclosure for grip
(+) USB 3.0 capable
What's Quirky
(-) Goes to standby if left idle after a while
(-) PC being unable to recognize the drive at times
(-) PC being unable to eject the drive at times
What's Downright Bizarre
(x) Enforced hardware encryption by the USB-SATA bridge in the enclosure
Caveats for International Consumers
(/) The included AC adapter I received is a US-style 2 pin type, a physical adapter may be needed
for overseas use. A quick check on Amazon's page does not tell whether the drive can accept international
voltages. Check with WD to ensure that the drive can be used in your country
Overall: Two stars. A good value package soured by enforced hardware encryption
Note: The review is based on the 4TB version
The WD My Book ticks most checkboxes of a standard desktop external HDD. Its size is comparable
to other external desktop HDDs and depending on your setup, its design means you can place it
vertically standing as in the illustrations or leave it lying horizontally with not much issue.
The enclosure is also well ventilated with grilles on the upper and underside, allowing for effective
cooling of the hard disk inside. I could not locate any dedicated on/off switch on the drive;
the drive simply starts up when electricity is supplied. Very efficient I must say.
The WD My Book does come with a variety of backup software on the drive, including the SmartWare
Pro software. I personally do not use any of the supplied software, preferring to drag and sort
my backups manually. This drive is USB 3.0 capable and I usually get 60 - 80 MB/s for file transfers.
The included USB 3.0 cable is of reasonable length for an external desktop HDD.
One minor annoyance that I've experienced with the My Book is that the drive will enter a standby
mode if left idle after a while. The drive is still listed in the file explorer, but accessing
it takes about 5 seconds as the drive spins up again. Fortunately, I have yet to experience the
drive entering into standby while it's being actively used.
Other annoyances I have encountered include the PC not being able to recognize or eject the
drive. Usually, cycling the power for the My Book solves the recognition problem, but it's a little
unsettling considering that large amounts of your data are stored on it and high reliability is
definitely an important aspect. For the latter quirk, sometimes the PC will refuse to eject the
drive even when there are no files being accessed from it and I have to resort to shutting down
the computer so I can safely turn the drive off.
If the review were to end here, on balance, the WD My Book would earn a solid 4-star* rating,
so why the measly 2-star score?
Enforced hardware encryption.
If you Google search "WD My Book Disable Encryption", you'll find a number of threads and
posts on various sites that suggest that there exists enforced hardware encryption by the USB-SATA
bridge on WD My Book devices. What this means is that as your data is copied over to the My Book,
the USB port on the enclosure encrypts your data on the way in and decryption also occurs at the
USB port as the files are accessed. All these occur even if you do not have a password set up
to lock the WD My Book.
A thread on the WD Community forums titled "NOT using hardware encryption on "My Book Essential""
suggests that this hardware encryption function cannot be disabled. What this implies is that
for you to access the files stored on the My Book, you need all parts of the device to be in working
order; if the USB-SATA bridge ever fails, there's no way to do an enclosure replacement like you
can with a standard external desktop HDD as the encryption keys reside in the original enclosure.
Why introduce another point of catastrophic failure is really beyond me.
Good security practices are always welcomed, but it has to be made known explicitly to the
end user with the option to disable it if so desired. The WD My Book already comes with software
encryption tools on the drive for the security conscious, the enforced hardware encryption really
does nothing of value for those who just want a plain desktop storage expansion solution.
Granted, some of the threads and posts on the enforced hardware encryption pertain to older
My Book models and I have no way of finding out whether if this is still true for this particular
My Book.
If there is official confirmation that the enforced hardware encryption has been scrapped
for this particular WD My Book model, I'll be more than happy to revise this review and up the
rating correspondingly.
Overall, if were it not for the enforced hardware encryption, this WD My Book will definitely
be on my recommended purchase list, but the fact that there's no way to disable the hardware encryption
means I cannot put my data in the drive with a peace of mind.
At this point, the only reason it receives more than a single star is because it's still
fundamentally functional. I am going to continue using it, but I am going to have to do more shopping
research for WD products in general and be on the lookout for replacements for this device. Such
a shame really.
ADDENDUM - 01/06/2015
------
* I've since extracted the
WD Green HDD from the My Book and fixed it into an internal mount. The 5-second spin-up behavior
still persists. From my experience, it appears that this idling characteristic is the default
for the HDD. Other external desktop hard drives I've used do not exhibit this behavior. Hence,
even if I can accept the mandatory hardware encryption, I can no longer rate it at 4-stars; it'll
probably earn a solid 3-stars at the very best.
Be advised, these Western Digital drives use AES HARDWARE encryption. If the USB fails on the
device - you CANNOT recover your data. Of course, mine died on the fourth day I had it - and even
Western Digital cannot recover the data for you (as the encryption key is IN the hardware of the
USB. Had to take the drive out and format it (lost all data). I suggest getting a drive which
has AES password encryption not on the hardware - this feature not only does not provide you with
any more security - it provides a second point of failure for your device. Don't learn the hard
way like I did...
John Ebbert, I asked the guy at Microcenter today that same question. What he told me is
that because this drive uses AES hardware encryption, it still encrypts the data, even if you
do not use a password. I don't know 100% if he was correct in what he told me, but he sounded
as if he knew what he was talking about; he sounded very confident of his answer. So, his answer
implies that if you do not use a password, that does not make any difference, and if the AES
hardware encryption fails, it will be almost impossible to recover data on the hard drive itself.
What I understand is that it is not the actual hard drive itself which has the device (chip)
to encrypt the data; it sounds as if that device is in the USB port in the drive enclosure.
So, the only way that AES hardware encryption would really be effective is if a thief took
the time to remove the drive itself from the enclosure, leaving that USB port and AES encryption
behind....the data on that drive would be encrypted, but you would not have the AES hardware
to decrypt it. That's the way I understand it.
I have been looking at a new hard drive system to upgrade my current system...I currently
use 2 separate external Seagate 4 TB drives. One is the main drive, and the 2nd is a backup
of the main drive....I manually copy files from the first to the 2nd, whenever I put new ones
on the first. But, I'm running out of space, so I'm looking for something to upgrade to. I
have been trying to figure out what this AES hardware and password protection really mean in
terms of practicality. I am absolutely no expert, but from what I am gathering, from reading
different things and talking with various people who seem to know what they are talking about,
AES hardware encryption is kind of useless and actually works against the user rather than
actually protecting his data. The reason for this is as follows: if you have one of these drives,
with AES hardware encryption, if that entire drive is stolen (including the enclosure), even
though that drive uses encryption, that drive can be hooked up to another computer, and the
data on it can easily be read. The hardware that encrypts the data going into the box also
decrypts it when the data comes out. It is decrypted in the drive itself before being read
by the PC. I think, though, if you actually use a password, someone will not be able to access
that data unless they determine the password (although I'm not 100% certain of that).
My belief is that hardware encryption is useless in a device like this because the only
way it really would be helpful is if someone, while stealing your hard drive, decides to take
the actual drive out of the enclosure, bypassing that AES hardware encryption, which sounds
as if it is separate from the hard drive itself....sounds like it is in the hardware of the
USB port in the enclosure. But why would a thief take the time to remove the hard drive from
the enclosure? I hope this makes sense.
I've seen credible sources on various web sites say this; today I talked to someone at MicroCenter
who seemed like he knew what he was talking about, and he told me the same thing. My belief
is that in boxes like this, AES hardware encryption probably is just something which adds to
the cost of the entire package and in most circumstances probably does not really protect your
data from being stolen. And, it seems to me that AES hardware encryption, if I am understanding
it correctly, adds another point of failure which might actually cause you to lose all of the
data on that drive....
it would still be there, but if the hardware encryption part goes bad, then you could not
decrypt that data. I might be wrong, but this is causing me to look at a different setup, maybe
the internal WD red drives which I do not think use AES hardware encryption. They cost more,
but I think the actual hard drive itself is better than what might be in these external drives.
Any comments would be appreciated.
One thing is not in doubt: USB Type-C's arrival. While older ports
will persist for years, eventually Type-C's smaller size and
greater abilities will prevail.
"I expect it will ultimately subsume other cords, notably the
power cable," said Endpoint Technologies Associates analyst Roger
Kay.
USB-IF's Ravencraft said the Type-C transition is moving faster
than any tech standard shift he's seen.
"For the MacBook to come with only one connector, and it's
Type-C, is about as aggressive as you could get," Ravencraft said.
"The adoption is happening faster than we ever dreamed it would."
Run the most resource-demanding applications on two 4K displays without sacrificing performance,
using this dual-port Thunderbolt 3 to DisplayPort adapter
Works with Thunderbolt 3 devices like Lenovo P70 and models of Dell XPS & Precision
Supports 5K 60 when connecting both DP ports to a 5K monitor
Dual display resolutions up to 4K 60
Thunderbolt to DisplayPort / USB Type-C Thunderbolt to dual DP / USB C with Thunderbolt 3
to Dual DP
Work more efficient by multitasking on two displays
Asus has just unveiled what's likely to be the most talked about product at this week's
Computex trade show in Taipei, a cute talking robot for the home priced at $599.
Called Zenbo, Asus pitched it as a personal assistant that can help look after elderly
relatives or read stories to the kids, but that might be selling it a bit short.
The robot is about two feet high and rolls around on wheels, with a display that can
show its animated face or be used for other things like making video calls and streaming
movies.
Asus Chairman Jonney Shih demonstrated Zenbo at a press conference in Taipei Monday,
giving it voice commands and asking it questions is it rolled around the stage.
