Dropbox encrypts the data but keeps the key

Dropbox, a cloud storage service very popular, is the center of a controversy: the data, advertised as 256-bit AES encrypted, are available to company employees. Indeed, the company has a copy of the encryption key for one simple reason: it needs to limit the costs of storage service. Explain. Start from a specific point: the storage has a cost.

And therefore, the amount of data stored has an impact on the company's accounts. To try to limit these costs, Dropbox integrates management of duplicate files at the server level: a file is physically present only once on Dropbox, even if multiple users send. The interest is double-side Dropbox: firstly, it is stored pressed once (and not five, ten, a hundred times) and secondly there is a gain bandwidth, since the sending a file is already present snapshot, regardless of its actual size.

PlayStation Vita memory cards owners

At E3, Sony revealed its PlayStation Vita, who will succeed the PSP, but rather little about the storage at the console. And obviously, these are cards based flash memory to be used. Pictures taken at E3 shows maps physically close enough Memory Stick M2 (Micro) and micro SD but still different: Sony seems to yield to his old demons and use maps in a proprietary format.

Capacities are shown in the average 4 to 32 GB cards in question are expected to store data such as movies or games downloaded and course backups. Sony also announced at the first announcement of the console, the games are stored on memory cards with an interesting twist: a portion of the map will be reserved for backups and DLC (Downloaded Content) while the part containing the game is read only.

A USB 3.0 based ... SandForce

Super Talent offers an interesting USB: USB 3.0, it will use a controller type SandForce. It is quite logical: USB flash drives are - by definition - of SSDs, and the difference in performance between a conventional SSD and a USB key is usually due to one problem: price. With the miniaturization of components, the arrival of 25-nm MLC memory and USB 3.0, it is now possible to offer USB flash drives with similar performance SSDs in a relatively compact format, even if this USB key type are not the champions at this level.

Micron starts to PCIe SSD for enterprise

A press release on the site of Micron says it launches on the market for PCI-Express SSD for data center and web servers with the new product family RealSSD P320h. The cards use SLC flash modules etched into 34 nm. Capacities vary between 350 GB and 700 GB Micron says it designed the controller reaches 750,000 IOPS read and write IOPS 341,000 for larger models and 298,000 IOPS for the smallest.

Kingston HyperX SandForce of SF-2281

Kingston showed a SSD at Computex HyperX shipping the new controller of SandForce SF-2281. It has a read speed of 525 Mb / s. This is the first time that Kingston uses a controller SandForce. The range is the high end market and will be split into version 120 GB and 240 GB are writing speeds of 480 Mb / s according to the statement.

SSDs use Intel NAND etched into 25 nm that provide 5000 cycles of writing - crash. Compatible with SATA 6Gb / s, the new HyperX is guaranteed for three years and will be sold July 11 next United States at a price still unknown. With this new controller, Kingston joined Corsair has already unveiled its SSDs using the same controller (see "From SandForce SF-2281 for Corsair Force 3).

Intel SSDs will be manufactured by Lite-On

Lite-On would have received an order to make Intel SSDs using a Marvell controller. That's what our colleagues at DigiTimes reports that explain that Lite-On should be responsible for assembling the Intel NAND chips and controller to produce a compatible SSD SATA 3 Gb / s. The firm had also received similar orders from Dell and Plextor.

If these reports are confirmed, this would mean that Intel would be preparing its next generation of SSD. One imagines that this is the range of chips using 20 nm (see "Intel announces flash memory in 20 nm).

• Intel's Larsen Creek SSDs leak out, courtesy of ASRock's Z68 motherboard (28/04/2011)
• Geek deals: Save $42 off Intel 510 Series 120GB SSD (25/04/2011)
• Intel announces third-generation SSD 320 series (29/03/2011)
• The Intel SSD 510 Review (02/03/2011)
• Intel Replaces Consumer SSD Line, Nixes SLC-SSD (28/03/2011)

Lite-On (homepage)  Lite-On (wikipedia)  Solid-state drive (wikipedia)  Intel Corporation (geolocation)  Intel (homepage)  NASDAQ: INTC (googlefinance)  SEHK: 4335 (googlefinance)  Intel (INTC) (wikinvest)  Intel (crunchbase)  Intel Corporation (wikipedia)  Intel Corporation (youtube)  

The father of the Compact Disc has left us

Norio Ohga, former CEO of Sony (1982-1995), died last Saturday at the age of 81. If his name does not say anything maybe some of you, know that it is (in part) to this man that we owe the famous definition of the format of Compact Disc. Norio Ohga has also made history by buying the Sony label, CBS Records and then renamed it Sony Music Entertainment, overseeing the acquisition of Columbia Pictures movie studios or by participating in the launch of the PlayStation.

