Storage-n-Harddrives. Where are we and where are we going?

Grab a fifth or your favorite 70 proof or higher beverage and read on

Recently hard drives and the storage industry in general has been a tough thing to write about, because frankly, nobody really cares!  It’s much more fun and exciting to get caught up in the hype surrounding the latest multi-core CPUs running at orgasmic clock speeds, or exotic video cards that need their own power reactors but have enough FLOPs under the hood to calculate the single precision meaning of life.  In fact the only time we give our trusty storage things a second thought (and exhaust our dictionaries of naughty words) is when they die and take our data along with them.  Well, to help remedy this journalistic conundrum, we’ve developed a drinking game to aid in your consumption of this article.  Every time you see a storage related suffix (MB, GB, TB, etc.) you take a shot.  Ready?  Good, because you’re up to three already.
UPDATED
 
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Intel to limit Sandy Bridge overclocking?

At least according to leaked slides

IF WE’RE TO believe what is meant to be Intel presentation slides of its upcoming Sandy Bridge processors that were embedded in a video posted on YouTube by HKEPC, it looks like Intel’s LGA-1155 processors will have very limited overclocking potential. The reason for this is because Intel decided to “help” with the cost cutting by implementing a clock generator built into the chipset, rather than relying on an additional chip on the motherboard.
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Seagate’s Quarter Results Noted

cloudy skies ahead

Seagate just reported its best annual results ever, with $2.66 billion in revenues and $387 million in net profits and if you exclude stock repurchases, the company would have generated $1.4 billion in cash after repaying creditors.   Seagate has now more than $2 billion in cash and only a small portion of its debt is in the short term, everything else is long term. With such a bright picture why is the market hitting so hard their stock after showing those numbers?
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Corsair outs 40, 80 and 160GB SSDs

To take on Intel?

CORSAIR HAS ANNOUNCED a couple of additions to its Force series of solid state drives which, at least in terms of capacity, are competing directly with Intel’s offerings. The new drives are the F40, F80 and F160, all of which offer impressive performance figures, although the pricing is quite competitive considering all things.
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Intel Core i UM notebooks appearing all-over

We try to clear up the differences between all the models

IF YOU’VE BEEN waiting for a more powerful replacement of Intel’s CULV platform, then you’ll be glad to know that its partners have started to launch Core i UM based notebooks en masse. This is a couple of months later than expected and we wrote a little piece about this before Computex. Various markets seem to be getting models from different manufacturers at the moment, although this is most likely a business strategy more than a supply issue.
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Intel drops a few CPU prices

And adds a few new CPUs to boot

ALTHOUGH IT’S ABOUT a month since we reported Intel’s price drop and new processor launch, it has finally happened. We’ve got a few new processors in the market and Intel has dropped the price on some of its models by as much as 47.6 percent. So if you’re looking for a bargain deal on a new CPU, then there might be something that’ll fit your needs.
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Taiwan isn’t ready for centenary bug

Yes, you read it correctly, centenary bug

THIS IS ONE of those things that you almost have to be a local to grasp, but Taiwan is about to be hit by an equivalent to the so called millennium bug, but in the case of Taiwan, it’s a centenary bug. What many people don’t know is that Taiwan has its own calendar and this year it’s the year 99 in Taiwan and next year it’s 100 years since the Republic of China (ROC) was formed.
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TSMC to invest $9.34 billion in Fab 15

Set to produce in excess of 100,000 12-inch wafers a month

THERE HAVE BEEN some concerns over TSMC’s manufacturing capacity of 12-inch 40nm wafers and it seems like the company is set on solving this problem, although it won’t happen overnight. TSMC broke ground for its new Fab 15 earlier today in Taichung, Taiwan and the new fabrication plant is set to be ready to start mass production in the first quarter of 2012.
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