"Hey Zenbo, is it true you can take pictures"? he asked.
"Yes, I can take photographs," the robot replied.
He told Zenbo to take his photo with the audience in the background. Shih positioned
himself on stage and Zenbo trundled over and took his picture. It was an impressive
demonstration, assuming the Zenbo wasn't being remotely controlled somehow from backstage.
James Niccolai
There was no word when Zenbo will
go on sale and a spokesman said Asus doesn't yet have a ship date. It wants developers to
sign up
for a software kit that will let
them build applications for it.
But Zenbo appears to be able to do quite a lot already.
A big part of the pitch is caring for the elderly, which could be especially popular in
nearby Japan, which is struggling with an aging population. Zenbo "helps to bridge the
digital divide between generations" by allowing seniors to make video calls and use social
networking with simple voice commands, Asus said.
It can also connect to a smart bracelet and alert relatives via smartphone app if their
elderly relative has a fall.
Dell's massive 43 Ultra HD 4K Multi-Client Monitor does
something special: it combines inputs from four independent devices into one
massive 43-inch 4K display, with no ugly bezels getting in the way.
"... HP's Mike Nash, for example, said he sees Thunderbolt 3's main appeal in corporate laptops that will let users plug in a single cable to charge and dock it at the same time. Plus the tiny USB-C port allows for a thinner device profile. ..."
The third time could be the charm for Intel and its Thunderbolt technology. A
year after introducing Thunderbolt 3 at Computex 2015, Intel is finally starting to see
success with its high-speed external I/O-enough that even doubters might agree it's
winning.
You needn't look far for signs that Thunderbolt 3 will succeed where its
two predecessors failed dismally on the PC. This year's top-tier laptops from HP and
Dell, as well models from MSI, Asus, Razer, and Acer, all prominently feature
Thunderbolt 3 ports.
... ... ...
USB, meanwhile, didn't stand still. Two years after Thunderbolt first
appeared at 10Gbps, USB's spec doubled to 10Gbps. It also became capable of charging
high-powered devices. Here's the cherry on top: It adopted a tiny reversible plug called
USB Type C. USB was even updated to allow the carrying of "alternate mode" signals, so a
vendor could plumb DisplayPort through a USB C cable.
With all that going for USB 3.1, many wondered why anyone would even bother
with Thunderbolt 2 and its funky Mini DisplayPort connector and costly cables? Indeed,
by 2015, most had written off Thunderbolt as another failure.
USB Type C to the rescue
With Thunderbolt seemingly on the ropes, Intel had one last move-one that likely put
the technology on a winning path at last. At last year's Computex, to the surprise of
many, the company announced a faster version of the spec called Thunderbolt 3, with
speeds up to 40Gbps-and it could do it over the new USB Type-C connector, instead of the
funky MDP cable.
Intel essentially uses the same alternate mode that DisplayPort does to
pass Thunderbolt signalling over PCIe. And by integrating a USB 3.1 10Gbps controller
into the Thunderbolt 3 controller, it could fully support USB 3.1 too.
What Thunderbolt 1 and 2 couldn't do, Thunderbolt 3 has finally achieved in
its vision of "one cable to rule them all."
A single USB Type C connector could support: DisplayPort, PCIe,
high-wattage charging, and USB's fastest spec.
Even pricing, which was always a controversial topic with Thunderbolt 1 and
Thunderbolt 2, seems to have been nullified. Intel's public price for its Thunderbolt 3
chips is about $8, with volume pricing closer to $5, according to customers I've
interviewed. That low pricing has driven down the cost of the primary competitor, the
Asmedia USB 3.1 controller, with one report putting it well under $3.
Numerous OEMs, though, told me it's not just the price that's changed their
mind on Thunderbolt 3; it's the move to USB-C and giving consumers a port that can do it
all.
While consumers just didn't give two damns about Thunderbolt 2, vendors are
seeing increasing consumer interest in Thunderbolt 3, and the feature gives them an easy
way to differentiate their products.
HP's Mike Nash, for example, said he sees Thunderbolt 3's main appeal
in corporate laptops that will let users plug in a single cable to charge and dock it at
the same time. Plus the tiny USB-C port allows for a thinner device profile.
An even bigger achievement might be Thunderbolt 3's ability to let a laptop
run external graphics. In theory (as no one has shipped an external graphics cabinet
yet), this would give a super-thin laptop real gaming chops.
... ... ...
Not every PC vendor I spoke with thought Thunderbolt 3 was a slam dunk, though. One
vendor, who asked not to be identified, said it makes sense on laptops but most desktops
simply have no use for it because they already exceed its capabilities.On desktops, use of the Thunderbolt 3 chip is rare. Surveying
the motherboard scene, I've seen Thunderbolt 3 on only one or two models. More cost-conscious vendors,
such as Asrock, don't seem to have any Thunderbolt models.
... ... ...
"(The USB C port) was kind of a game changer, and we're seeing a complete shift in
the PC industry on their view of that port," Ziller said.
Philips says its 276E6 display is the world's first 'quantum dot' monitor, and it's designed to deliver pro-quality colors at a consumer price point. This short video review shows how the E6 shines - and where it falls short.
[Sep 14, 2015] Thinner devices with longer battery life
"... Who keeps demanding thinner and thinner computers? Is it just some bizarre reverse
penis-envy thing among manufacturers? Laptop anorexia? ..."
User McUser
Who keeps demanding thinner and thinner computers? Is it just some bizarre reverse
penis-envy thing among manufacturers? Laptop anorexia?
How about instead, they build a regular thickness laptop with 4x the battery capacity of the
thin ones?
Nudge Away
Re: Thinner devices with longer battery life
How about lighter < 1Kg easily achievable.
13" to 14" Matt Display, Full HD and < 1Kg with 4+ hour battery life at < £400 == a purchase
for me.
Not a lot to ask for really but the manufacturers simply don't get it (low res glossy tat is
mostly all they can be bothered to produce).
Tom 7
Re: Thinner devices with longer battery life
How about lighter???The thing is making them thinner makes them heavier - or much more
fragile. That extra 1/2 inch means another metre of dropping resistance and makes fuck all
difference once its in that designer backpack,
Oh and means less RSI when typing on the kitchen table too...
Shadow Systems
Re: Thinner devices with longer battery life
Exactly!
I don't want some "Thin & Light" that got that way by depriving me of all the useful ports I
need to Get Shit Done, I want a thick n' chunky machine that has it all where it counts. (Can
I say that I like my women this way as well? *Cough*)
Anyway, I went looking for a 6th gen I5 with 8Gb RAM or more, a 120Gb SSD or larger, with all
the ports I need (multiple USB, RJ45 Gigabit LAN, SD reader, DVD DL writer, etc) and the only
way I could GET it that way was to go for the "Workstation" class machines starting at ~2K
dollars. And that *still* didn't guarantee me the ports, merely the ability to pay for a
chassis that supported adding them BACK IN at additional cost.
What the hell? I'm willing to carry a heavier laptop for a larger battery & all the ports, but
if I have to buy a bag load of dongles to add back the functions it lost in the "thin & light
diet" then that's a machine I won't be buying.
So I picked up an Off Lease Dell Latitude E64xx with 4Gigs RAM & 60Gig HDD for less than the
cost of *shipping* on a brand new machine, and even after paying to improve the RAM to max &
swap to a 120Gig SSD, I'll have paid less than the base, crappy, "new & improved!" model that
doesn't have even HALF the ports of the "old n' crappy" model.
Do you hear that Intel & Manufacturers? You just lost a sale because you can't be arsed to
build a machine with a decent battery, the ports I need to Get Shit Done, at a price that
doesn't make me wonder if you've packed your crack pipe with extra-potent toxic waste.
Sure it's a 2010 era used laptop for $300 (after all the upgrades), but if that doesn't
require me to buy a pack full of dongles to replace the ports your "new n' shiny!" machine
lacks, then the new n shiny will gather dust until you Get A Fekkin Clue.
I've got too much work to do to waste all my time hunting down dongles to add this or that, or
setting up a Docking Station at every desk I might visit, just so I can plug in the DVD
burner, the external NAS, a real keyboard, a Gigabit LAN cable, blah blah blah...
Oh look! My "new" laptop has all the ports! 4x USB, RJ45, SD card reader, DVD burner, and if I
need more the seller threw in a docking station for free, which added another EIGHT USB ports,
two RJ45, video ports out the wazoo, and the ability to charge a second battery...
It's like someone at Dell Knew What The Hell They Were Doing!
*Pretends to faint in shock*
Get a clue. I want a 6th gen super duper laptop, but damned if I want to pay premium prices
for a machine that doesn't bother to include the stuff I need, and tries to charge me even
MORE to put those functions back in.
*Rude thumbs in ears, spittle blowing, disgusting raspberry gesture*
P.B. Lecavalier
WTF?
New machine for a new CPU? What a waste of $!
From the salesrep, on older machines: "They are slow to wake, their batteries don't last long,
and they can't take advantage of all the new experiences available today," Please...
My main machine: first or second i3 generation on an HP laptop bought in 2011. Time to boot
Linux (Gentoo) on SSD? Within 12 seconds. Time to wake from sleep? 1 or 2 seconds, not long
enough to notice.
I'm sorry, but why would I ever pay to improve upon that? Maybe this: Time to boot Windows 7
on the mechanical drive: more than 90 seconds (on the same drive, booting Linux is less than
half this). And don't say "it's because it's an old install", I use it very rarely. Lusers do
not see the difference between adequate hardware and failed software, and will ditch that
serviceable hardware just because of the M$ junk.