Can we do a RAID disk 3.5 "?

Dear readers, have you had a good Easter weekend? Yes? So much the better, we! Forced to put our delicate skin geek safe from the aggression of the sun's rays, we embarked on a really good test: building a RAID0 cluster of USB floppy drives. But if you remember, the floppy disk 3.5 ", this soft stuff vaguely that some still use to flash the BIOS of their motherboards or graphics cards.

Not really suitable for the RAID at the base, the old storage medium may still serve?

• Ready for the raid (25/04/2011)
• Data Robotics Drobo Storage Robot Enclosure (24/04/2011)
• Review: CRU-DataPort ToughTech Duo portable RAID array (20/04/2011)
• Keeping RAID Alive (19/04/2011)
• [LOTRO] Dev blog on raid difficulty (04/03/2011)

RAID (wikipedia)  

Memory cards 1 TB Sony

Sony just announced a new card "SRMemory" with a unique ability: 1 TB Designed for professional cameras that film in 4K, the cards are imposing SRMemory (105 x 60 x 9.5 mm, about 100 grams) and do the same size as a 2.5-inch hard disk. Adapters, as Sony makes clear, in fact incorporate a conventional internal SSD.

Several models are available with capacities of 256 GB, 512 GB and 1 TB Sony announces speeds of 3 gigabits / s constant on base models and 5 gigabits / s versions of "S" (available in 256 and 512 GB only). To get an idea of needs, a 1 TB model is capable of storing 50 minutes of video in 4K (RAW 16 bit to 24 fps), indicating a minimum rate of 330 Mb / s or so.

USB flash drives in RAID 0, what happens?

When working in high-tech press, it receives regular sticks containing press releases. And after a while, we a. .. much. So we had an idea: what if we put our keys USB in RAID 0. In fact, Mac OS X allows for software RAID sets with almost anything (we return to this point shortly) so we decided to plug in USB drives on the same computer to test the RAID 0.

The connection was simple: our test machine has only three USB ports. So we commandeered USB hubs in the newsroom for our little test. We had a powered USB hub with four ports, a USB 3.0 powered hub with four ports, a non powered USB hub with four ports, a non powered USB hub with three ports and a powered USB hub with two semi-ports (the MacBook Pro 1100 mA to send an Apple keyboard, instead of the usual 500 mA).

Blu-ray 100 GB rewritable

Panasonic is the first company to market Blu-ray XL (100 GB) rewritable. They will be sold in Japan initially priced at 10,000 yen each (about 85 €). The supports are scheduled for mid-April. Until now, Blu-ray recordable XL were once. The format was formalized in June. It has taken almost a year between the final specifications of BD-RE XL and its placing on the market.

Compatible recorders are already available. These media should primarily serve as storage solution for multimedia content.

• Superman: The Motion Picture Anthology Blu-ray set arrives June 7th (02/04/2011)
• DVD/Blu-ray release date. artwork and specs for THE ROOMMATE (30/03/2011)
• New Target Tangled Coupon (02/04/2011)
• TRON: LEGACY/TRON 5-Disc Blu-ray Collector's Set Review (03/04/2011)
• Disney's swapping out flawed Pinocchio Blu-ray discs (01/04/2011)

Blu-ray Disc (wikipedia)  

SSD USB 3.0 "shock"

Transcend offers a new amazing product: a shockproof SSD. The SSD is a SSD18C3 external interfaces with USB 3.0, which is installed in a housing intended to withstand shocks. It is an amazing new in the sense that SSDs contain no mechanical parts and therefore resistant to the basic shock and vibration nuisance.

If Transcend SSD had placed in a shell of metal or plastic classic, the result would have been the same. For the rest, the company said that the DSS can achieve 260 MB / s read once interfaced with USB 3.0 and it is obviously compatible with USB 2.0. Not stated capacity, or price. But when we know the SSD market, we know that capacity is necessarily limited to a maximum of 512 GB and the price very high.

• A Late Adopter's Guide To USB 3.0 (26/03/2011)
• Superspeed USB 3.0 Flash Card Readers Will Transfer Your Pics, Movies Superfast (29/03/2011)
• RunCore USB 3.0 Express SSD offers 64GB of storage and two ports in one killer device (10/02/2011)
• USB 3.0 - Do You Need It? (28/03/2011)
• Expensive, Yet Fast Describe Iomega's USB 3.0 SSD Flash Drives [Ssd] (15/10/2010)

Universal Serial Bus (wikipedia)  Solid-state drive (wikipedia)  

Freebox: NAS or not to tax?

