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Posts Tagged ‘Digital’s’

ProGrade Digital’s new CFexpress Type B cards offer read speeds up to 1,700MB/S

10 Jun
The two capacities available in ProGrade Digital’s ‘Cobalt label’

ProGrade Digital has announced the release of its new CFexpress Type B memory cards, which offer higher capacities and improved speeds over previous-generation CFexpress cards.

The new CFexpress Type B cards use an NVMe host interface with PCIe Gen3 X2 to offer read speeds up to 1,700MB/s and burst write speeds up to 1,500MB/s — that’s 1.7GB/s and 1.5GB/s, respectively for the ‘Cobalt label’ cards. In addition to the ‘Cobalt label’ cards, ProGrade Digital is also launching a line of ‘Gold label’ CFexpress Type B cards that offers up to 1,700MB/s read speeds, but only guarantees a sustained write speed up to 400MB/s, depending on the card capacity.

The smallest and largest capacity CFexpress Type B cards in ProGrade Digital’s ‘Gold label’

On the topic of capacity, the ‘Cobalt label’ cards are available in 325GB and 650GB sizes, while the ‘Gold label’ cards come in 128GB, 256GB, 512GB and 1TB sizes. The cards are constructed of a metal enclosure for improved durability and heat dissipation and are both X-ray proof and shock-proof.

The ‘Cobalt label’ cards start at $ 400 for the 325GB model (Adorama, B&H) and the ‘Gold label’ cards start at $ 160 for the 128GB model (B&H). All cards come with a three-year warranty and can be found at authorized ProGrade Digital retailers.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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ProGrade Digital’s new microSDXC cards offer faster speeds at lower prices

30 Apr

ProGrade Digital has released an updated line of UHS-II microSDXC cards that offer improved read and write speeds at a lower cost than ProGrade’s previous microSDXC lineup.

The new microSDXC UHS-II V60 memory cards feature read and burst write speeds up to 250MB/s and 130MB/s, respectively, a 50MB/s increase in both departments compared to their predecessors. Sustained, the cards only guarantee 60MB/s write speeds, as denoted by the V60 label. Despite the increased performance, the lineup, which now includes a 256GB option will retail for much less than the cards they’re replacing.

The 64GB, 128GB and 256GB cards retail for $ 34.99, $ 54.99 and $ 99.99, respectively; that’s $ 15 and $ 45 less than the previously available 64GB and 128GB cards, respectively. In addition to a three-year warranty, all cards will come with a UHS-II SD adapter and ProGrade’s Refresh Pro software for keeping tabs on the health of the cards.

It doesn’t appear as though other retails have listed the new cards yet, but both the 64GB and 128GB versions are available to purchase on ProGrade Digital’s website. The 256GB option will be available sometime in the second quarter of 2020, according to ProGrade Digital.

The old 200MB/s microSDXC cards The newer 250MB/s microSDXC cards

Something worth keeping in mind when looking for these cards is to make sure you’re getting these new, updated cards, rather than the old cards. The design on the cards is effectively identical with the only noticeable difference being the read speeds printed on the cards. The old cards will read ‘200MB/s’ while the new cards will read ‘250MB/s.’

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Western Digital’s new 12TB hard drive offers lots of storage and class-leading reliability

18 Sep

Western Digital is upping the internal storage ante with a new WD Gold drive that measures in at a whopping 12TB. The new WD Gold 12TB is a twelve-terabyte 7200RPM 3.5″ SATA 6Gb/s hard drive with the company’s 4th-gen HelioSeal, a technology that seals the drive with Helium to improve efficiency and reliability.

Western Digital is marketing the drive at IT managers, enterprises, and similar, but it is suitable for anyone who have a large amount of data to store… hint hint.

This 12TB model is the latest expansion in Western Digital’s WD Gold drive lineup, which also offers 8TB and 10TB capacities with 256MB cache, and even lesser capacities (down to 1TB) with 128MB cache. The drive stands out among other 3.5″ HDDs, according to Western Digital, because of its 550TB/year workload rating. Other features include enhanced RAFF tech to protect against vibrations, time-limited error recovery, real time fly height adjustment, and compatibility with all major desktop operating systems.

In other words: lots of storage meets class-leading reliability.

The WD Gold 12TB hard drive is available now from Western Digital for $ 522 USD.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Western Digital’s new SSDs offer faster speeds and higher capacities

02 Jun

Hard disk manufacturer Western Digital acquired SSD specialist SanDisk last year. Now we are seeing the first fruits of the new relationship in the shape of two new SSD lineups – one under each company’s brand name – that are the first to deploy SanDisk’s new 64-layer 3D NAND chips. According to Western Digital the new chips offer ‘lower power consumption and higher performance, endurance and capacities.’

