The main bottleneck in any NAS is the RAID engine. Since many NAS units don’t include a dedicated controller, oftentimes the speed of the drive just doesn’t matter. If you’re using a blazing-fast hardware RAID card in your own custom-built setup, then drive speed might make a difference. But for most consumer units, the controller is the bottleneck.

With that in mind, you can go with slower 5400rpm drives that reduce power consumption, generate less heat, and will likely cost less up front too. Even if you have a dedicated RAID card that could let a 7200rpm drive do its thing at full speed, I’d consider the benefits of low-power drives to outweigh the marginal speed increase you might see.

This chart shows the difference between Samsung 7200pm and 5400rpm drives in various RAID configurations:

Not much, right? So think twice before you drop more than necessary on 7200rpm drives for your backup unit. Check out the link for the full test rundown. [Tom's Hardware]

Doubt it? Everything from the belongs-on-a-battleship looks to the AES encryption software to the 6-18 digit PIN screams “you will not get the 1TB of porn inside me.”

Even the touchscreen keypad is paranoid, as it changes randomly each time you use it so the spies you think are on your tail can’t memorize the PIN. One touch drive erase means the hentai secrets get scrubbed instantly the moment your parents those spies catch you.

Pricing starts at $US488 for the 750GB version and $US652 for the 1TB. [Slashgear]

That’s the average life span of the 125—and counting—dead Apple Time Capsules at The Apple Time Capsule Memorial Register. And all the users who registered those dead pieces of plastic and metal are saying that’s not enough. I agree that the figure seems too low. But then again, like Matt Buchanan just said when he heard about it: “They’re all using shitty Hitachi hard drives that aren’t actually server grade, so colour me less than surprised.”

I say they all have a point. [Time Capsule Memorial via TUAW]

The good news is that these things work well, despite the larger drive and lower power. They’re not about performance — 5400 rpm only — but when I tested moving a 1GB file to and from, I got it in under 30 seconds, just a hair slower than the same file moved to and from faster FireWire 800 drives. I didn’t do any real benchmarking, but I am convinced that the USB is going to be the bottleneck, not the bigger drive (shown below with a 320GB USB-only and a 500GB FW800/USB combo). The FreeAgent was even designed to fit the USB dock and FreeAgent Theater+, though not subtly.

That brings us to the bad news, which many of you already know: Despite being portable bus-powered 2.5-inch drives, the three-platter HDDs inside these casings are not capable of being ripped out and stuck into your laptop, at least, not without some hackery I am not qualified to endorse. So, in lieu of a full review, I offer this: It works, it’s not noticeably sluggish given the added weight, and it feels really good to be able to carry a whole terabyte wherever I want. [Seagate]

The drives will be available this month — although it appears to be a Japan-only release for the moment. The drives will run around $US250 and $US284 for 1TB and 1.5TB models respectively (a 2TB model is also in the works), and the controller will run an additional $US60. It’s probably a bit early to jump on 3.0, but chances are we won’t have to wait long before the technology goes mainstream. [Buffalo Japan via Engadget]

You can get the LaCie Starck Desktop Hard Drive in 1TB and 2TB flavors, while the LaCie Starck Mobile Drive in 320GB and 500GB. The prices should be around $US130 for the Desktop and $US100 for the Mobile.

In the words of Philippe Starck:

Technological genius explodes exponentially, each time with incredible power whose limits are yet to be known. The power remains, never abating, symbolically characterized by the sculptural magma that one attempts to cleave, to master within this geometrically perfect strongbox. A symbol of strength mastered, of freedom guided, of incandescent magma heeding to the form of its cast. The interpretation is free. But the mystery remains.

