Seagate will be at IT Show 2013 at Marina Bay Sands at Booth 1201.
Click to view or download Seagate promotions during IT Show 2013.
Seagate’s range of portable and desktop expansion hard disk drives will also be available with other resellers during IT Show 2013.
Check out their latest Wireless Plus portable hard disk that’s iOS and Android ready, and streams up to 8 devices at the same time.
WD will be at IT Show 2013 at Marina Bay Sands at Booth B123.
Click to view or download WD promotions during IT Show 2013.
Check out discounts and promotions from WD for their portable and external hard drives.
SanDisk will be at IT Show 2013 at Marina Bay Sands at Booth B251.
Click to view or download SanDisk promotions during IT Show 2013.
Check out SanDisk’s range of memory cards, Solid State Drive and Memory Vault at IT Show 2013.
Purchase any SanDisk High Performance product (16GB and above) or any SanDisk product (32GB and above) and get a Sure-win Scratch & Win Card to win a selection of prizes, including a Samsung GALAXY Camera.
The Seagate Video 2.5 HDD is a 2.5-inch drive specifically engineered for use in 24/7 video applications like digital video recorders (DVRs), set-top boxes (STBs), and surveillance applications.
New Seagate Video 2.5 HDD for greater reliability and energy efficiency.
The Video 2.5 HDD targets three key areas of importance to manufacturers – high reliability, acoustics, and energy efficiency.
For reliability, the drive has an annual failure rate of approximately 0.55, based on current configurations, enabling it to keep product in the field longer while reducing the cost of field deployment and maintaining customer retention.
It boasts 24/7 operation capabilities in extended temperature ranges and enhanced acoustics for near silent operation — features crucial for consumer electronics and video applications.
The Video 2.5 HDD provides home entertainment manufacturers one and two disk, cost-optimized solutions for today’s high-definition (HD) video recording applications.
Featuring capacities up to 500 GB, manufacturers can benefit from its lower-power performance and slim form factor without sacrificing the streaming capabilities or reliability of Seagate’s 3.5-inch video drive.
Its low power consumption, 24×7 operation, and support of up to 12 streams of simultaneous HD content also make it ideal for surveillance DVR applications.
The living-room environment requires superior acoustic management to limit audible distractions during operation of DVRs and STBs and the Video 2.5 HDD enables designers to build the quietest home entertainment systems possible.
Operating below the range of audible sound for the human ear at just 22db, the drive provides optimised acoustics for home entertainment components.
Compared to 3.5-inch HDDs
The drive reduces packaging materials by 53 percent and overall freight by up to 30 percent – over previous 3.5-inch offerings – by efficiently packing and shipping more units with fewer materials than larger drives.
The Seagate Video 2.5 HDD is designed specially for video.
It also contributes to sustainable energy initiatives by achieving a 55 percent improvement in power savings over comparable 3.5-inch offerings, enabling system integrators to meet aggressive new energy requirements.
So we decided that there was a 2-week window to grab a quick break. But that’s like one-week away. Is it possible to plan the usual DIY self-drive holiday at such short notice?
Aerial view of Fukuoka, our gateway to Kyushu.
The answer is yes, with the advent of the Internet. Here’s a recap of what I did for my own holiday.
Cutting it close
I booked the air tickets the day we decided to go for the break, the car rental the next day, 3 hotels on the third day, and the remaining 3 on the fourth day.
The remaining days were spent planning the itinerary for each stop.
It’s as close to the date of departure as I’ve ever tried going on a self-planned, self-drive vacation.
First the obvious, decide how long you’ve got and where you want to go. In my case, we’ve long wanted to visit Kyushu in Japan, and the window of opportunity available was roughly two weeks.
If you’re thinking of visiting Japan, I recommend this site called japan-guide.com. It has comprehensive descriptions of popular tourist spots all over Japan, as well as travel tips for Japan.
Even more useful is its forum where vacation planners get their queries answered in detail with advice from a community of fellow travelers, as well as useful links to resources – such as timetables, rates etc – outside of the website.
Next book the air tickets. The availability and price of last-minute tickets usually determine whether your vacation destination will become a reality.
