WD® DEBUTS WORLD’S FIRST SSD+HDD DUAL DRIVE

(Kuala Lumpur, 26 November 2013) - WD®, a Western Digital (NASDAQ: WDC) company and storage industry leader, today announced the release of the WD Black2™ dual drive, a unique storage innovation that fuses a 2.5-inch 120 GB solid state drive (SSD) with a 1 TB hard disk drive (HDD) to offer a powerful dual drive solution. Perfect for consumers and service providers looking to upgrade notebooks, small form factor desktops, and single-slot and all-in-one (AIO) systems with both SSD level performance and HDD capacity, the WD Black2 dual drive connects through a single cable and fits into a conventional 9.5 mm slot. 

“Our customers told us they like our Solid State Hybrid Drive technology, but our tech savvy users asked for more control of where they store their data,” said Matt Rutledge, senior vice president of WD’s Storage Technology business unit. “The WD Black2 dual drives empower our customers to enjoy SSD performance and access high capacity storage in a no-compromise package. The WD Black2 dual drive is a direct result of our interaction with our customer base through WD Labs initiatives. WD devised its beta labs program to provide an exclusive testing arena for key customers and technology influencers of existing and emerging WD storage products."

Designed for enthusiasts, creative professionals, gamers and PC builders, the WD Black2 dual drive provides improved overall drive capacity, performance, and reliability, while offering the flexibility to choose how and where their data is stored. Utilizing the benefits of both flash and magnetic disks, WD Black2 dual drives offload data usage from the SSD to the HDD, which increases endurance and life of the SSD. Users  maintain greater data control, which can eliminate the need and expense of cloud-based storage.

WD Black2 is free of caching algorithms and benefits from SATA 6 Gb/second interface speed. It is neatly packaged in a standard 9.5 mm, 2.5-inch form factor with legacy SATA connector, making the WD Black2 dual drive compatible with popular PC operating systems ranging from Windows XP to Windows 8.1. 

WD Black2 dual drives are covered by a five-year limited warranty. MSRP for the 2.5-inch 120 GB SSD + 1 TB HDD WD Black2 dual drive, model #: (WD1001X06XDTL) is RM 1,088 and is distributed locally by Amble Action Sdn Bhd, Achieva Technology Sdn Bhd and Eternal Asia (M) Sdn Bhd. Additional information about WD Black2 dual drives and limited warranty terms may be found on the company website at http://products.wd.com/wdblack2.

WD®INTRODUCES HIGH-PERFORMANCE FOUR-BAY PERSONAL CLOUD STORAGE SYSTEM

(Kuala Lumpur, 22 November 2013) – WD^®, a Western Digital (NASDAQ: WDC) companyand a world leader in storage solutions for the connected life, today introduced WD My Cloud™ EX4, a high-performance four-bay network attached storage (NAS) solution for creative professionals, prosumers, workgroups and anyone looking for a reliable way to save, share, backup,stream and manage massive amounts of digital data.

“We believe that there’s no place like home for the cloud,” said Jim Welsh, executive vice president and general manager of WD's branded products and consumer electronics groups. “Everyone is inundated with thousands of digital files scattered across multiple computers and mobile devices, and controlling that chaos is a challenge. The new WD My Cloud EX4is an affordable and reliable solution for customers to control that chaos, providing high performance, manageable storage capabilities with access to all of their files anywhere, anytime.”

Featuring the category leading WD Red™ line of hard drives specifically designed for home and small office NAS systems, WD My Cloud EX4 customers enjoy ultimate reliability from the trusted name in storage. WD Red drives are powered by NASware™ 2.0 technology, which improves drive reliability and protects customer data in the event of a power loss or disruption. Additionally, WD Red hard drives feature 3D Active Balance Plus, an enhanced balance control technology that significantly improves overall drive performance and reliability.