See? He wants to dunk a toast in his drives too. [LaCie]

As cool as the e-labels concept is—soon to be found on My Book Elite (USB only, up to 2TB for $US280) and My Book Studio (FW800 and USB, up to 2TB for $US300)—I don’t know how profound a single 12-character label on the face of such a massive drive can be. Then again, maybe you’re supposed to buy them in identical pairs. The label, which, like the E-Ink found on Amazon’s Kindle, stays visible when there’s no power going to it, could in that case save you from embarrassment, possibly even job loss/misdemeanor charges/etc. Below the label is a status indicator — how many GB are left, plus a rough visual estimate.

The My Passport Elite line gets a visual refresh that first appeared in the less feature-bestowed Passport Essential. Slimmer and more rounded at the edges, the Elite line gets a metallic red, blue or charcoal finish and a dock — top price is $US170 for a 640GB 2.5-inch USB 2.0 bus-powered drive. The dock thing makes sense in one particular situation: You have a laptop and a desktop that you regularly shuttle between. The Elites will show capacity status on an LED indicator, and will indicate encryption with a light-up key icon on the side, so you feel extra safe. Speaking of safe, all of the hard drives also come with 256-bit hardware encryption. [WD]

The victim today is Super Mario Bros. 3, arguably the best platformer title in history and possibly one of the best video games ever created by mankind.

As of this writing, there is one less of these fine cartridges left in the world. The one you see here has had its guts ripped asunder, only to be replaced with a 160GB USB hard drive.

Sure, one could put thousands of Super Mario Bros. 3 ROMs inside this thing now that it contains a hard drive, but the essence—and a bit of my childhood—are gone forever. I’ll be sleeping with my copy under the pillow tonight. [GeekSugar via CrunchGear]

Stora lets consumers easily share their photos and videos with friends without having to upload to internet sites or transfer them by email. By serving via www.MyStora.com, users and their designated friends and relatives can remotely access their media files from any internet-connected device, such as laptops, PCs and smartphones. That’s the good news. The bad news is you’ll have to wait until late October to get your hands on it from selected Australian retail and e-commerce stores. Perhaps it would be worth putting off a NAS device purchase until this baby lands.

“With the amount of music, movies and photos we increasingly download, storage is quickly becoming a necessity and the Stora really is a device that everyone can use. It sports an incredibly user-friendly interface, is compatible with any platform, affordable and comes with one terabyte of storage. You can share any of your files remotely with family and friends, such as photo albums of your latest holiday, by simply sending a link which can even be accessed on a mobile smartphone so no need to force anyone to join Facebook. It’s changing the face of storage in the home,” said Ryan Parker, managing director, NETGEAR Australia and New Zealand.

NETGEAR’s Stora is compatible with Mac, PC and Linux systems, according to the maker.

It’s got DLNA, too
Stora is also DLNA-certified, so it can serve content to other networked devices that are Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA)-enabled. This includes photo frames, XBox 360 and PlayStation 3 game consoles, as well as iPhone and Blackberry mobile phones. Don’t know about DLNA? Learn more here.

Turning to the tech specs, we see the Stora (MS2110) comes with a 1TB disk and one extra drive bay that can be used to insert an optional disk for mirroring. NETGEAR provides a three-year warranty and 24/7 technical support. The Stora carries a $399 price tag.

An optional yearly premium service, to support additional remote access and third-party service integration such as Flickr and mobile phones, will be available for about $20 after an initial 30-day trial period.

For more info, head on over to the NETGEAR site.

Supporting 1.5Gbps and 3.0Gbps transfer rates (peaking at half the speed of existing SATA), mSATA is intended for drives that are roughly the size of a business card.

Check out that lead shot. On the left, you see a small Toshiba drive using a traditional SATA connector. On the right, you see a Toshiba drive using the mSATA standard. (Incidentally, Toshiba will be offering that flash drive in 30 and 62GB sizes with 180MB/s read speeds and 50MB/s writes.) The end products aren’t really so different in terms of size, but the mSATA connection itself is, what, half the footprint of SATA?

Sounds good to us. [mSATA and Toshiba via Engadget]