Category: Hard disk drive

The Pen is mightier than the megabyte!

Paul8 Replies

Mass storage device for PC. USB flash drives. Image via Wikipedia

As technicians we have way to many pen drives!

If you are like me, you probably have several different USB Flash drives laying around like I do.  I usually have special ones for special projects.   You’d probably have one for Virus removal and another one for fixing Hard Drives like Spinrite.   A few years ago, I would have 6 to 10 Pen drives for just those special occasions.   I’d even have one for all my saved games and other important files that I might need.

One Pen Drive to rule them all, One Pen Drive to find them,
One Pen Drive to bring them all and in the darkness bind them!

So I have found some great programs to create one massive Pen Drive so I don’t have to have so many USB Flash Drives laying around on the desk!  I figured I would go about talking about the best way to pack your USB drive with all that valuable information and have it at your finger tips in case of the some problems with the system.

  • YUMI – Multiboot USB Creator — This is what you will need to pack that USB with all your favorite ISO‘s.    The only requirement is the size of the Pendrive.   If you don’t have a big enough Pen drive then you will ultimately have to split them into small pen drives.    I have several different useful programs on my pen drive.  The only down side is that it is Windows only.   I would love them to make it for Linux or even OS X but It is still darn useful.
  • WSUS Offline Upate —  This is darn useful program.   If you ever needed to update a Windows without being online this is for you.  It will download the files and then make an ISO.   Once you have the ISO you can Yumi to put it on the Pen Drive.  Good news about this is you can keep using Yumi to replace the ISO every month and it doesn’t take much time.   Just don’t delete the files that WSUS downloads or you will have to redownload them again.  Just keep those files safe and all you will have to do is download the updates each month and then copy the new ISO to Yumi.
  • Puppy Linux — Is by far my Favorite little Linux Distro because it will allow me to save my personal settings in any computer I use and thus when I come back to the system with Puppy, I do not have to redo anything I did before.
  • Ultimate Boot CD — Is another great little ISO to install in the Pen Drive.   If your having problems with the system.   This will let you test the system in ways you probably never thought about doing.   Very useful for any Technician who is doing some kind of problem solving.
  • System rescue CD — If you ever needed to rescue the system from a variety of problems like partition problems or hard drive crashes.   This is goo for that resource.  This Distro contains many different tools for Networks, file restoration and Many more.
  • Spinrite —  The is obviously the best tool there is because it will already come as an ISO and all you will need to do is us YUMI to put it on the USB drive.   Once on the drive you have a plug and hard drive repair program for any occasion.

I pretty much gave you a baseline of ISO and programs to use to make your Ultimate Pen drive for when you might need them.  I won’t go on to much longer because I know your itching to try these programs and find even more programs to install onto your USB Flash Drive.   I will say if you search long and hard you could find some really good treasures to make it even better and worth while.   I like having only a few Pen drives than having a hand full of them. Don’t you??

Have a Good day, See you real Soon!

 

Paul Sylvester

 

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Reviewing the Seagate 500 Gb FreeAgent Go Ultra-Portable HD (ST905003FGA2E1-RK): Special Star Trek Edition

Paul


I recently got to test out a new Seagate FreeAgent Go Ultra-Portable Hard Drive with movies pre-loaded onto it.    I wanted to talk about it and let everyone who might be interested to find out more about it.

Product Features

  • 5,400 RPM Spin Speed, 8 MB Cache Buffer

  • USB 2.0: up to 480 Mb/s

  • Sync and back up quickly at your desktop without having to search for cables.

  • Guard the privacy of important files and folders.

  • Get your storage solution up and running quickly.

System Requirements:

To create and activate a Paramount account for your FreeAgent Theater+ media player you will need a
system with:

  • Microsoft Internet Explorer

  • Microsoft Windows XP operating system (any version, including MCE) with Service Pack 2

  • installed, Windows Vista or Windows 7

  • 1.5 GHz CPU or faster (minimum of 600 MHz)

  • 512MB or more memory (minimum of 10GB)

  • At least 20GB or more, free hard disk space on your computer and drive

  • Windows Media Player 10+

For the best viewing experience of the films on your computer we recommend you have a screen
resolution of 1024 x 768 (minimum of 800 x 600) and speakers or other audio output. Internet access is
also required.