Cameras of choice
For this vacation, I’m entrusting our memories to the Nikon D800, with the AF-S NIKKOR 24-70mm f/2.8G ED and the AF-S NIKKOR 70-200mm f/2.8G ED VR II lenses.
That’s almost 4 kg of camera gear but for the sake of image quality, I believe the 36.3-megapixel full-frame camera and two FX lenses from Nikon are worth every ounce of their weight.
Besides, we have the rental car to carry the gear between sights.
For a second camera, my wife will be carrying our trusty Olympus E450 with the ZUIKO DIGITAL ED 14-42mm F3.5-5.6 kit lens.
I use Zuji.com to get a feel of the airlines plying Singapore and the possible stops and the price range, then if there’s time, check competing sites or the airline’s website for better rates.
For Kyushu, it was pretty straightforward, only Singapore Airlines fly directly there from Singapore – to Fukuoka. It’s straightforward until you hit the SIA website. For a premier airline, it sure has a terrible website for bookings and reservations – plenty of long waits.
Next is the car rental. I use ToCoo car rental. It helps you check the rates for multiple car rental companies with cars available in the cities where you intend to pick up and drop off the car. But you’ve got to compare rates manually yourself.
Computing on the go
For computing, I’m bringing along the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Ultrabook, a BlackBerry PlayBook, and the Seagate 1TB Backup Plus.
The X1 Carbon is sleek in design, wonderfully thin and light, yet powerful enough for surfing Web and running Photoshop and Dreamweaver CS6 for photo-editing and blogging back in the hotel room.
The 7-inch PlayBook keeps the children entertained with game apps, and serves as an e-book reader. Its biggest bugbear is that it’s the Wi-Fi version and does not have 3G, but I don’t use 3G data in Japan anyway.
To store and back up the 40MB RAW photo files generated by the D800, I brought along the 1TB Seagate Backup Plus Portable Drive. The 2.5-inch plug-and-play drive constantly backs up the hard disk and makes posting photos online a breeze.
Usually, I pick up the car at the airport, drive off to the first destination and return the car at the airport I’m flying off from. If the pick-up and drop-off locations are different, check if a surcharge is levied and how much it is.
Fuss-free music
For music in the hotel room, we’re bringing along the Jabra Solemate portable speaker. Instead of lugging stacks of CDs around, simply download your favourite tracks onto an SD card and plug it into the Solemate.
What I like most is we can play our song collections and playlists wirelessly from our smartphones, tablet and Ultrabook via Bluetooth. It’s portable, easy to use and the sound quality is superb.
Finally, book the hotels. I know some Japanese so I used to browse Japanese booking websites and hotel websites directly, calling them on the phone for enquiries and reservations.
This time round, I discovered that my favourite accomodation-booking website for Europe holidays – booking.com – now has quite extensive list of hotels in Japan. Enough to find hotels that fit your budget in most places in Japan.
I like booking.com because of its clear information and easy booking. So even if you don’t know ANY japanese, you can still find and book accommodation easily.
Smartphones
We don’t use smartphones an awful lot, but for the record, we’re bringing along the Android Sony Xperia ion and an aging iPhone 3GS.
I’ve left the Nokia Lumia 900 at home because Nokia maps does not have the navigation map for Japan, and I’m renting an English GPS with the car anyway.
Another website that I tried last year – hotels.com – seems to be only beginning to move into Japan, with poor selection and high prices. I’m hoping there coverage and pricing will improve over time.
Once you’ve gotten the flight, car and hotel bookings out of the way, what remains is the physical packing for the big day.
Seagate will be at SITEX 2012 in the Singapore EXPO with resellers Bell Systems (5D60), Cybermind (5G60), Harvey Norman (6B20), Million Tech (6G50), and Newstead (6B10).
Click to view or download Seagate promotions for SITEX 2012.
Check out Seagate’s SITEX 2012 discounts and bundled freebies for its range of portable and desktop hard drives, as well as its GoFlex home media sharing and Backup Plus desktop drives.
Walk away with a 3-night holiday for 2 to the Maldives, or win Seagate storage drives, Apple iPhone 5 and iPad 3.
