With stories abounding of identity theft aided by information lifted from discarded storage devices, you want devices you no longer plan to use to have no usable information when they head out the door. Here’s how to wipe them clean. More

Scientists have developed a new type of semiconductor structure—using microscopic crystals called magnetic quantum dots —that could more than double current hard drive storage capacity. That’s just for starters. The crystals themselves aren’t new; they’ve been around for over a decade in computer chips, solar cells, and LEDs, according to CBC News . This particular application, though, is unprecedented: The new work, reported today in the journal Nature Materials, describes a class of quantum dots that not only control electrons, but also have good magnetic properties allowing them to read the electron’s spin.

Turning aged hard drives into clocks has been a common occurrence for years now , but there’s still something magical about this rendition. Designed and crafted by Svofski, the Strobeshnik relies on the stroboscopic effect to create the illusion of a persistent numeric display. The HDD platter itself has ten digits, colon and dash marks cut all the way through it, and by carefully timing the light strobes, the illusion is perfected. Check out a video of the startup just below the break — and be patient, the payoff is spectacularly sweet. Continue reading Strobeshnik: probably the most awesome hard drive clock of all time Strobeshnik: probably the most awesome hard drive clock of all time originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 07 Mar 2010 22:48:00 EST

An SSD is something that you wish you had : they’re fast, efficient, and quiet. Now Western Digital has introduced SiliconEdge Blue , the first line of consumer SSDs from one of the biggest names in storage. Too bad they’re overpriced. There’s no questioning that SiliconEdge Blue is more than capable, with 240 - 250MB/sec read speeds and write rates at around 140 - 150MB/sec.

Don’t expect to read a book on ‘em, but Western Digital’s latest My Passport Studio hard drives feature a customizable e-paper display that stays on even when the drive is unplugged. (e-paper is all the rage in external drives lately, and we’ve already seen Western Digital make the upgrade in their larger externals .) Aside from the display, the My Passport Studios are preformatted for Macs (though they’ll run just fine on a PC with a reformat), connect over USB or FireWire 800 and range in price from $150 (for 320GB) to $200 (for 640GB). They’re available now. [ Western Digital ] WD(R) Introduces New My Passport(TM) Studio(TM) Portable Drives, Delivering Super-Fast, Go-Anywhere Performance for Mac(R) Computers E-Label Smart Display Helps Creative Professionals Organize Their Storage LAKE FOREST, Calif., March 1 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — WD® (NYSE: WDC), the world’s leader in external storage solutions, today introduced its new My Passport™ Studio™ portable drives featuring the super-fast FireWire® 800 interface and a customizable e-label that’s always visible, even when the drive is unplugged.

Raidon Hybrid Disk puts together a Solid State Drive with a hard drive that backups data, just in case the former goes to hell in ball of fire and data loss mayhem. No price or capacities yet. [ Raidon via MacWorld ]

Raidon Hybrid Disk puts together a Solid State Drive with a hard drive that backups data, just in case the former goes to hell in ball of fire and data loss mayhem. No price or capacities yet. [ Raidon via MacWorld ]

These 1GB lightsaber flash drives may have been imported from Japan and they may light up when plugged in, but they still don’t feel quite right without some woosh-woosh-zzwoommm-zwing sound effects. Worth $20 without those? [ ThinkGeek via Nerd Approved ]

When on vacation and not wanting to tote around two laptops and three spare external drives, it’s nice to have a gadget to dump and view photos on. Sanho’s HyperDrive Album could be that gadget—if it weren’t overpriced. The HyperDrive Album is supposed to serve as a way of clearing out your memory cards and backing up your treasured moments without a computer’s intervention. And it does just that with a 640GB capacity, 2GB per minute transfer speed, and a 4.8-inch display to double check that all went well.

There’s something I love about CompactFlash cards—speed, and toughness—versus SD. The CompactFlash 5.0 spec takes them to a new level: 144 petabytes of possible storage, and exponentially faster transfer speeds (from 128KB per transfer unit to 32MB). I have to say, I can’t wait to get one of these inside a 1080p video-shooting DSLR. And jeez, the CF Association’s website is so damn 1998.