And what about gamers? With the video card(s) doing most of the work there, just upgrade that
component. Or is it that you use a laptop, and you are a gamer? Not a smart move.
You wanna sell me a product worth my time, money and interest, Intel? Come back with a modern
instruction set architecture.
Anonymous Coward
Re: New machine for a new CPU? What a waste of $!
" With the video card(s) doing most of the work there, just upgrade that component."
Unfortunately PCIe 2.0 can be a limiting factor for upgrading otherwise perfectly capable Core
i7 870 or 920 systems. The latest GPU boards need PCIe 3.0 if they are to perform at their
best.
Anonymous Coward
Intel 6th gen nothing special
Intel's 6th gen is a minor performance improvement but nothing anyone would pay for unless
they need a need PC for some reason. Win10 is a loser and most people simply don't need a new
PC so sales will be sluggish.
In addition with more portable electronic toys fewer people are actually buying laptops or
desktops because the market has plateaued and isn't going to ever see the huge growth every
time another defective version of Windoze is released or a new CPU series is available.
AMD's new Zen based CPUs and APUs will increase PC sales for a year or two but not by
monumental numbers.
Intel Wifi card reliability on 'Tier 1 laptops'
Any chance that Intel could work with dell/ hp / lenovo on the Skylake prototypes to make
their wifi cards more reliable?
There's little value in a faster processor if the wireless card keeps becoming an intermittent
worker on modern latitude and elitebooks; whatever combination of bios / firmware / wifi
standards or laptop heat is causing issues where older batches of laptops are rock solid
reliable.
49xx, 5100, 5300 in particular developing problems over a couple of years.
keithpeter
Old laptops
"There are over 500 million computers in use today that are four to five years old or
older. They are slow to wake, their batteries don't last long, and they can't take advantage
of all the new experiences available today,"
...and had tolerable keyboards.
Slow to wake: about 3 seconds on a core duo X200 Thinkpad
Batteries don't last long: true around 3 hours. But then it is the original battery and is
down to 50% of capacity on a full charge. But 3h gets me to work easily and allows me to
triage the email in the canteen before I plug in to the PSU under my desk.
New experiences: Noscript, Privacy Badger and careful choice of defaults ensure that I don't
have anything to do with such malarkey thank you very much.
Seriously: laptop with a decent keyboard, clear screen, good battery, less than 1.5 Kg, don't
care how thick, designed to last 5 to 10 years. Take my money.
For nothing else but the capability to run 3 screens instead of just 2 because Intel had this
artificially limited. Why can't they offer 4 screen capability with the newest CPUs?
Even then, my employer won't replace my 4 year old laptop until it's broken, and I have
colleagues with 5-6 year old PCs with the same situation. And the new laptop would be a
downgrade because every damn manufacturer drank Intel's Kool-Aid and thinks that a business
machine must be an ultrabook, meaning a throttled down CPU, shoddy SSD, no ability to add a
hard drive for bulk storage and no possibility to upgrade memory other than ordering it
upgraded from factory.
While the extra screen would come in handy, I'm not desperate to upgrade.
Anonymous because breaking a laptop and getting a vacation while the new one is being
delivered is way too easy...
jglathe
Re: I'd be happy to upgrade
There are workstation laptop options for sale, though. If you get an ultrabook, then yes,
you'd better throttle it for the noise of the fan, and you're limited to the two screens.
However, one 1TB SSD is not bad and an i7-5600U at 90% clock is noticeably faster and way more
silent than my T420s (i7-2640M).
HGST's new He10 10TB hard drive seals in helium and users singled magnetic recording
to pack its capacity into a 3.5-in form factor.
Computerworld | 12:05 PM PT Western Digital's (WD) HGST subsidiary
today announced it has added 8TB and 10TB hard drives to its HelioSeal product
line, which hermetically seals in helium in order to reduce internal drive friction
and power use.
WD also announced its first NVMe (non volatile memory express) product with a
PCIe-attached flash drive; the company also announced a new 2.5-in solid-state drive
(SSD).
Additionally, WD unveiled a new "flash fabric" software and hardware platform
that acts as a multi-server volume manager, linking up to 128 servers and 16 PCIe
drives for up to 38TB of pooled flash storage. HGST is rebranding Virident Solutions
2.0 software.
HGST's Active Archive platform can link up to 128 servers and 16 PCIe drives
for up to 38TB of pooled flash storage.
The
HGST Virident Solutions 2.0 software can create a high availability, mirrored
cluster that can be managed through a graphical user interface for shared
storage applications
like Oracle
RAC and Red Hat Global File System that traditionally rely on dedicated SANs.
Today, HGST said that by 2017, it plans to end production of air-filled hard
drives for use in corporate data centers, replacing all of its models with helium
filled products.
HGST's first 10TB hard drive uses shingled magnetic recording, which overlaps
data tracks in order to achieve a higher areal density.
Along with the thinner gas's ability to reduce power use, the helium-drives run
at four to five degrees cooler than today's 7200rpm drives, HGST stated. Sealing
air out of the drive also keeps humidity and other contaminates from getting in.
HGST's announcement comes less than two weeks after Seagate announced its highest
capacity enterprise hard drive, an 8TB model that bypassed helium for air.
Instead of helium, Seagate uses a technology
called shingled magnetic recording (SMR) to increase the capacity of its drives
beyond 4TB.
Seagate has said SMR holds the promise of creating 20TB drives by 2020.
With SMR technology, Seagate has been able to increase bit density on its platters
by 25% or more. Unlike standard perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR), where data
tracks rest side by side, SMR overlaps the tracks on a platter like shingles on
a roof, thereby allowing Seagate to squeeze more tracks together on a hard drive
platter.
HGST's new 3.5-in 8TB drive uses traditional PMR technology, but the new 10TB
hard drive marks WD's foray into SMR in conjunction with the helium gas. Both drives
use a 12Gbps SAS interface. By using helium instead of air, HGST said it was able
to stack 7 platters and reduce power usage at idle by 23% and watts per terabyte
of capacity by 44% over its 6TB drive.
HGST's He8 8TB hard drive uses standard perpendicular magnetic recording surrounded
by helium gas to reduce friction.
The 8TB drive is being marketed as nearline storage for faster access. Both new
drives come with a 128MB cache buffer, a five year warranty and a two million hour
meantime between failures (MTBF) rating.
The new hard drives also come with WD's "Instant Secure Erase" feature, which
overwrites data multiple times to ensure deletion.
Both 8TB and 10TB drives are shipping or sampling today.
PCIe SSDs
HGST's new series of NVMe-compliant
Ultrastar SN100 PCIe SSDs, integrate Toshiba's current MLC NAND flash chips.
The SSDs come in 800GB, 1.6TB and 3.2TB capacities.
HGST's new Ultrastar SN150 PCIe flash module comes in a half-height/half-length
form factor add-in card with 1.6TB and 3.2TB capacities.
"We expect to see significant growth in PCIe-based SSD demand, especially as
businesses implement server-side flash in conjunction with Flash-optimized software
and applications," Gustafson said.
The Ultrastar SN100 Series PCIe SSDs will offer 2X the performance and endurance
over HGST's current family of FlashMAX PCIe SSDs.
Obituary Former IBM CEO John Akers has
died in Boston aged 79.
Big Blue announced Akers' passing
here,
due to a stroke
according to Bloomberg.After a stint as a US Navy pilot, the IBM obit states, Akers joined the
company in 1960. His 33-year stint with IBM culminated in his appointment as
its sixth CEO in 1985, following three years as president.
The top job became something of a poisoned chalice for Akers: the IBM PC
project was green-lit during his tenure, and the industry spawned by this
computer would cannibalize Big Blue's mainframe revenue, which was already
under attack from minicomputers.
His career was founded on the success of the iconic System/360 and
System/370 iron, but eventually fell victim to one of the first big
disruptions the industry experienced.
He was eventually replaced by Lou Gerstner (as Bloomberg notes, the first
CEO to be appointed from outside IBM).
To Gerstner fell the task of reversing the losses IBM was racking up –
US$7.8 billion over two years – by embarking on a top-down restructure to
shave US$7 billion in costs.
According to retired IBM executive Nicholas Donofrio, Akers took a strong
interest in nursing the behind-schedule RS6000 Unix workstation project
through to fruition in the late 1980s: "he asked what additional resources I
needed and agreed to meet with me monthly to ensure we made the new
schedule".
I believe Professor Krugman is clearly incompetent and should not discuss a very complex market
he does not understand. That actually cast a huge shadow on his other posts. Wheat he wrote is a
rant of a dilettante
It is really funny to read that "By all accounts, Apple computers were better than PCs... Yet the
vast majority of desktop and laptop computers ran Windows. Why? "
In reality Apple computers are in essence the same Intel-based computers as PCs using the same CPU
and motherboards. Only OS is different but they can run Windows or Linux as well. And Windows PC can
run Mac OS (and some Apple enthusiasts do run OS X on Windows PCs) although there are legal
questions here.
Too broad statements like "Microsoft was a monopolist, it did extract a lot of monopoly rents, and
it did inhibit innovation." are simply silly. In a way Apple is much more monopolist then Microsoft
as its business model is of "closed ecosystem". So IMHO Apple dominance would be much more damaging.
It is also unclear if Microsoft monopoly inhibits innovation. Linux ecosystem, Apple and Android are
clear counterexamples.
