LaCie has introduced the LaCie Rugged eSATA drive.

"For the first time on a LaCie drive, you can have the speed of eSATA connectivity in an easy-to-transport portable drive," writes PCWorld's Chris Holt.

"The LaCie Rugged eSATA not only supports transfer speeds of up to 90MB/s, but — if used with a powered USB-eSATA combo connection — can hook up with a single cable," writes SlashGear's Tamara Lapiers. "Of course, if you don't have a Power eSATA port on your laptop you can still use the LaCie drive. In the box there's a Y-cable which connects to a USB and a regular eSATA socket, pulling in power from the former and using the latter for data."

"The Rugged eSATA drive is only available in a 500GB capacity with a 7,200RPM hard drive, and like other Rugged models has a scratch-resistant aluminum case filled with internal shock absorbers shell and covered by a rubber bumper," according to Electronista. "The new LaCie drive will be available for $160."

More here from TWICE ... and more here from Ubergizmo.

HP outlines long-term strategy On Storage

HP outlines long-term strategy | CNET News.com: According to the source, HP is considering making more acquisitions in the infrastructure software arena. Those acquisitions would include security software companies, storage software makers and software companies that serve the blade server market. The acquisitions would dovetail with HP's growth plans for its Technology Systems Group, which has already bought companies such as AppIQ for storage management. Watch this space folks, looks to be some [...] Read More


What is on a CIO's mind? On Storage

Hu Yoshida's Blog: What is on a CIO's mind?: While the easy (cheap?) answer is "Golf, expensive scotch, and a new BMW 7 series" I think we all know that that's probably not really accurate. Hu was recently at a 'CIO Panel' and came away with some insight into what CIOs are thinking. Hopefully this will provide a bit of insight for you, to help you understand what's going on underneath that [...] Read More


The little IT guy pays the bills that kill On Storage

SMBs: The little IT guy pays the bills that kill: It seems the big data center players are competing on price more than ever. Will that continue, and how do I best take advantage of this? Steve answers (in part - to see the full answer, click through to the full article): "...the people who really pay the price, per se, are the little guys. The big guys get to squeeze margins out [...] Read More


Short-term CFOs, short-term strategy Sox First

Just this year, I have blogged on the high turnover of chief financial officers here, here and here.Companies pay a price for this, in more ways than one.A recent survey conducted by Duke University and CFO magazine, and published by CFO.com, reveals that nine out of 10 (87.6 percent) finance chiefs report that companies have shortened the payoff horizons of their investment decisions. That's to coincide with the shorter tenure [...] Read More


Strategic blinders Sox First

The crisis is the result of Orthodox business strategy.That's the view put forward by strategic adviser Umair Haque in his entry on the Harvard Business Review blog site, titled Saving Strategy From the Strategists. Orthodox strategy, for example, teaches us to allocate costs and benefits regardless of the preferences of others. The result: everyone shifting and hiding true costs. As he points out, it doesn't work in a hyper-connected economy. [...] Read More

Kingston has announced the DataTraveler 5000 USB Flash drive, a FIPS 140-2 certified drive with 256-bit AES encryption.

"The DataTraveler 5000 delivers unsurpassed levels of security and encryption to government and enterprise customers," says company business manager for secure USB Products Mark Akoubian. "This portable data solution represents state-of-the-art data protection while providing end users with the simplicity of plug and play."

"[This] is one of the most secure drives you could ever buy, and frankly, it's probably more than you'll ever need unless [you're] a government spy," writes HotHardware's Shawn Oliver. "It uses XTS cipher mode and also uses elliptic curve cryptography (ECC) algorithms to meet Suite B standards approved by the U.S. government, so it's pretty safe to say that it'll keep your secret love letters safe as well."

"Kingston offers the drive in 2, 4, 8, and 16 GB capacities with pricing ranging from $111 to $400," writes TweakTown's Shane McGlaun.

More here from Electronista ... more here from Gadget Venue ... and the press release is here.

Lockheed Martin and IronKey have announced an advanced USB flash drive called IronClad.

"The brand new IronClad raises the bar of expectation for flash drives by shrinking a laptop's hard drive onto a sleek and compact device, including the complete operating system, files, and software applications," according to VentureLoop. "Users can plug the drive into any computer and gain secure and instant access to their own desktop and personal files."

"The entire works runs off the flash drive so the user's personal files and data never touches the host computer and when removed there is no trace that the flash drive was ever there," writes SlashGear's Shane McGlaun. "The IronClad device is encrypted with hardware-level protection against malware and rootkit"

"[The] drive is available starting at 8GB capacity and offers 256-bit military-grade encryption, built-in virus protection, and a rugged water- and shock-resistant metal casing," writes ZDNet's Andrew Nusca.

"Nothing on price yet, but soon government employees everywhere will be using them," writes SlipperyBrick's Conner Flynn.

More here from DeviceMAG ... more here from Engadget ... and more here from Electronista.

Buffalo Technology has introduced the $250 Dualie, a 500 GB portable hard drive that also serves as an iPhone or iPod dock.

"I got a sneak peek at this device last year and I was very impressed with the aesthetics as well as the quality of Dualie," writes Ali at Chip Chick.

"The device features 2 additional USB ports, and lets you sync your device with your computer and access the hard drive at the same time," writes SlipperyBrick's Conner Flynn.

More here from DVICE ... more here from Walyou ... and more here from Gizmodo.