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I am proud that Singapore made it into the tech news last week with the announcement of the world’s thinnest 2.5″ hybrid hard drive! It is only 5mm thick and is capable of storing 1TB of normal HDD and 32GB of SSD.

One of the main challenges in reducing the thickness of current 7mm hard disk drives by almost 30% without compromising on its performance and stability is its spindle motor design. To achieve a reduction in size, DSI researchers developed a proprietary axial field motor which runs smoother, quieter, more efficiently, lowering power consumption by up to 70% yet at a fraction of the cost of SSDs. The motor’s design has been patented, along with 30 other unique designs for the “A-Drive”. In addition, DSI has collaborated with multinational corporations and local companies, such as Seiko Instruments, Miyoshi, and Unisteel, to develop key components for the “A-Drive”.

On 10th July 2012, SanDisk announced 4 new USB Flash Drives for 2012.

SanDisk Extreme USB Flash Drive

Li Xiang got the Western Digital My Passport (1TB) from Challenger for S$189 (Member’s Price: S$159).

This is the new 2012 edition and WD has dropped the name “Essential SE” and hence the name is just Western Digital My Passport. Also USB 3.0 is now the standard feature.

Bought the Vantec NexStar SATA/IDE to USB 3.0 Adapter from Challenger for S$59.90 (Member’s Price: S$53.91).

As the name suggest, it coverts your internal SATA/PATA HDD to USB 3.0, allow you plug and play the hardisk via USB port.

Got my very first SSD which is the Kingston HyperX SSD 120GB from Newegg.com thanks to Benjamin’s cousin who is in the US.

The usual price of the SSD (on 3rd February 2012) on Newegg.com is US$205 (S$259), however there is mail-in rebate of US$50 (SDG$63). After the mail-in rebate, it cost only US$155 (S$195).

Bought the D-Link DNS-320 (S$109) and 2x Western Digital 3.5″ SATA Caviar Black 1TB hard drive (S$115 each) at Comex 2011 last weekend.

I still bought back a D-Link NAS after my bad experience with D-Link DNS-323 because the DNS-320 is meant for my mom’s office and D-Link service center is just located behind my mom’s office in case anything happens.

This is the second transformers USB Flash Memory Drive I have, the previous was Transformers (Tigatron) and this time round it is Transformers (Jaguar)

Thanks to the both Justins from Tech65 (Justing Ng & Justin Lee) for this gadget.

Got the Eye-Fi Pro X2 8 GB from Amazon for US$91.49 together with my Cocoon Grid-It. Shipping cost US$21.46 in total.

The Eye-Fi is not officially sold in Singapore so you have to either get it from resellers who bought it overseas or you get it directly from Amazon. The Eye-Fi Pro X2 8 GB cost about S$160 when you get it from resellers in Singapore, it is more expensive, but you do not need to wait 1 to 2 weeks for it as normally they got ready stock. Amazon is cheaper but you have to wait 2 weeks (in my case) for it.

Hooted the My Passport Essential SE (1TB) (USB 3.0) from SITEX 2010 for S$189.90 (usual price is S$209.90). This is my first USB 3.0 device despite not having any computers that support USB 3.0. It is all about future proofing!

Since this portal harddrive supports USB 3.0, the connector on the harddrive itself is a USB 3.0 MicroUSB Port (which looks weird, see picture below) instead of the usual USB 2.0 MiniUSB port. But it is backward compatible meaning your USB 2.0 MicroUSB (NOT miniUSB) still can fit into the port.

Thanks to the both Justins from Tech65 (Justing Ng & Justin Lee) for this gadget, Transformers (Tigatron) USB Flash Memory Drive.