Linus is running on Microsoft designed computers (and Microsoft is the key designer of each of PC
generations specs which it for free bestows on PC vendors). So here is have complex interaction of a
dominant CPU producer (Intel) and Microsoft not a simple monopoly. BTW Intel is closer to a real
monopolist then Microsoft as it squeezed all other major server and desktop CPU manufactures almost
to the point of irrelevance. Sun was the latest victim.
In the early 90s another big company, DEC, missed out when
it decided that the PC is only for game-playing and is not going to
matter when it comes to serious work.
It seems that another factor that plays into the demise of big companies
is that, innovation is a product of a certain frame of mind and
addresses specific needs.
Remember the days the cell phone was not there? To notify a friend that
you were running late, you would call to their answering machine,
expecting that they would check into it and get back to you in a similar
fashion. Then came the "brick" devices and later
an acceptable answer the current mobile phone.
Because I belong to a different time, I see no need ( and have no
patience ) for all the little apps that, to my mind, cater to whims than
real needs. But, that's me and a lot of other people, most of them
younger, think differently, I believe because of their different
starting point.
One final note: Microsoft got a bad name for its products in the 90s.In
the last decade, after Windows NT, they have very good products to
offer, very friendly and at a very reasonable price.
Most people don't now, for example, that MSWord has won first price as a
word processor on purely technical standards. And it always came at a
much more reasonable price than the Apple products.
judgecorp writes "Research from Seagate suggests that hybrid hard drives in general use are virtually
as good as solid state drives
if they have just 8GB of solid state memory. The research found that normal office computers,
not running data-centric applications, access just 9.58GB of unique data per day. 8GB is enough
to store most of that, and results in a drive which is far cheaper than an all-Flash device. Seagate
is confident enough to ease off on efforts to get data off hard drives quickly, and rely on cacheing
instead. It will cease production of 7200 RPM laptop drives at the end of 2013, and just make models
running at 5400 RPM."
The soon-to-be-gone CEO also predicted prices for future Windows 8 devices that should reach market later this year as Intel
rolls out new processors.
Touch-enabled ultrabooks, Intel's brand name for thinner, lighter Windows laptops, should sell
for $499 to $599 in the fourth quarter, said Otellini, with the latter more common. Those machines will be
equipped with chips out of the new Haswell architecture, which will replace the current Ivy Bridge
line of CPUs.
Other, even less-expensive systems, will be fitted with Bay Trail chips, the next-generation in the Atom line; the latter
compete, in many cases poorly, with the ARM architecture that powers most smartphones and tablets. Stacy Smith, Intel's CFO,
pegged prices of those Bay Trail-powered touch devices -- which could include keyboard-equipped tablets and so-called
"convertibles" that transform from tablet into notebook -- at around the $300 mark.
A few minutes later in the earnings call, Otellini went even lower. "If you look at touch-enabled
Intel-based notebooks that are ultrathin and light using non-core processors, those prices are going to be down to as low as
$200 probably," he said.
... ... ...
According to rival research firm IDC, PC shipments were down 14% in the first quarter of 2013 from the same period the year
before. Its analysts largely blamed Windows 8 for the decline, claiming that consumers, confused by the new OS, had delayed
purchases of new PCs or simply moved on to tablets.
Other analysts have countered IDC, instead pegging high touch system prices as the culprit.
have been using Windows 8 since the beta in February 2012. I don't have a laptop nor a touch screen. Works just fine.
pretty simple? But heck maybe I'm just a super genius since so many seem to have so much difficulty. Perhaps a Mensa test
should be required.
trumanp@...
Condecension is not a good way to get your point across
I really dislike how many people assume they are smarter, or just simply superior to their
fellow computer users because they like the newest idea to come from a software company.
Did it ever occur to you that some people just don't like the new layout? I've also used Windows
8 since the developer preview, and I know it pretty much inside and out, but it only resides on
one of my computers at home so I am conversant on the system. The rest of my computers remain
windows 7, or linux of some flavor, (just for reference, that totals about 7 boxes among family,
and media servers.)
Windows 8 as it stands is just not something I prefer on a personal level, either as touch or
non-touch. A hybrid style ends up being maligned due to it's inability to capitalize on any of
it's strengths. Tablets and touch centric devises have different needs than do desktops.
Tablets and touch devices are going to cut into desktop sales as many people bought desktops
just to consume media. It was overkill. The desktop was too much muscle for what many people
really needed or wanted. The desktop is not going away, but it's market is going to shrink for a
while until tablets have replaced all the redundant PC's out there.
I personally think that the PC market will shrink to at least a third of what it is now in the
consumer space, and that in certain areas a tablet will work great for many business uses as
well.
I don't think this is the end of Microsoft any time soon, far too many systems used in education
and business were written specifically for MS platforms. The expenses of switching are always
prohibitive. But I do think that Microsoft's role as the dominant force in computing as a whole
is done.
Tojuro
Separate but Obsolete
So, you see the world as silo's, with PC's and Tablets divided in inseparable containers.
Microsoft doesn't see it this way, obviously. When Google merges Chrome with Android, you'll see they agree with
Microsoft (which sucks for both of the Chrome fans). When Apple merges IOS with Mac OS, you'll see it there (and all those
obsolete Intel Mac owners will feel the pain). And, yes, those both of those days are coming.
Microsoft could go on making people happy......and we'd still be starting apps in the Program Manager and using a complex
menu system in Office. Well, actually, Microsoft wouldn't exist if they did that. Windows 8 isn't perfect, but it's doing
the right things to keep the company relevant in 5 years and in 20, and it takes guts to do that when it ticks off people
here and now.
Look -- the OS will merge. The first version is never easy. I don't agree with Ad Hominem arguments, but this is a case
where a lot of people just don't get it......yet.
CobraA1
thoughts
"Microsoft could go on making people happy......and we'd still be starting apps in the Program Manager and using a
complex menu system in Office. "
Making people happy is part of the business. They should exist to serve their customers - what good is creating a
beautiful looking UI if nobody buys it?
I seriously don't want to live in a world where businesses ignore their customers.
"and we'd still be starting apps in the Program Manager"
You actually could until Windows XP Service Pack 2. Microsoft actually included a configuration switch to allow you to do
so for quite some time.
And it should be noted that neither Windows 9x nor Microsoft Office had discoverability issues - in fact, the ribbon was
designed to make it easier to discover new things, not harder. Windows 8 is actually the opposite of Office 2007 in this
regard.
jrbales@
Start button programs show how easy it is to add options back to Win 8
I have Windows 8 on my laptop (since the early previews in 2011/2012 and now the release version). After all that time I
was not happy with the UI changes and how they affected the way I use my computer to accomplish work. Then I read up on the
different apps that add the Start Button and boot to desktop options back to Win 8. I ended up with 'Start8' which was worth
the $4.99 it cost me. Turns out it was really easy to add the Start button back to the desktop, to boot directly into the
desktop, to get rid of the hot edges, and program keys to use IF & WHEN I want to use the Metro/Modern UI (which is rare).
I don't notice any performance hit and so far (after 6 months or more using it) I haven't experienced any problems. So if
MS claims that it's not feasible to add switches to Win 8 that give the end user the option to decide how THEY want to use
their computer, then they're lying to you.
bitcrazed
"nearly unusable Windows 8"
So, assuming you choose to ignore the Win8 Metro/Modern UI & apps and just use traditional desktop apps, how is Win8
"unusable"?
Since on your desktop, you no doubt pin your most frequently used apps to the taskbar and/or pin shortcuts to the desktop
itself, you'll most likely rarely ever use the start screen.
So, again, how does this make Win8 "unusable"?
I'll grant you that on the desktop/laptop, especially non-touch-sensitive screens, the Win8 Metro/Modern apps aren't yet
a slam-dunk home-run, but on touch-screen devices, Metro/Modern apps are fabulously usable compared to desktop apps.
Nobody is saying you have to stop using your desktop apps when you use Win8 (especially on your desktop/laptop) but if
you're saying that MS should abandon/remove Metro, then you're eliminating Windows' utility on tablets and that is something
that is unreasonable and unrealistic.
Sorry, this article is nothing but clickbait. This sort of prediction is way too premature, and the author doesn't even
pretend to be balanced. Nothing to see here, move along.
Rob.sharp
ZDNET should be renamed to ZDANTIPC
Most of the bloggers here bash the PC on a daily basis avoiding the reality that Tablets and Smart-phones are not equal
to the power of a PC. Hybrids like Surface Pro yes but not the crap from the other guys. Reading these articles on a daily
basis has me leaning towards other news outlets because this site has a tainted and dirty feel...
It's as if Google and Apple has their hands up ZDnets ass working them over like a sweaty old puppeteer.
DadMagnum
Sunsetted Products
Man, I miss MS money too it was a great product. I miss Visual FoxPro also I loved that database development system.
slaskoske
I doubt it.
Windows isn't going anywhere. The various versions of Windows still hold on to around 90% of the market. Win 8 might not
be lighting up the shelves but no new product is going phenomenally right now. The iPad Mini is canaballizing sales of the
full-sized iPad. Does that mean that the iPad is going away? Of course not (or, at least, not in the near future).
[Apr 24, 2012] Asus G55VW-DS71
The upcoming Asus G55VW-DS71, featuring the new Ivy Bridge mobile CPUs, set for release on April 29. The
G55VW-DS71 will be powered by the new Intel Core i7 3610QM (@ 2.3 GHz). It will feature a 15.6-inch (1920 x 1080) FullHD
display with an Nvidia GeForce GTX 660M - 2 GB GDDR5 SDRAM. As for memory, the G55VW-DS71 will offer
12 GB of DDR3 1600 MHz and is expandable to 16 GB via 4 SO DIMM slots. It
comes standard with a 750 GB HDD / 7200 rpm with an available hard drive bay.