WD My Cloud EX4 provides several capacity options, allowing customers to choose from a drive-less enclosure that allows customers to customize their capacity and add additional drives as their library of digital content grows, or an 8 TB, 12 TB or 16 TB model¹. With Easy-Slide-Drive technology,WD My Cloud EX4 allows customers to easily install or hot-swap drives in seconds, without the need for a screwdriver,toolkitor trays. Additionally, customers can attach compatible USB 3.0 hard drives to the USB expansion ports on the WD My Cloud EX4 to instantly expand their storage capacity.

Susan Chong (right), Sales Manager, Branded Products, WD Malaysia and Albert Chang, Senior Regional Marketing Manager, WD APAC Branded Marketing presents the new WD My Cloud EX4, which is now available in Malaysia.

Ultimate Data Protection

WD My Cloud EX4 arms users with multiple options to secure digital data from a potential loss by providing RAID 0, 1, 5, 10 or allowing users to select from spanning and JBOD modes for even more options to manage data.Customers can also use their WD My Cloud EX4 to back up all of their computers and devices withWD SmartWare™ Pro software for PC users. Mac users can utilize all the features of Apple® Time Machine® backup software to protect their data. The WD My Cloud EX4 can also backup itself, either to another WD My CloudEX4 in a different location, or to cloud services such as Amazon S3 andElephantDrive. To ensure 24/7 data protection and reliability the WD My CloudEX4 includes redundant power supplies and Ethernet ports.

Advanced Streaming and Serving

WD My CloudEX4 serves as a home’s digital entertainment hub, configurable for up to 16 TB of movies and music that can then be streamed to any DLNA®/UPnP® certified multimedia devicesuch as gaming consoles, smart TVs and WD TV® Live™ media players.The Twonky 7.2, DLNA-certified 1.5 media server and iTunes® server make for simple streaming of large movie and music libraries.

Additionally, the integrated file server, FTP server, backup server and P2P download server provide advanced data serving options for WD My Cloud EX4 users.

Customers can also customize their NAS, monitor system health, manage users and energy saving features with the WD My Cloud EX4 dashboard, as well asuse a suite of third party apps, including aMule, Icecast, Joomla!®, phpBB®, phpMyAdmin and SqueezeCenter.

The new WD My Cloud EX4 is designed to provide a robust, reliable and efficient storage solution to creative professionals, prosumers, workgroups and any user who requires a good storage for their digital content.

Anywhere Access to WD My Cloud EX4

Available for iOS® and Android™devices, the WD My Cloud mobile appallows users to view photos, stream video and share, save and manage files from anywhere on their smartphones or tablets. The mobile app makes file sharing and collaborating simple, allowing customers to easily email files, share files as a link, and print and open files with third party apps. The WD My Cloud mobile appintegrates major public cloud services so that customers can easily transfer files from their Dropbox™, SkyDrive® and Google Drive™ public cloud accounts[1].

Price and Availability

WD My Cloud EX4 isdistributed by Amble Action Sdn Bhd in Malaysia. MSRP is RM1,359 for the drive-less WD My Cloud EX4, RM2,699 for 8 TB,RM3,259 for 12 TB and RM3,999 for 16 TB. The WD My Cloud mobile app currently is available for download from the App Store^SM and Google Play^TM.WD My Cloud EX4 comes with a two year limited warranty.

Compatibility

WD My CloudEX4 is compatible with Windows® 8, Windows 7, Windows Vista®, Windows XP, OS XMavericks™, Mountain Lion™, Lion®, Snow Leopard®, as well as DLNA®/UPnP® enabled devices.

Official Launch: BitFenix Colossus M Series

(BitFenix Design Lab, November 21, 2013) – Today, BitFenixpresents two members of the new Colossus M Series: Colossus Mini-ITX and Colossus Micro-ATX. They are the latest creations from the BitFenix Design Lab, a continuation of the original Colossus line that delivers a premium compact housing with a futuristic yet clean style.

The Future is Bright

One look at this chassis makes it instantly recognizable as a member of the Colossus line. The bold lines and angles create an unmistakably futuristic look that's tempered by our signature luxurious SofTouch™ Surface Treatment.

