If you've got a Western Digital My Cloud, you'd best hit the software update button and install the latest firmware upgrade. Security researcher James Bercegay says over a dozen different models have a hard coded back door that lets anyone log in using a specific username/password combination.
While cloud storage has put a huge dent in the need for small storage devices to act as a kind of sneaker-net, there's still a place for external storage devices. When it comes to remote backups or moving large volumes of data, external hard drives are still very useful. With portable hard drives, reliability and performance are of paramount concern. That's why I've been looking forward to testing the Western Digital My Passport SSD and LaCie Rugged USB-C drives out.
WD has released their new My Passport SSD - the fastest portable drive the company has released. It ships with USB Type-C connectivity but adds an adapter to use with USB Type-A ports. The My Passport SSD boasts 256-bit AES hardware encryption, password protection, and is also 6.5-foot drop tested to withstand 1500G of force, to protect your data.
Western Digital has announced the world’s first client solid state drives built with its 64-layer 3D NAND technology. The company says this will allow them to deliver SSDs with lower power consumption and higher performance, endurance and capacities. The new drives will come in tow broad product groups with one focused on DIY enthusiasts, resellers and system builders and the other for gaming and creative enthusiasts.
Are you thinking about storage? Well, you are now -- and that's a good thing. If you pop into Officeworks, you'll find the retailer is selling external Western Digital drives for cheaper than usual, with an ultra-portable 2TB model going for $83.30 and the more desk-bound 3TB disk coming in at $90.30.
Last week, Western Digital announced a new line of hard drives, called "Ae". Rather than targeting the average consumer, the drives are designed with cold storage in mind -- that is, loading the disks with data and slotting them away for the long-haul. Sure, you could grab a bunch of large-capacity HDDs and be done with it, but like most off-the-shelf hardware, they're not particularly specialised for this type of work, even though they might be "good enough" for most.