Users have the options to add an additional hard drive or SSD to improve the speed and storage of the laptop.
In addition, the G55VW-DS71 features Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, an 3-in-1 card reader, a 2.0
megapixel webcam, an HDMI output, a Thunderbolt port, one USB 3.0 connector, and an 8-cell battery. The G55VW-DS71 weights
in at 8.4 lbs with a starting price of around $1,450.
Intel's dream of getting x86 processors into smartphones is almost a reality. At Intel's keynote presentation at CES,
Liu Jun, president of Lenovo's mobile Internet division, announced the Lenovo K800 smartphone built on Intel's "Medfield"
Atom platform. Boasting a 4.5" 720p screen, HSPA+ support, and running Android 4.0, the phone will be available in China
from the second quarter of 2012. Inside, the processor is the Intel Atom Z2460 with 21Mbps HSPA+ connectivity on the
China Unicom network from Intel's XMM 6260 chipset.
Lenovo has also been showing off its IdeaPad K2110, a 10" Android
4.0 tablet again powered by Medfield.
The K800 isn't the only Medfield design win. Motorola Mobility CEO Sanjay Jha announced that Motorola and Intel had
entered into a "multiyear, multidevice strategic partnership," with Motorola's first Atom-powered phones due to ship
in the second half of this year.
Intel claimed that its single core, two-thread 1.6 GHz "Medfield" Atom processors offered better performance and
lower power consumption than unspecified ARM processors in unspecified popular Android phones. The company says that
it has both tuned Android to work optimally on its hardware, and worked with third-party developers to ensure that their
applications are optimized.
"...reduced power consumption in spite of the faster GPU - 5 W for the 1.6 GHz N2600, 8 W for the 1.86 GHz N2800, compared
to 10 W for the 1.66 GHz Pineview N570"
The new chips are the Atom N2600 and N2800, based on the Intel's third-generation Atom architecture, codenamed Cedarview.
The Cedar Trail-M platform pairs one of these processors with company's pre-existing NM10 chipset. As with the previous
generation Pineview processor, each dual core, four thread chip integrates a GPU. For Cedarwood, the processor is based
on a PowerVR design. Cedarview's GPU offers twice the performance of Pineview's. Cedarview adds to this a dedicated
media engine for hardware-accelerated decoding of motion video, including support for 1080p H.264.
Cedarview is built on Intel's 32 nm process, compared to the 45 nm process used in Pineview. This allows for reduced power consumption in spite of the faster GPU - 5 W for the 1.6 GHz N2600, 8 W for the 1.86 GHz N2800,
compared to 10 W for the 1.66 GHz Pineview N570. The new processors also include more aggressive power-saving features
than their predecessors. Intel is targeting system runtimes of up to 10 hours, with standby times measured in weeks.
The company also claims that systems using the slower N2600 part will draw so little power
that they can be passively cooled-no need for fans.
Desktop-oriented Cedarview parts, D2500 and D2700, started shipping in the third quarter of 2011
ScifiGeek
I remember a large swath that were writing off Intel. This is only the beginning.
Intel is actually waking up and taking this segment seriously, they have massive resources and are the process
kings.
Anyone who wrote Intel off was an idiot.
I am not writing off ARM, but I expect that by the time Win8 is shipping for ARM, it will be largely pointless,
when you can get similar perf/watt AND backward compatibility.
ARM will largely keep Android, Intel will even more largely keep Windows.
Frenetic Pony
Looking at the performance numbers* makes me wonder if ARM is in trouble. Intel might not historically have the
most "ethical" business practices, but they can engineer things DAMN well and if the power envelope is good ARM
may be in a world of hurt.
Especially considering a single core Intel CPU looks to be not too distant from what ARM probably hopes a dual
core Cortext A15 will be capable of (in a little less than a year versus now). With multi-core architectures you
have to consider that scaling up the # of cores will give progressively less return on investment, yay Ahmdal's
law! The point is, if a single core Intel can already beat a next gen ARM core, then Intel's advantage is actually
wider than it appears. Medfield, as far as I know, is based on 32nm manufacturing. While Intel already has 22nm
up and running, already a step ahead of a Cortex a15's expected 28nm.
If Intel can deliver on what it's promised ARM may be relegated to a (relatively) niche industry just like PowerPC
and Spark. Which is a shame, more competition is always good. Just as the below shows.
The drive, especially piano black, looks very attractively. But, the construction feels cheap when compared to the metal
of the standard Go series. It creaks a little just when holding it in your hands the plastic enclosure slightly bending
under your fingers. Not a big deal.
I think the idea of detachable adapters is a good one. The other side of adapter that connected to the drive is just
a regular SATA connection. And the adapter can be used for cloning of SATA drive or other similar purposes. I tried several
drives and adapter behaves like regular SATA to USB adapter. Of course this is not approved by Seagate usage. With
powered USB hub it might even be used for cloning 3.5" drives in case there is no other solution, but I did not tested that.
In my experience the drive provides sustained write speed of 25 MB/sec, slightly less then half of top USB 2.0 speed.
Also I think there are two problems with the drive that Seagate needs to address ASAP.
One problem that I experienced with this drive after a week of use is that it is not recognized on Dell D620 laptop
running windows XP SP4. Neither laptop "native ports" recognize the drive, nor additional powered from separate source ports
on the docking station. If I connect it to the D620 docking station USB 2.0 port the Windows XP reports power surge and
disables the port. But it was recognized OK on newer Dell E6320 laptop with Windows 7 SP1 both on laptop internal and docking
station ports. It might well be that the drive needs an additional, second cable with dual USB connections as it looks like
one USB port sometimes is unable to power the drive on startup (see below). I used to have old 100 GB Seagate drive and
it was shipped with such a cable.
The second problem with the drive is that it is supplied without a regular eSata adapter. such an adapter costs peanuts
to produce and should be included with the drive making it more attractive for those who have two types of ports. This way
Seagate can distinguish itself from the crowd. Otherwise the idea of changeable adapter which makes the drive technologically
more flexible then, say, similar WD 2.5" external USB drives is hidden so deep that many people just do not suspect about
existence of this feature. Most of them will never buy another adapter (and they cost $20 each). And any enclosure
the provide bother eSATA and USB beats this drive for advanced users.
Currently Seagate provides only Powered eSata ("FreeAgent GoFlex Upgrade Cable Powered eSATA - STAE103") which is a
pretty rare type of port. It costs $20 on Amazon. Most laptop have a regular eSata (without power) connection. So you are
out of luck unless you want to go through the hoops.
Until those shortcomings are rectified I think that previous reviewer is right when he stated that this drive probably
makes sense only for those who have USB 3.0 ports. Everybody else might be better served with other 2.5" USB 2.0 external
drive models or buy enclosure and a drive (it's not big deal to assemple them).
One other thought. Several reviewers complained about reliability of the drive. Seagate generally has a reputation of
rock-solid drives (it produced lion share of drives for servers, although definitely components used are not the same).
One generic recommendation is reformat the drive that you get. It often make sense to create two or more smaller partitions
instead of one large. In view of my experience with D620 laptop, I think some complains might be related to the fact
that their USB ports do not have sufficient power for the drive. If this is true, then running drive via USB hub with a
separate power supply can help to improve stability.
Seagate STAA500102 is compact but with some shortcomings, June 10, 2010
One advantage with the Seagate STAA500102 FreeAgent GoFlex is that it can be upgraded to USB 3, Firewire 800
or eSATA. This option to customize my hard drive is appreciable. I have a MacBook Pro so bought a Firewire 800 adapter
for it. Though it is USB 3 compatible, the adapter is not included in the package and the USB 2.0 cable that is
included is really too short.
I guess the software is pre-configured for Windows machines. Being a Mac user, I had some problems with the software
installation, which was solved after customer support.
The design is good and being a portable device is a benefit.
Does not work for E-Sata connection and Seagate is not going to fix that,
I like most have a Laptop/Workstation these expensive laptops come with E-Sata much faster than USB 2.0 connections.
I bought the drive with the intent of using the E-Sata connection. I continues to drop this connection after 15
minutes of connect time which makes it worthless. Visit Seagate website support to see the POSTS. I read some of
these reviews on this website and decided to buy the drive, Just wish someone would have made this defect known.
First of all, the drive mounted and performs perfectly out of the box. This is not intended as a negative review
of the product, but more as a warning to read the fine print.
I bought this with the intention of bringing video editing work home from the office to work on. For that task,
eSata speed is a requirement. I use an HP desktop in the office and a Dell XPS laptop at home.
It turns out that the eSata adapter cable, which is an additional item to purchase, does not work from my PC.
It requires a powered eSata port. Now, if I had carefully read the description I would have seen that. Unfortunately,
I saw eSata adapter for 10X speed and bought it. Now it turns out I can only use the drive at USB 2.0 speeds on
the desktop which definitely puts a damper on my plan.
It's not Seagate's fault - I'm just putting this in as a warning to other users that might have the same idea
in mind.
Format this drive first to avoid issues with this drive!!, March 4, 2011
I was expecting this drive to be like a spare drive to back up files and store data on and allow me to edit some
files as I wanted. I really was expecting it to work just like a jump drive does, but have a lot more storage space.