Immediately catching the eye is the BitFenix LiteTrak™ lighting system, which enables a continuous streak of light that wraps around the front and sides of the case. Users will be able to not only select between red, blue, and green lighting, but also choose a pulse mode that cycles through each color while adding a pulsing effect – all with a simple push of a button. Best of all, LiteTrak is powered by a single SATA power connection from the front panel – no side panel power connections required!

The ODD bay and mesh ventilated front panel is cleverly concealed by the front door, and the I/O panel, which includestwo SuperSpeed USB 3.0 ports, is located on the side panel to maintain a clean look at all times.

Colossus Mini-ITX

The spacious interior offers two preinstalled 120mm front and rear fans, and includes the option to install up to five 120mm fans for extra cooling boost. Up to five 3.5" drives or seven 2.5" drives in total can be installed, or for those looking to run high-end graphics cards up to 330mm, the 3 bay FlexCage™ can be easily removed. Colossus Mini-ITX supports installation of thick 240 mm radiators on the top or front, and the easily removable bottom dust filterprevents from dust accumulating dust inside the case over time. Colossus Mini-ITX is the perfect choice for enthusiasts who are looking for compact stylish case with excellent water cooling support and massive storage options.

Colossus Micro-ATX

Colossus Micro-ATX adds Micro-ATX motherboard compatibility, which means added expansion possibilities. The included bottom fan can be easily replaced with up to two 3.5" hard drives, and with the included removable storage rack, an additional two 3.5" HDDs or three 2.5" SSDs can be installed for excellent flexibility. The included magnetic heat shield prevents warm exhaust from the PSU from re-entering the case, and also looks great with its uniquely micro-textured surface. Users can also opt to install a single graphics card and a slim 240mm water cooling radiator at the same time. Users who require added PCI-express expansion are going to love Colossus Micro-ATX.

BitFenix Colossus Mini-ITX and Colossus Micro-ATX will be available on store shelves in December.

For more information on the Colossus M Series, please click below:
Colossus Mini-ITX
Colossus Micro-ATX

SAPPHIRE releases Performance Boost for R9 290! BIOS Flash gives greater headroom for enthusiasts.

SAPPHIRE Technology has just announced that it is releasing a performance enhancing BIOS for the recently introduced SAPPHIRE R9 290 graphics card.

Based on the latest GCN (Graphics Core Next) architecture from AMD, the new SAPPHIRE R9 290 introduced enthusiast level performance and some exciting new features at a more affordable price point than the flagship R9 290X model.

Many enthusiasts and gamers like to tune the performance of their systems, and SAPPHIRE has always provided tools for this to be achieved safely. For many current models, the SAPPHIRE TriXX software, free to download from the company’s website, offers the ability to adjust clocks and fan speeds to optimize operation of the graphics card for different applications and save different profiles.

In the case of the new SAPPHIRE R9 290, it is recognized that performance is capped by the system when the GPU temperature reaches its operating maximum. Therefore, by providing better cooling, maximum performance levels can be raised. As all the current products are shipping with the standard blower style cooler, this can only be achieved by increasing the fan speed to increase airflow in the cooler, with the trade-off that fan and air flow noise will also be increased.

After internal testing under various operating conditions, SAPPHIRE is now releasing a BIOS specifically for the currently available R9 290 which operates with a different fan profile, and a maximum fan speed of 47%. The company believes this offers the user the best compromise for enhanced performance, noise and reliability. The new BIOS and Flash tool are available free to download from the company’s website.

Always looking to provide the user with the best solutions, SAPPHIRE will be introducing new models in the R9 290 family over the coming weeks based on the company’s own designs and with innovative and enhanced cooling solutions.

Unboxing & Review: Gigabyte Aivia Osmium Mechanical Gaming Keyboard

Most people would associate the brand Gigabyte with graphic cards and motherboards. Well that's part of it... but Gigabyte's product line also includes an array of PC components, peripherals, Laptops, Tablets, Desktop PCs, Network and server devices as well as mobile phones.