In addition, Seagate has an ongoing holiday promotion for purchases from 1 November to 31 December 2012, with US$35,000 worth of prizes, including a holiday to the Maldives
To enter, complete the Holiday Happens Online sweepstakes form available here.
Seagate Backup Plus
Also, Seagate Technology has been named an International CES Innovations 2013 Design and Engineering Awards Honouree for the Seagate Backup Plus family of external storage drives.
This prestigious programme is judged by a panel of industrial designers, engineers and media to honour outstanding design and engineering in consumer electronics products across 29 product categories.
WD will be at SITEX 2012 in the Singapore EXPO with resellers Challenger (6A30) and Newstead (6F30).
Click to view or download WD promotions for SITEX 2012.
Check out WD’s SITEX 2012 discounts and bundled freebies for its range of portable and desktop hard drives, as well as its media players.
In addition, WD has an ongoing promotion for purchases from 1 November 2012 to 15 January 2013, with $7,000 in cash vouchers and WD products.
SanDisk will be at SITEX 2012 at Hall 6, Booth 6B10 in the Singapore EXPO.
Click to view or download SanDisk promotions for SITEX 2012.
Purchase any High Performance (16GB and above) SanDisk product and stand a chance to win a notebook, tablet or camera. Check out the bundle promotions too.
The “A-Drive” is one of the world’s thinnest 5mm hybrid hard drive in a 2.5-inch form factor. Increased storage capacity, reduced power consumption, and at a lower cost of manufacture.
A*STAR’s Data Storage Institute (DSI) launches next generation 5mm hybrid hard disk drive.
S. Iswaran launched the drive to commemorate 20 years of R&D by the Data Storage Institute (DSI) into data storage capabilities.
“We have managed to fit an amazing amount of innovation and advanced technology into a thinner, cheaper, and faster design, and we think the consumer and enterprise impact will be significant,” said Dr. Pantelis Alexopoulos, Executive Director of DSI.
Iswaran is a Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office and Second Minister for Home Affairs and Trade & Industry.
The “A-Drive” has capacities of up to 1TB Hard Disk Drive (HDD) with 32 GB Solid State Drive (SSD), allowing it to store over 250,000 songs.
The “A-Drive” addresses limitations of the popular and fast but expensive flash-based SSD, as well as the conventional HDD for the consumer and business industry.
DSI’s “A-Drive” is targeted at tablets, ultrabooks, and future data centres.
With its slim form factor, the “A-Drive” could fit into tablet devices, greatly expanding its storage space while extending battery life by up to 30%.
The innovations for the HDD portion of this A-Drive should be applicable to the manufacture of conventional hard disk drives as low-hanging fruits for monetising the research investments.
The “A-Drive” will be a cheaper alternative to the SSDs currently used in ultrabooks, offering the same instant-on capability but with larger storage capacity.
How much will it cost?
Dr. Alexopoulos reckons that a 500GB A-Drive with 32GB Flash memory could have a sale price of US$60 (S$73).
From here, it could take from six to eight months for the A-Drive to hit the market.
For enterprise storage applications, the “A-Drive” reduces power consumption by up to 50%, resulting in greener and more efficient data centres with better optimisation of the already limited rack space.
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, and more efficiently – lowering power consumption by up to 70% – but costing only 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”.
Why is DSI developing this technology?
Data storage manufacturing is an important sector for Singapore’s economy.
DSI’s research into data storage innovation enables Singapore to shift from assembly of hard disk drive components towards higher value-added activities such as hard disk drive design and hard media research.
In the 20 years since its founding, DSI has enabled data storage companies in Singapore to move up the value chain, creating high-value jobs and refining job skills in the process.
Seagate will be at COMEX 2012 at Suntec Singapore at Level 6, Hall 602, Booth 6346.
Click to view or download Seagate’s promotional flyer for COMEX 2012.
Seagate will be offering COMEX 2012 discounts for its slew of storage products, from portable drives to the GoFlex Home Media Sharing drive.
Two of its top products are its Satellite mobile wireless storage drive and its Backup Plus portable hard drive.