I didn't want to have to plug it into a wall, you know, portable. I wanted to be able to take it to several computers
I have at home and at work. What I found out after I placed my order was that these drives by Seagate have pre-installed
software on them that once connected to your computer will ask you to load, after a two minute wait. If you install
this software "Dashboard" and whatever else is there, you may have some of the issues like all of the other negative
ones I read. YOU DON'T NEED THIS SOFTWARE, SO DO NOT INSTALL IT!!! Seagate must think that the only purpose to buy
this drive is to do a back-up on one computer and to have it auto run every so often, hence their software. I personnaly
am not interested in their software, especially everything I have read to date on it.
So I started by removing the software from the drive, then just using the drive as a back up and to copy some
work files to. All seemed fine, then took to work and tried to update a file and found out the the whole drive is
read only format, no update capabilities allowed from another machine. Did some more reading and discovered that
if I Format the drive completly, (don't do the quick format) do a full format which will take about 1 hour per 100
Gig, so make sure you have plenty of time to do this. When your done the drive will be free of Seagate's software
and read only formats for file updates. The drive will work just like a jump drive allowing you to take it from
one computer to another, update files as you see fit, back up files and so on...you get the picture.
I think if Seagate wants to keep their good name, they need to offer better instructions on their products and
they should not pre-load this software on their drives. All of the issue, at least most of them, appear to be with
this software and not really the drive itself. At least this is my finding after I performed this format, the drive
is now what I expected to use it for.
So for a rating, out of the box, I give it a 1 STAR, because I had to figure this out, and spend 5+ hours to
format the drive.
Rating after the format, I give it 5 STARS!
I hope others find this review helpful, as I am a little tech savy, but no comparison to most of you smart people
out there.
A USB 3.0 package is available that is backward compatible with USB 2.0. If you are going to buy this drive...
make sure that you buy the USB 3.0 version. Amazon does not carry it but most all other sources do. USB 3.0 will
become the standard and getting the 3.0 version (really just a difference in the cable and attachment) will save
money in the future... Amazon got me on this one... they won't get me again!
Liked old model (freeagent go) better, December 27, 2010
I ordered this as a replacement for my 500GB freeagent go that was stolen. I prefer the old version (freeagent
go) over this newer model (freeagent go flex). While the go flex allows you to purchase different cables, this also
means that there is an additional large plug-in piece on the drive that is not shown in the pictures and adds to
the length. It is also not compatible with the docking station for the freeagent go because of this connector change.
I wish companies would take a lesson from Apple and retain consistent connectors
for universal compatibility. My use of this drive is only for photo backup during travel so I have
no need for the eSATA or USB 3.0 options, especially when you have to pay for additional connectors.
The case is also a shiny glossy plastic that attracts dust, finger prints and scratches. The old model had a
matte metallic cover and was a 1/2" shorter from not having an additional connector. I would have bought the old
model but it cost more even on the Seagate website.
Prices are around $275 for discontinued product
HP TouchPad Wi-Fi 32GB Refurbished.
Dell Duo and EXOPC with better screens and Windows OS are around $400.
For $399 this is essentially the same specs as Dell Duo. There is also a community installing alternate OSes on it -
including Ubuntu and Meego.
http://exocommunity.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=107
[exocommunity.com]
Limited time offer $479 includes dock. Unfortunatly Duo does not include SD card slot. Sluggish . Ethernet jack
and video output are missing two (but are present on the dock). unimpressive battery life of 3 hours
With the touch-sensitive, flash-capable Inspiron duo convertible tablet, you can switch from touch to type in seconds.
Color options include black and red. Add an Audio Station dock and listen to music, view photos, even use it as an alarm
clock!
"...While it's hard to tell whether it's really the "world's smallest," the Q180 is certainly a very compact device.
Its chassis' dimensions are 155 x 192 x 22 mm (6.1 x 7.55 x 0.8 in)"
The base model of the Q180 is powered by a 2.13 GHz dual-core Intel Atom D2500 CPU, AMD Radeon HD 6450A discrete
GPU and 2GB of DDR3 RAM running at 1066MHz.
...While it's hard to tell whether it's really the "world's smallest," the Q180 is certainly a very compact device.
Its chassis' dimensions are 155 x 192 x 22 mm (6.1 x 7.55 x 0.8 in)
I bought this as a replacement for a Sony Viao 13.3"(severe overheating issues) laptop for my fiancée to write her
thesis. At first I was going to buy her a netbook because they are cheaper but after some intense searching I stumbled
upon this model on newegg and it happened to be sold out, so I clicked on it looked at the specs and was immediately
impressed for the advertized price. It happened to be sold out because of the combination of a rebate and a super low
price on newegg but even for $75 more on Amazon, it couldn't be beat.
In use now, I got TONS of bonus points for this surprise.
Pros:
Cost: Nice price, I got it with a $100 rebate from ASUS so this was very affordable. I would probably buy this
or maybe something a little more powerful for the same price without the rebate anyway.
Power exceeds that of the Intel dual core processors (TXXXXX) of several years ago) despite being a low voltage
processor (longer battery life). Multitasking with multiple tabs on your Web Browser, Outlook, Excel, Photoshop,
Word and PDF's all open, it can handle no problem.
Small footprint and light, yet has a full size keyboard for actual typing.
Brushed steel outer case looks awesome with solid feel. Majorly scratch resistant (not scratch-proof so don't
push it).
Cons:
Touchpad: While pinch-and-zoom capable feels like a netbook in that its cheap and not set aside from the rest
of the panel.
'Rocker' style mouse buttons: This particular rocker requires ALOT of force to click it. I don't actually 'abhor'
the rocker/single button style that much as long as it is responsive.
No Optical Drive: not a deal breaker and allows for the lighter weight. It requires an extra transfer step to
install software. Don't worry you should be able to copy the info onto a large enough USB/flash/jump drive or other
portable hard drive to copy the install files straight off the disk to install from.
...The screen is beautiful, on par with ipad 2. Speaker is much better. The SD slot & Hdmi/usb ports are definitely
great.
... Download the new touch firmware from Acer and that should fix the problem. A stylus will also help with using
touch on Win7. make clicking on the small click box and such much easier.
... I've had my W500 for about a month, done all the clean-outs (have you?), installed all the updates, etc. & use
this extensively with W7 & full Office products & have absolutely NO issues with Windows 7 touch capabilities. I get
6+ hours between recharges on the W500 which is enough for me on any given day.
...With the full-size dockable keyboard complete with Ethernet port for fast Internet connections, a USB port for external
devices, and the integrated Acer FineTrack pointing device with two buttons for effortless navigation
...The screen is beautiful, on par with ipad 2. Speaker is much better. The SD slot & Hdmi/usb ports are definitely
great.
... Download the new touch firmware from Acer and that should fix the problem.A stylus will also help with using
touch on Win7. make clicking on the small click box and such much easier.
... I've had my W500 for about a month, done all the clean-outs (have you?), installed all the updates, etc. & use
this extensively with W7 & full Office products & have absolutely NO issues with Windows 7 touch capabilities. I get
6+ hours between recharges on the W500 which is enough for me on any given day.
...With the full-size dockable keyboard complete with Ethernet port for fast Internet connections, a USB port for external
devices, and the integrated Acer FineTrack pointing device with two buttons for effortless navigation
Now let's take a look at a 300
GB 10000 RPM hard drive that costs slightly more than the 147 GB 15000 RPM hard drive. This 10K RPM drive
has an average rotational latency of 3 milliseconds which is 50% higher than the 15K RPM drive. It has an average
seek time of 4.3 ms which is half a millisecond slower than the 15K RPM drive. Therefore the 10K RPM drive has
an average access time of 7.3 milliseconds which means it can do a maximum of 137 IOPS for zero-size files. For
36 KB files, it would take up roughly 10% of the IOPS performance which means we should expect to see around 124 IOPS.
Looking at the Storage Review performance database again, we see the actual benchmarked value is 124 IOPS.
So we have an obvious performance winner right since 159 IOPS is better than 124 IOPS?
Not so fast! Remember that the 15K RPM drive is less than 1/2 the size of the 10K RPM drive.
This means we could partial stroke the hard drive (this is official storage terminology) and get much better
performance levels at the same storage capacity. The top 150 GB portion of the 10K drive could be used for performance
while the second 150 GB portion of the 10K drive could be used for off-peak archival and data mirroring.
Because we're partial stroking the drive using data partitions, we can effectively cut the
average seek time in half to 2.15 ms. This means the average access time of the hard drive is cut
to 5.15 ms which is actually better than the 15K RPM hard drive! The partial stroked
10K RPM drive would produce a maximum of 194 IOPS which is much better than 175 IOPS of the 15K RPM drive. So
not only do we get an extra 150 GB archival drive for slightly more money, the active 150 GB portion of the drive is
actually a better performer than the entire 147 GB 15K RPM drive.
But this is a comparison on server drive components and we can actually see a more dramatic effect when we're talking
about the desktop storage market. In that market, you will actually pay DOUBLE for
1/4th the capacity on 73 GB 10K SATA RPM drives than
typical 300 GB 7200 RPM SATA hard drives. Now
the speed difference is more significant since the 7200 RPM drives have typical average seek times in the 8.9 millisecond
range and you have to add 4.17 milliseconds average rotational latency for a relatively pathetic access time of 13.07
milliseconds. The 10K RPM SATA drive designed for the enthusiast performance desktop market has an average access
time of 7.7 milliseconds. But since the 300 GB 7200 RPM drive is 4 times bigger than the 73 GB 10K drive, we can
actually use quarter stroking and end up with a high-performance 75 GB partition along with a 225 GB partition we can
use for large file archival such as a DVD collection.