Thanks to Gigabyte, we now have the Aivia Osmium, a premium mechanical keyboard catered for gamers. As far as features go, the Osmium has integrated USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 hubs, Cherry-MX mechanical keys, anti-ghosting capability, macro-keys, on-board memory, multiple profiles etc... this looks like a complete package in a single product. But is this the keyboard for you? we'll find out won't we?

For the complete features of the Aivia Osmium, head on to www.gigabyte.com

Unboxing

The retail packaging of the Osmium is a huge glossy box, much bigger than any keyboard boxes I have seen ... it's heavy as well. The front features the keyboard in a dark background and you can see that this is the Cherry-Mx brown version with white LED illumination (There is another with Cherry-Mx red with blue LED illumination).

The back of the box is covered with key features of the AIvia Osmium. One thing is for sure, Gigabyte went all out for this keyboard, even the box is premium!

Opening up the box reveals the Osmium mechanical keyboard protected in soft foam on all sides. A keycap puller and 4 replacement keycaps is also included on one side along with an instruction manual. No driver CDs in here so users are to get the Aivia Ghost driver software off from Gigabyte's website.

Outlook

The matte black finish on the Aivia Osmium definitely looks and feels great, comes with a large-removable wrist rest. Heavier than most keyboards I have known, it's solidly built and flexing it seemed futile to me.

The cable is probably the thickest I have seen on a keyboard, nicely sleeved but due to it's thickness, it's not the most flexible cable around so you might have to figure out a way to route it nicely so that it doesn't get in the way.

This later on breaks to 4 smaller cables that consists of the Microphone and Headphone 3.5mm jacks, a USB2.0 and a USB3.0 headers that will power the keyboard and enable the ports found on the keyboard to work. Personally, I couldn't ask for a better way to connect audio passthroughs, especially when one have a very good sound card in their rig. I also like how they were protected with plastic caps, ensuring that the contact points does not get scuffed or dusty during transport.

At the top-left, you'll find the 5 dedicated macro keys with two scroll-wheels which controls the brightness of the white LEDs and volume. These were well made and the tactile feedback from them is just nice so that one could be however precise with their brightness and volume adjustments.

While on the opposite end, you'd find the large profile switch, a god-sent feature absent from many gaming oriented keyboards. We'll take a closer look at this feature later on.

Right behind and at the side of the profile switch lies the headphone and microphone jack, USB3.0 and USB2.0 ports.

On the opposite side, is a nicely etched "Ghost" logo.

As depicted at the front of the packaging, every key on the this AIvia Osmium mechanical keyboard has a Cherry-Mx brown mechanical switch. Taking off the keys with the key cap puller will reveal the switches; this also allows for customisation should you wish to replace any key caps.

Flipping to the underside of the Aivia Osmium, you would see that instead of the usual two elevation tabs, we have four; offering a greater levels of adjustment for the users for that ultimate comfort. all of the tabs have high quality, non-slip rubber pads that keeps the Aivia Osmium firmly planted to the table.

Plugging in the Aivia Osmium, the white LED is strikingly bright, ensuring even the blindest of bats know which keys is which on the keyboard. I like how they manage to have all the optional symbols and media controls on the key caps lit by the LED so that non-touch typist like myself would be able to continue working in the darkness.  Just a reminder, this can be adjusted by scrolling down the scroll wheel at the top of the keyboard or even turned off completely by pressing on it.

Pressing on the profile changer will allow you to cycle between profiles depicted in 5 different colours of Blue (Default) Green, Red, Purple and Teal. This means that I don't have to go into the driver software to switch profiles making full use of the on-board memory to store my profiles. I'll elaborate more on the profiles in the Driver section.

Placing it along with my Logitech G510, the Aivia Osmium is noticeably shorter so it should be able to fit onto more desks. Although I might miss the LCD panel on the G510, a trade-off that's probably worth it.

Drivers

The Aivia Ghost driver software will allow users to set custom functions onto the macro buttons across 5 different profiles. With the on-board memory, you could then use these custom settings on another PC without having to install the driver again. And if you've looked into my article on Homebrew Tips & Tricks : Typing Faster, you'd have guessed that the macro buttons are a boon already.