Interestingly, when the output of the Freebox Revolution, the company has avoided tax on the private copying by playing on a point of the legislation: as "storage systems qualified and certified to operate simultaneously with 3 operating systems "are not subject to tax on private copying, storage space of the Freebox, which is sold as a NAS, is exempt from tax.

One thing that denies SFR: the company believes that Free is offering is nothing more than a hard disk storage for the "TV" from the Freebox, which is indeed the case, the Freebox Player using the hard disk to store data. SFR, only part of the 250 GB hard drive is accessible: offer customers free 40 GB, with the option to "activate" 80 GB or 160 GB by paying a lump sum, close to the value of tax private copying, 15 or 30 €.

Intel SSDs 320 for late March

320 Intel SSDs should be placed on the market earlier than originally planned. They are expected for March 28 next year and would run between $ 109 and $ 1,119 depending on the variations ranging from 40 GB to 600 GB Earlier this month, the information on these Postville Refresh asserted that Intel provided an outlet for mid-April (see "Intel SSD 320 Series for mid-April).

As a reminder, these SSD X25-M to succeed. They have memory chips etched into 25 nm (see "Life of DSS in 25 nm, it would have died [3]), unlike the Intel 510 that make use of chips in 34 nm confirms SSDs LaCie 510 Intel "). Intended for the midrange market, and small and medium enterprises or the embedded market, they offer 39,500 IOPS read and 23,000 IOPS write 4 KB, respectively.

ArcFinity: 1404 TB of storage

SGI, best known for its 3D workstations for its storage servers, offers a new range of servers, ArcFinity. The solution offers between 176 and 1404 TB TB of storage via a server-based Xeon 56xx from Intel. The system uses NFS for storage and an internal system achieves high performance using what the company calls a "primary disk cache." This is actually an ensemble of fast disk that is used as cache and the system will then move the data to the storage space conventional slower.

Mac OS X Snow Leopard supports TRIM

A few days ago, we reported that the beta of Mac OS X Leo took care of TRIM on the SSD from Apple (and only those from Apple). It seems that the latest version of Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.6.6 that came with the new MacBook Pro also supports TRIM, at least with the SSD from Apple. Recall that if Apple has historically used the Samsung models - the company offers SSDs since 2008 - the current models are using a controller Toshiba SSD and memory from the Japanese company.

TRIM, GC and DSS point

Preamble: 18 months ago, when the introduction of the TRIM command, we wrote about the value of technology and how it works right. It seemed interesting, when the majority of SSD support this command to return to this technology. Remember that Windows 7, during its "server" and Linux support the TRIM command.

For Mac OS X, it will be Mac OS X 10.7, Lion. Before seeing how to fix it, see where it came from. Typically, SSDs are working with an allocation table that is not synchronized with the file system: write a file at the beginning of the file system does not necessarily write the file here on the SSD (there not even, strictly speaking, the beginning and end).

Thunderbolt: hard drives for Nikon SLR

The first devices Thunderbolt begin to appear. There are obviously hard, but rumors say that we could see the protocol on many other devices. LaCie announced it will update its line of external hard drives Little Big Disk. The first models Thunderbolt should arrive later this year. The company has officially refused to give a more precise date.

Behind the curtains, she nevertheless speaks of summer, or mid-September. They have the advantage of being completely bus-powered and carry two Intel SSD 510. Seagate and Western Digital have also made announcements to mark their support for this technology. It was expected to press him, because he supported the LightPeak, now known as the Thunderbolt, from the start alongside Intel and Apple.

Problems to erase data from a DSS

Researchers at the University of California San Diego published a study explaining the methods used to erase data on a hard drive does not work on SSD. On magnetic media that we all know, put a paper in the trash and then empty it does not mean that data is lost forever. The system simply changes the allocation table and releases the occupied blocks still contain the information, until they have been rewritten.

Microsoft wants its ReadyBoost recussiter

Microsoft labs trying to improve performance by using flash memory. ReadyBoost is the story all over again. At the release of Windows Vista, Microsoft had a huge hype on its ReadyBoost technology which used to speed USB certified system. Instead of using main memory, some information was stored on the Flash device.

The problem is that the gains were nonexistent, Vista was the failure that we know and Microsoft stopped talking about it. Curiously, Redmond returned to the charge. The name of the technology has changed. He now speaks of FlashStore. He made no mention of USB, but explains that this is a flash memory which is interposed between the hard disk and RAM.