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I Just Got a Panasonic GH4 – Now What? Hard Drives.
UPDATE 20140806 Amazon just dropped the price for the 4TB to $279, the 6TB to only $349 and the 8TB to $449!
Here’s the direct link http://amzn.to/1sfQANg
The G-Tech SPEED Studio and RAID Studio line got company, and it seems surprisingly good. Western Digital just launched an updated “My Book Duo” line.
The My Book Duo consists of two mechanical hard drives, and ships preconfigured as RAID 0 for maximum performance, but almost no safety in terms of data management. Luckily, users can opt for RAID 1 for increased data protection or JBOD in order to use each drive individually. Also keep in mind that the drives arrive formatted NTFS for Windows 8 or higher, Windows 7 or Windows Vista operating system, so it requires reformatting for Mac OS X.
Features:
- High-speed performance with up to 290 MB/s file transfers
- Dual-drive enclosure with up to 12 TB capacity
- 256-bit AES hardware encrypted RAID
- Multiple data management options: RAID 0,1; JBOD
- Shipped pre-formatted for Windows in RAID 0 mode
- Cloud backup with Dropbox
- Local and cloud backup
- WD SmartWare Pro integrated automatic backup software
Speed and Capacity:
A slight disadvantage over G-Tech’s Studio line is that the Duo features USB 3.0 connectivity and not Thunderbolt. But, if you have an “older” Mac or a PC this is actually an advantage.
Important: The PREVIOUS batch of My Book Duo had only USB 2.0. So make sure you get the right one!
Western Digital claims up to 290 MB/s transfer speeds which is not far from G-Tech’s 360 MB/s on the G-RAID Studio line. G-Tech claimed speed on the G-SPEED line is almost twice as fast, but so is the price, and that’s where the Duo shines.
The product comes in flavors: 4TB, 6TB, and 8TB.
- WD My Book Duo 4TB dual-drive, high-speed premium RAID storage goes for
$329.99$279 - WD My Book Duo 6TB dual-drive, high-speed premium RAID storage goes for
$429.99$349 - WD My Book Duo 8TB dual-drive, high-speed premium RAID storage goes for
$529.99$449
In a nutshell, you basically pay $330 for 4TB and then $100 for every additional 2TB. Pretty simple and a very good deal. As a comparison, G-Tech’s G-RAID Studio 8TB go for $849.95 and the G-Tech Studio 12TB goes for $1,299.95.
What really got our attention:
The Duo ALSO includes a copy of WD SmartWare Pro and a a copy of Acronis True Image. We haven’t used and most likely won’t use these apps as we LOVE and completely trust Chrosnosync.
Another surpising and really cool feature from the Duo is the direct Dropbox integration (get 2.5GB FREE with this link): you can set up the WD My Book Duo so that everything on your Dropbox account gets backed up, or you can also access data that you save to the cloud via Dropbox. The hard drive can password protected by 256-bit AES encryption, which is ideal in large studio situations or when sharing desks at a tech incubator.
The Verdict?
We are definitively getting a couple WD My Book Duo 6TB. What about you?
Feel free to share your thoughts with us via Twitter.
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Hello Google Drive, bye bye Dropbox?
UPDATED 20141027: Dropbox fights back. Starting now, Dropbox has considerably dropped the monthly price, effectively matching the best offer in town, Google. Now both services cost only $10/month for 1TB (1,000GB). wow….
Dropbox Pro – $10/month
Google Drive – $10/month
Why is Google Drive so cool, you might ask. Well, so it happens that you get 5GB for free and you can get up to 100GB. Dropbox offers only 2GB for free. Is that enough to switch? Let’s see what Google has to say about the new service:
Create and collaborate. Google Docs is built right into Google Drive, so you can work with others in real-time on documents, spreadsheets and presentations. Once you choose to share content with others, you can add and reply to comments on anything (PDF, image, video file, etc.) and receive notifications when other people comment on shared items.
Store everything safely and access it anywhere (especially while on the go). All your stuff is just… there. You can access your stuff from anywhere—on the web, in your home, at the office, while running errands and from all of your devices.
Search everything. Search by keyword and filter by file type, owner and more. Drive can even recognize text in scanned documents using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology. Let’s say you upload a scanned image of an old newspaper clipping. You can search for a word from the text of the actual article. We also use image recognition so that if you drag and drop photos from your Grand Canyon trip into Drive, you can later search for [grand canyon] and photos of its gorges should pop up. This technology is still in its early stages, and we expect it to get better over time.
I use Google Drive on Mac, my Android tablet and my Android phone and everything is working REALLY smoothly. A PC version is already available, and Google says that the iOS version will be “coming soon.” You can download the app here and here.
I have been using Dropbox for a long time and I’ve been pretty happy. But it only gets you 2GB for free, the system is confusing for most people who move the file thinking that they are copying it, the notification system (when someone adds or removes an item) sucks and does not have OCR technology.
click here to keep reading (more…)
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The Cloud Wars.
Adobe recently announce that “everyone can join the Creative Cloud,” and while customers will have access to a free membership to explore certain features, a monthly price of US$50 (based on a one-year subscription) has been set. The idea is that users can access the latest version of Adobe’s popular programs (like Photoshop CS6 and Lightroom 4), without buying the boxed version and subsequent upgrades. In addition to receiving updates to the programs as soon as they are released, users also get 20GB of cloud storage for syncing their work.
On Amazon, Adobe Photoshop CS5
At the same time Adobe set the “Creative Cloud” pricing, Amazon lowered their S3 storage rates. Small businesses with fairly typical 50 TB of data capacity, will see a 12% reduction in costs. Bigger companies storing up to 500 TB of data will enjoy a 13.5% reduction in costs.