By quarter stroking the 300 GB drive, we can actually shave 6.68 ms off the seek time which means we'll actually
end up with an average access time of 6.4 milliseconds which is significantly faster than the 10K RPM "performance"
drive. This means that PC enthusiasts are paying twice the money for a slower hard drive with a quarter of the
storage capacity!
IBM announced its new machine, the 5150, on 12 August 1981. It was no ordinary launch: the 5150 wasn't the 'big iron'
typical of Big Blue - it was a personal computer.
A 12-strong team was assembled under Don Estridge, the Development Director of the project, codenamed 'Chess'. Lewis
Eggebrecht was brought on board as Chief Designer.
Rather than create the 5150 from scratch, Estridge's engineers
used existing parts from a variety of other companies, seemingly in marked contrast with IBM tradition. The company
made a virtue out of the fact that it made the components used in its machines. When you bought an IBM computer, it
had IBM's imprimatur of quality through and through.
Throughout the entire test session we had a hard time getting rid of the feeling
that we are getting acquainted not with a new enthusiast platform, but with a new server and workstation solution. The
server roots of the LGA 2011 platform show themselves way too obviously. The server origin is noticeable in the design
of the semiconductor die with eight computational cores, in the processor characteristics
including enormous l3 cache, in the support of quad-channel but relatively slow memory controller.
The results of the performance tests can also be interpreted accordingly. LGA 2011
processors have more computational cores than their LGA 1155 counterparts, but they work
at lower clock speeds. Therefore the ideal application for the Sandy Bridge-E based newcomers will be multi-threaded
tasks, such as digital content creation and processing, for example. In other words, these are the tasks typical of
high-performance workstations in the first place.
As for the role of a general-purpose platform, LGA 2011 doesn't fit in too seamlessly.
Mainboards and processors that are part of the platform are very expensive, but in reality they don't deliver too many
advantages. Moreover, the flagship platform doesn't really do better than LGA 1155 in a number of usage models that
could be of interest to regular users, such as gaming, for example. Also the new platform doesn't support Quick Sync
technology. Moreover, its power consumption is through the roof and overclocking poses additional challenges and requires
super-efficient cooling.
In other words, there are not so many real advantages that could make the new LGA
2011 platform a dream come true for advanced users. In fact, there can be only two significant arguments in favor of
this platform. They are unprecedented multi-threaded performance and support of the fastest implementation of multi-GPU
configurations. However, these arguments will be convincing enough only for a small number of enthusiasts, while the
majority of users will still prefer LGA 1155 processors and mainboards. Especially since Core i7 family in LGA 1155
form-factor has recently been refreshed again and its performance rose to a higher level.
However, it will be psychologically difficult for the owners of LGA 1366 based
systems to migrate to LGA 1155, and this is when LGA 2011 may come in very handy. The introduction of progressive Sandy
Bridge microarchitecture in six-core processors turned out very fruitful: Core i7-3960X and Core i7-3930K outperform
Core i7-990X by about 10% on average, but in some cases this advantage reaches as far as 30%. The new platform has become
more interesting due to a fourth memory channel, PCI Express 3.0 controller integrated into the processor and simpler
single-chip core logic set.
But even if you are determined to upgrade to LGA 2011, you should keep in mind
the downsides of this decision, which result primarily from the rushed platform launch. By releasing desktop Sandy Bridge-E
processors ahead of their server modifications Intel accepted a number of compromises.
They used an old chipset under the new "X79 Express" name as an LGA 2011 core logic set, which not only has limited
functionality in terms of interfaces support, but differs significantly and in a negative way from what has been initially
promised. Today's Core i7 from the new 3000-series are based on Revision C core with significant power consumption and
not very high overclocking potential. Intel is planning to eliminate these issues, but only after the launch, so we
are in for some processor line-up refresh and maybe even a chipset upgrade. Therefore, until things get figured out
it is better to hold off the purchase even if you are certain the LGA 2011 platform is for you.
The Addonics portable RAID enclosure is an elegant solution for laptop users. I purchased it for use as a RAID 1
(mirrored storage) with my current model MacBook Pro while photographing in the field for long periods. The enclosure
provides settings for several RAID levels (O-5) as well as JBOD. That said it's very difficult to set up and the documentation
is minimal. I can't speak for PC users but with a Mac it's not currently possible to initialize drives according to
the manufacturer instructions via a USB connection. That leaves users with two work around possibilities that I was
able to figure out. 1. Initialize drives in a separate enclosure and install them into the Addonics enclosure. Drives
will then mount and RAID selections will work properly. 2. Format with one drive installed at a time in the Addonics
enclosure via eSATA connection (this was the work around I used). Once the drives are formatted the unit works as advertised.
The formatting difficulty on Mac has to do with some incompatibility between the Addonics enclosure and the Apple Disk
Utility. When attempting to initialize drives as per the instructions the Apple Disk Utility delivers an error message
stating "resource busy" and aborts the initialization. To complicate matters further the utility (Steel Vine) that Addonics
provides for setup will not install on a Mac ( I downloaded and installed successfully from the Silicon Image website).
If you are willing to go to the trouble to set it up -it's worth it. If not wait a bit for Addonics to work out the
bugs for Mac users. All that said it's the only portable solution that allows RAID 1 redundant storage which is very
useful for people generating valuable data in the field.
Update: I wrote this review before a firmware update was made available and my comments reflect the situation at
the time. When the updates were made available, I flashed my 5 drives and they've been working fine ever since. I'd
change the rating to a 4 star if the editor allowed.
I and many others have been experiencing serious problems with these drives including:
* dropping out of RAID configurations for no apparent reason
* being ejected from a RAID configuration due to read / write errors
* freezing for up to 30 seconds
These problems have been reported on Linux, Vista, XP, and OS X and appear to be related to how the drives flush
their write cache. In many cases, the drives work fine for days or weeks before problems appear. In my case, I bought
five of these for my Qnap TS-509 Pro and they worked great for about two weeks under various read / write loads. Since
then, I've had all three of the problems mentioned above on different drives and they are growing progressively worse.
The latest problem was three of the five drives disappearing from the RAID5 volume while I was attempting to copy the
files to a different NAS.
A work-around that has been successful for some is to disable the disk write cache. Other than the obvious performance
penalty and reduced lifespan this causes, some systems do not provide a means of disabling disk write cache (such as
the Qnap).
References to these problems can be found on many forum threads:
One concern with SSDs is longevity, since flash memory can only be written to a limited number of times. Intel's
wear-leveling technology spreads these writes out to aid longevity. The X-25M's mean time-before-failure rating of 1.2
million hours is double that of many consumer laptop drives. Intel says the drive can handle a workload of more than
100GB per day for five years. Since it's unlikely that you'll still be using an 80GB drive in late 2013, longevity isn't
likely to be a concern.
The drive's speed is rated at up to 250MB per second at sequential reads and 70MB per second for sequential writes.
We found performance exemplary, with HDTach sequential read results of 121MB per second, compared to 40MB per second
for a typical laptop hard drive. We copied the same drive image to a Seagate Momentus 5400.3 5,400rpm drive and to the
80GB X-25M, and saw dramatically higher speeds in every operation that used the SSD.
...Windows boot time decreased from 36.6 seconds to 25 seconds when we swapped in the SSD. Putting the laptop in
Hibernate mode-saving memory to disk but without using power like you do when you put the laptop to sleep-dropped from
16.4 seconds to 12.3. The time it took to load Word for the first time after booting dropped from 9.2 seconds to just
2.8 seconds. The system also feels more responsive in general; you never have to wait for the drive to spin up, so seek
time is almost infinitesimal, and multiple tasks accessing the drive at the same time (copying files while a virus check
is in progress, for instance) don't bog down the system like they do on a traditional drive.
Though its power consumption of 0.06 watts while idle is similar to that of a traditional laptop drive, to 1.8 to
2 watts for the Seagate Momentus drive we replaced) can result in up to a half-hour of additional battery life, depending
on how much you access the drive.
... ... ...
Performance-wise, the X-25M noticeably improved responsiveness in both the budget netbook and the fast gaming notebook
in which we tested it. It's so fast, in fact, that you might consider using it with a mounting adapter as the boot drive
in a desktop PC.
For $20 a month, you can email and text to your heart's content with no limit and no contract. If you're willing
to sign on for three months at a time, it's $50, or $16.67 a month, and for a full year, it's $180, or $15 a month.
Unlimited lifetime usage of the device is $250 up front.
Asus chairman Jonney Shih sprang a surprise during Intel's Computex keynote today with the announcement of a $189
laptop.
The notebook measures roughly 120 x 100 x 30mm (WDH) and weighs only 900g. We saw the notebook boot in 15 seconds
from its solid-state hard disk. The huge auditorium then burst into applause as Shih revealed the astounding price tag.
Dubbed the 3ePC, Shih claimed the notebook is the 'lowest cost and easiest PC to use'. As
the crowds rushed the stage, we sneaked off to the Asus stand to take a closer look.
The notebook uses a custom-written Linux operating system, much like the
OLPC, though unlike the OLPC,
Asus has chosen a more conventional interface. The desktop looked fairly similar to Windows and we saw Firefox running
on one 3ePC. A spokesperson from Asus told us that the notebook would come with "an office suite that's compatible with
MS Office", though he refused to confirm or deny whether that meant OpenOffice.
He claimed the 3ePC would be available in all areas of the world,
not only developing nations.
