Chapter #3 Storage Devices and Manufacturers
Hard Drive: Western Digital http://www.wdc.com/en/
Western Digital is a company that founded themselves in 1970 by producing hard drives and solid state drives that are used in internal, external, shared and portable devices for storage applications. The hard drives built by Western Digital are currently provided for use in desk top and notebook computers as well as mobile, handheld devices, corporate networks and home entertainment electronic units. They also provide solid state chip style storage devices utilized in Netcom, industrial, medical, embedded computing, aerospace, and military markets worldwide.
The product currently offered by Western Digital that is most appealing to me is the package deal which offers the My Passport Essential SE hard drive along with the Nomad Rugged Case. The My Passport Essential SE hard drive offers either a 750 GB or 1 TB storage capacity. Other benefits include a quick USB 3.0 connection style, automatic backup, password protection, and hardware encryption. The second part of the package deal would be the Western Digital Nomad Rugged Case which is capable of protecting a hard drive from a fall of 7 feet, is dirt/water resistant, and allows the hard drive to be connected while still in the case. Pairing the hard drive with the case would allow for much friendlier file storage and transfer opportunities in the harsh environment of the HVAC field.
CD/DVD Writer/Burner: Samsung http://www.samsung.com/us/#latest-home
The company Samsung which means ‘three stars’ in Korean was founded on March 1, 1938 in Taegu, Korea as a trade and export business selling dried fish and produce. In 1969 Samsung Electronics was established as a merger with Sanyo Electronics and together they created their first black and white television which debuted in the U.S. in 1970. Since then Samsung’s enormous success has allowed them to reinvest and immerge into many other highly lucrative markets such as insurance, petrochemical production, and medicine.
The Samsung Ultra-slim external DVD writer is one of my favorite products that they offer. It would allow me to save live sessions of my friends and I as we produce music without having to carry around the old burner/copier which weighed 20 lbs. The Ultra-slim DVD writer has an array of formats that it is capable of writing to including DVD RW and dual layer disks. The drive is also efficient by supporting fast SATA 1.5 Gigabits per seconds transfer rate.
Flash Memory Storage: SanDisk http://www.sandisk.com/
SanDisk Corporation is one of the world leaders of memory storage offering flash memory and embedded solutions in smart phones, tablets, digital cameras, camcorders, digital media players, and other consumer electronic devices. SanDisk is a Silicon Valley –based company that is listed in the S&P 500 and is a Fortune 500 company. Its’ revenues exceeded more than 4.8 billion dollars in 2010 and has more than 3,500 employees worldwide.
The most appealing product in my eyes that SanDisk currently offers on their website is the Memory Vault flash memory storage device. It is physically designed by the company to be an extreme long term digital media storage device. The Memory Vault offers the user Chronolock Technology which is has been tested and is guaranteed to support data retention for up to 100 years! The device would be able to store all of my pictures, data, and word document templates as I progressed through my career in building automation. This would allow me to have a better built portfolio to present to a prospective buyer when I decide to sell my business and retire.