The new Western Digital Blue and SanDisk Ultra 3D lines are identical in terms of capacity, controllers and performance specs but Western Digital’s lineup includes a device in M.2 2280 format factor, which SanDisk’s doesn’t.

According to the spec sheets performance should be very good. The 256GB versions read at 550 MB/s and write at 525 MB/s. The larger capacity SSDs are even a touch quicker at 550 MB/s and 560 MB/s respectively. And the new SSDs are not only fast but also reliable. Western Digital states the mean time to failure (MTTF) of all devices as 1.75 million hours. If you think the new drives could help fulfill your storage and archiving needs, you’ll be happy to hear they are quite affordable; 256GB drives start at $ 100. Pricing information for the larger 500GB, 1TB and 2TB models is not available yet.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Western Digital’s My Book Thunderbolt Duo, An Awesome Way to More Securely Store Your Photos

06 Oct

Western Digital's My Book Thunderbolt Duo, An Awesome Way to More Securely Store Your Photos

For the past month or so I’ve been testing out one of the 8TB Western Digital My Book Thunderbolt Duos and I have to say I dig it. Before trying this out, my entire storage setup was built around Drobos. I’ve got 2 Drobo 5Ds with 15TB each in them and a Drobo Mini.

I was interested to see what the performance would be like with Western Digital’s large storage solution and I have to say I’m a fan.

What I like about it:

1. It’s quiet. So quiet. My Drobos are not bad, but the Western Digital My Book Thunderbolt Duo is even quieter. You don’t even know it’s on or there, except for the tiny little pinhole light that is on in the front, and of course you see it on your Mac. For some reason one of my Drobo 5Ds feels like it almost goes to sleep sometimes. When I try to access it in the finder I have to wait a few seconds and I hear it powering up a bit. This doesn’t happen with the My Book Thunderbolt Duo.

2. Thunderbolt is sooooo fast. Whoever invented Thunderbolt should get a Nobel prize for speed. I can’t believe how quickly I can copy hundreds of gigabytes of photos around.

3. The Duo is a bit cheaper than the Drobo for those who may be on more of a budget and need less storage. To get 4TB of replicated storage on a Drobo 5D I’d have to buy about 6TB worth of drives. This would cost me about $ 800. You can buy an 8TB My Book Thunderbolt Duo for about $ 650 or so. You can mirror the drives so that you get two copies of everything or about 4TB of replicated storage. Because the Western Digital My Book Thunderbolt Duo doesn’t rely on a proprietary format for replication, if one drive fails, you would always have a perfect backup copy on the other. I haven’t had a problem with Drobo’s proprietary format before, but it’s something that some folks have criticized in the past.

4. Primary data is automatically backed up. I can’t use a backup strategy that requires my manual contribution. With both the Drobos and the My Book Thunderbolt Duo your primary versions of photos are more secure.

5. The Western Digital My Book Thunderbolt Duo is smaller than the Drobo 5D and much lighter.

Setting up the My Book Thunderbolt Duo was easy. It’s just plug and play. Similar to my Drobos.

I know a lot of people will probably comment on this post about how they are doing things even cheaper by building their own solution with their own replicated in home RAID servers, etc. That’s just great, but I’m not a very technical guy when it comes to computer hardware and I’d wayyyyy rather pay a little bit more and have a Thunderbolt solution that is just plug and play, without me having to do any work, or do any coding, or manually buying and installing drives into a server body and all that. Different strokes for different folks though and each person should do whatever works best for them.

There is also a 4TB and 6TB version of the My Book Thunderbolt Duo. You can learn more about them including all of the technical specs on Western Digital’s site here.

Mmmmm... 8TB of @westerndigital storage. Looking forward to trying this puppy out!

A HUGE disclaimer on any device like the Drobo or My Book Thunderbolt Duo. These solutions may protect you against hard drive failure, but they will not protect you against fire, theft, etc. For that reason you may also want to incorporate both offsite and/or cloud storage to whatever your backup strategy may be. I see replicated hard drives really only as a first line of defense. In my own case I also purchased a large fireproof gun safe and when I’m out of the house or on a trip or something I usually lock my drives up in there. I also have off site backup storage for my images and I’m actually working on a plan this year to begin moving my offsite storage into a bank security deposit vault.

The book next to the My Book Thunderbolt Duo by the way to compare size is the excellent expanded edition version of Robert Frank’s The Americans which was reissued a few years back and is *highly* recommended. One of the best photography books ever published. It’s one I go back to and revisit over and over again.


Thomas Hawk Digital Connection

 
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