The low price comes from some interesting design choices, primarily the flash-based hard disk. A disk of today's
standard capacity would cost more than notebook itself as we saw with the
32GB Samsung disk, but Asus
uses a 2GB disk. We were not allowed to touch the 3ePC so couldn't tell how much of this is left after the bespoke OS
is installed.
The CPU also remains a mystery, though Shih said the version on show did have 512MB of RAM. Another version will
be available for $299, but nobody could tell us what the difference between the two models is.
Well, Power architecture is increasingly going head-on against Itanium in many large deals,
even sinking the good ship Itanic in some situations with - believe or not - lower prices!
And improved performance with better compilers, more superdense high-bandwidth machine
like the superb p655+, where two 8-way single MCM systems with 1.7+ GHz POWER4+ processors fit within a 4U space! So,
16 systems and some 880+ GFLOPs of peak 64-bit power get squeezed into a single rack - 4 times the density of HP Itanium2!
Put a nice shared-memory interconnect like the increasingly popular Bristol product, Quadrics QsNet, and you got a nasty
supercomputing monster.
And, these can run 64-bit Linux (almost) as well as their home OS, AIX.
The memory bandwidth of each eight-way box is 51.2 GB/s,
or eight times that of a four-way Intel Itanium2, or 11 times that of a four-way Sun USIII box. Of course, Rmax (the
obtainable percentage of FLOPS in Linpack FP bench) is right now far less on Power4 than on Itanium2 - 60% vs almost
90% - but the extra frequency and greater memory bandwidth more than make up for that in many apps.
Towards the end of the year, the multithreaded POWER5 will also dramatically improve
the FP benchmark scores, not to mention twice the CPU density, a quarter larger cache, even higher memory bandwidth
and lower latency. But don't expect major clock speed improvements, the focus was on real performance and reliability
benefits - as if chip-kill memory, eLiza self-healing, and per-CPU logical partitioning was not enough...
Finally, the existing SuSE and coming RedHat Linux on POWER4 and its follow-ons, natively
64-bit of course, aim to give extra legitimacy to it being "an open platform" at least as much as Itanium is.
On the low-end, the PowerPC 970 - or POWER4 Lite, might (or pretty much will be now that
Motorola G5 is down the drain) the basis of Apple's next generation Mac platform - it's 64-bit ticket to the future.
With its low power - down to less than 16W in low-power mobile 1.2 GHz mode, it will also enable very dense server blades
and of course POWERful 64-bit ThinkPads or PowerBooks running AIX size="2" face="Arial">For IBM then, Opteron makes
sense as an excellent tool to corner Intel, with POWER on high end and Opteron on low-end, both 64-bit and both soon
manufactured by IBM Microelectronics? No, I didn't say both owned by IBM, even though that is a possibility: AMD does
need a sugar daddy, not a sugar mommy. Got my hint who the feisty "sugar mommy" could be?
What about the other major vendor, from SUN-ny California? Well, UltraSPARCIIIi is finally
out, no surprise there, it helps a bit but is still far behind all other major CPUs (except MIPS) in most benchmarks.
Yes, Sun's mantra of something like "we don't care about speed, we focus on our brand etc" can continue, but what is
computing if not about speed and performance?
Still no sign of US IV anyway, and even when it comes, don't expect much of extra per-thread
performance over US III - When (and if) it really rolls out in volumes towards yearend, it will have to fight both POWER5
and Madison2, both very powerful beasts on the rise, backed by humungous ruthless megacompanies - each of which can
eat Sun as an appetiser.
You can read hundreds of pages of Net discussions about the particular merits and demerits
of SPARC vs other architectures, from all sides and viewpoints, but the fact remains - SPARC is the turtle of the 64-bit
world, slow and maybe long-lived compared to, say, Alpha, but even turtles have to die at some point... and before they
die, they become extremely slow...
64-bit Opteron is fast in some things compared to the rest of the gang, and not so fast
in others, but whatever the case, current and future Opterons are vastly superior performance and feature wise to low-end
and midrange SPARC offerings at umpteen times lower cost. Plus, they are as 64-bit as SPARC (or any other 64-bit CPU)
is... so Sun taking Opteron would be simply common sense...
THIS ARTICLE hopes to cast some light on why 64-bit addressing,
that is, the native mode of the Opteron or Itanium versus that of the Athlon or Pentium is important in 2003. It also
attempts to address what the requirements are and - equally importantly - are not.
Before we start, an easy one. Why 64-bit and not 48-bit? Because it costs little more
to extend a 32-bit ISA to 64-bit than to only 48-bit, and most people like powers of two. In practice, many of the hardware
and operating system interfaces will be less than 64 bits, sometimes as few as 40 bits, but the application interfaces
(i.e. the ones the programmers and users will see) will all be 64-bit.
There are several non-reasons quoted on the Internet; one is as arithmetic performance.
64-bit addressing does not change floating-point, and is associated with 64-bit integer arithmetic; while it is easy
to implement 32-bit addressing with 64-bit arithmetic or vice versa, current designs don't. Obviously 64-bit makes arithmetic
on large integers faster, but who cares? Well, the answer turns out to be anyone who uses RSA-style public key cryptography,
such as SSH/SSL, and almost nobody else.
On closer inspection, such use is dominated by one operation (NxN->2N multiplication),
and that is embedded in a very small number of places, usually specialist library functions. While moving from 32 to
64 bits does speed this up, it doesn't help any more than adding a special instruction to SSE2 would. Or any less, for
that matter. So faster arithmetic is a nice bonus, but not a reason for the change.
File pointers are integers, so you can access only 4GB files with 32 bits, right? Wrong.
File pointers are structures on many systems, and files of more than than 4GB have been supported for years on a good
many 32-bit systems. Operations on file pointers are usually well localized and are normally just addition, subtraction
and comparison anyway. Yes, going to 64-bits makes handling large files in some programs a bit easier, but it isn't
critical.
Let's consider the most common argument against 64-bit: compatibility.
Almost all RISC/Unix systems support old 32-bit applications on 64-bit systems, as did
IBM on MVS/ESA, and there is a lot of experience on how to do it almost painlessly for users and even programmers.
Microsoft has a slightly harder time because of its less clean interfaces, but it is
a solved problem and has been for several decades.
Now let's get onto some better arguments for 64-bit. One is that more than 4GB of physical
memory is needed to support many active, large processes and memory map many, large files - without paging the system
to death. This is true, but it is not a good argument for 64-bit addressing. The technique that Intel and Microsoft
call PAE (Physical Address Extension) allows 64 GB of physical memory but each process can address only 4GB. For most
sites in 2003, 64GB is enough to be getting on with.
IBM used this technique in MVS, and it worked very well indeed for transaction servers,
interactive workloads, databases, file servers and so on. Most memory mapped file interfaces have the concept of a window
on the file that is mapped into the process's address space - PAE can reduce the cost of a window remapping from that
of a disk transfer (milliseconds) to that of a simple system call (microseconds). So this is a rather weak reason for
going to 64-bit addressing, though it is a good one for getting away from simple 32-bit.
Now, let's consider the second most common argument against 64-bit: efficiency. Doubling
the space needed for pointers increases the cache size and bandwidth requirements, but misses the point that efficiency
is nowadays limited far more by latency than bandwidth, and the latency is the same. Yes, there was a time when the
extra space needed for 64-bit addresses was a major matter, but that time is past, except perhaps for embedded systems.
So 64-bit addressing is unnecessary but harmless except on supercomputers? Well, not
quite. There are some good reasons, but they are not the ones usually quoted on the Internet or in marketing blurb.
The first requirement is for supporting shared memory applications (using, say, OpenMP
or POSIX threads) on medium or large shared memory systems. For example, a Web or database server might run 256 threads
on 16 CPUs and 32GB. This wouldn't be a problem if each thread had its own memory, but the whole point of the shared
memory programming model is that every thread can access all of the program's global data. So each thread needs to be
able to access, say, 16GB - which means that 32-bit is just not enough.
A more subtle point concerns memory layout. An application that needs 3GB of workspace
might need it on the stack, on the main heap (data segment), in a shared memory segment or in memory set aside for I/O
buffers. The problem is that the location of those various areas is often fixed when the program is loaded, so the user
will have to specify them carefully in 32-bit systems to ensure that there is enough free space in the right segment
for when the program needs its 3GB.
Unfortunately, this choice of where to put the data is often made by the compiler or
library, and it is not always easy to find out what they do. Also, consider the problem of an administrator tuning a
system for multiple programs with different characteristics. Perhaps worst is the case of a large application that works
in phases, each of which may want 2GB in a different place, though it never needs more than 3 GB at any one time. 64-bit
eliminates this problem.
To put the above into a commercial perspective, almost all general purpose computer vendors
make most of their profit (as distinct from turnover) by selling servers and not workstations. 64-bit addressing has
been critical for some users of large servers for several years now, and has been beneficial to most of them. In 2003,
64-bit is needed by some users of medium sized servers and useful to most; by 2005, that statement could be changed
to say `small' instead of 'medium sized'. That is why all of the mainframe and RISC/Unix vendors moved to 64-bit addressing
some time ago, and that is why Intel and AMD are following.
On the other hand, if you are interested primarily in ordinary, single user workstations,
what does 64-bit addressing give you today? The answer is precious little. The needs of workstations have nothing to
do with the matter, and the move to 64-bit is being driven by server requirements. µ
Nick Maclaren has extensive experience of computing platforms
The Last but not LeastTechnology is dominated by
two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt.
Ph.D
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When you have dual drives your priority is reliability. ...,
James Niccolai IDG News Service
James Niccolai