A choice of up to 20 popular Paramount titles can be unlocked for a fee including:

  • Star Trek (2009) (Free when you buy the Special Edition Hard Drive)

  • The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

  • GI Joe

  • Shooter

  • The Hunt for Red October

  • The Italian Job (2003)

  • Ghost

  • Patriot Games

  • Beowulf

  • Enemy at the Gates

  • The Spiderwick Chronicles

  • The Love Guru

  • Coach Carter

  • The Manchurian Candidate (2004)

  • Nacho Libre

  • Jackass 2.5

  • A Plumm Summer

  • Carriers

  • Dance Flick

  • Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius

  • Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow

I had a chance to test out this hard drive and I wanted to tell you about my experiences with the software and with the Star Trek (2009) movie.   I must say after playing the movie, I was impressed with the High Definition.   My computer can support High Definition and I was quite shocked that it wasn’t Standard Definition.   While playing the movie, you will notice the Hard Drive will get warm but it isn’t a problem.

In order to view these movies on your laptop or computer your will need to acquire the license from the Paramount store to make the movie you choice available to be watched from your computer or if you have the Seagate FreeAgent Theater+1080P HD Media Player STCEA201-RK. This is good for those who might want to view this on your High Definition Television sets. It is just as cheap as the Roku. After your get the rights to watch the movie on that computer, you no longer need to have Internet Access to watch it. Great for when you are traveling and can’t get internet access. You only can give three systems the rights to view that particular movie that you bought through the Paramount store, but the prices are comparable to those you get fromAmazon Video on demand. The only drawback is that you will need to use Internet Explorer 8 or Higher to buy or acquire a license from the store. You have to make Internet Explorer your default bro
wser when you want to buy a new license for a movie off the hard drive.

I never heard a sound out of the hard drive while it was running. I could tell they made sure to keep it quite when they made the hard drive. The other nice thing about the FreeAgent Hard drive is that you only need to have one USB port to use this, and no power cords are required either. I must say that is also nice to have when you are on the go, no need to find an extra power outlet.

Seagate FreeAgent Ultra Portable
Amazon: $99.99 (Silver / Black)
Mwave: Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex 500GB 2.5 Ultra-Portable Hard Drive STAA500100 USB Black
Mwave: STAA500102 USB Blue
Freeagent Go Special Edition(movie)
Seagate: FreeAgent Go Pre-loaded with Star Trek on it(No longer Available).
Amazon: No links available
NewEgg: No links available
Seagate Docking Station
Amazon: $16.99

If your backing up a lot of GB’s of data, the drive does get warm but that is also normal. It was never hot enough to burn me or hurt anything. I find the small size to be quite nice to have when traveling and going places with it. Not bulky or overweight, only about 1/2 pound of weight when you pick it up. The only drawback that I can see is the way they use the lights to show you when the hard drive is being used, a few small holes will dim and light up and unless you are really watching those lights you won’t know!

The Programs that come with this are quite powerful. Great Backup tools and Syncing tools for keeping your important data backed up. There is even a Carbonite trial on the Hard drive to encourage your to keep your data backed up off site. I do recommend people trying Carbonite because you never know what will happen to your home or your computer.

Would I recommend this to My Science Fiction Friends?

I most certainly would recommend this to any one who might need to have a way to backup their files and also have a way to have portable movies on the go. I can say that this idea of having media on a portable device like this is a great way to watch movies offline.

I’ve also asked them some questions that I am waiting for a response but when I do find out, I will update this post for those who might have the same questions. I will also update the links so you can buy these hard drives online!

Hitachi breakthrough: 4TB disks by 2011

Paul

When Hitachi — the first disk manufacturer to go perpendicular and subsequently break the 1TB consumer disk drive barrier — speaks about advances in hard disk technology, you’d be wise to listen. Today they’re touting the world’s smallest read-head technology for HDDs. The bold claim? 4TB desktop (3.5-inch) and 1TB laptop (2.5-inch) drives within the next 4 years. The new recording heads are more than 2x smaller than existing gear or about 2,000 times smaller than a human hair. Hmmm, Samsung may have to update their SSD vs. HDD graph after this, eh?

Hmm, Does that mean when those come out the 1 TB are going to go down in price!! 🙂 I hope so, maybe they’ll come up with a way for a 1 TB for a laptop!