Upon launching the Aivia Ghost, you would be greeted by a grid like layout with three tabs at the top. Clicking on the grids will launch the corresponding tasks or select the said Gigabyte peripheral. As you can see, I only have the Osmium as a recognized peripheral.

Selecting the profiles tab will reveal a small line of selectable 5 colours which denominates the 5 different profiles that is available to you. Below that, you'd notice that the grid content has changed to represent the 5 macro keys. Clicking on any one of them will allow you to customise the corresponding macro keys.

You will see 2 types of customisation, Basic and Macros. As it's naming scheme proposes, the basic customisation will allow you to assign mouse clicks, launch simple applications or browser navigation. The Macros customisation is a little more advanced than that as you would be able to set custom combinations of key presses and/or mouse commands to a single button; to top it all off, you may have up till 100 of these macro settings at your disposal. This means that you have a choice of up to 500 different combinations that you could set on the 5 macro buttons. It suddenly occurred to me that the Aivia Osmium is in need of more macro keys, having so many options to customise seems pointless with only 5 keys to assign to, probably the best would be to enable all the keys to be programmable?

Clicking edit on any of the macros will bring you to the customisation module. You could start right away recording your favourite combination or you could choose to import a macro that you previously have. The process is quite intuitive and easy to learn, even if you made a mistake, you could always erase it and insert a new one.

Renaming the macros you've set is also possible at the top, that way you'd know what the macro does without having to retrace the commands that you've just set. Just remember to click on save before exiting the module lest you want that 20-hit combo on one button to be lost, this will automatically set the macros to the corresponding button you accessed the module with.

Backing out of the macro recording module and selecting the settings tab will give you further 2 options.

Under the profile settings, you will be able enable or disable any of the 5 profiles and breathing effects. Clicking the default switch at the top will enable every profiles.

Selecting the on board memory buttons simply will ask you if you want to clean the memory, means resetting everything to factory settings, also means that you will lose all custom settings that you have made.

Usage & Testing

Only a few minutes after placing the Aivia Osmium on my table, the family is liking it. Typing experience is overall nice and responsive thanks to the subtle feedback on the Cherry-Mx Brown(s). Key-presses are smooth but slightly louder than those of the membrane keyboard; still it's fairly quiet compared to the Armaggeddon Stealth Raptor MKA-7 that I reviewed recently. Just for the record, all keys registered when I pressed 10 keys at once, good anti-ghosting over USB2.0 don't you think?

On the gaming front, I fired up Mass Effect 3 multi-player and later on Grid2 followed by Torchlight 2 just to cover a few types of games (FPS/TPS, SIM racing & RPG). All commands entered are registered without a problem, half-pressing a key will still register in Grid2, while I could fire multiple skills via the macro buttons, didn't really need to look at the keyboard at all as the layout is fairly familiar... well almost, reaching for the macro keys at the top is the only stretching you'll do anyway. The large profile switch on the right hand is well implemented, pressing it allows me to cycle between the different settings between the games I play, though at the moment I admit I might not be using the profiles too much as the Aivia Osmium only allows 5 keys to be programmable.

On both occasions, the wrist-rest provided is very comfortable. Despite it being plastic all around, the detachable wrist rest is of decent quality and provided good support throughout the usage of the Aivia Osmium. If you have seen my review of the Armaggeddon Black Hornet MKA-3, you'd know that I don't usually have wrist rests, but this one makes the cut as with the one packed together with the Aivia Osmium.

Conclusion

The Aivia Osmium is a great mechanical keyboard, one that I'd personally recommend to my peers. It's solidly built, feels great to type and game on, very responsive as well with good anti-ghosting capabilities.

Pros:

• Solid construction
• Matte black & fingerprint proof
• Multiple height / level adjustment
• Built-in USB2.0 and USB3.0 Hubs
• Comfortable wrist rest
• Tactile scroll wheels (LED and Volume)
• All keys illuminated adequately

Cons:

• Cable is thick and rigid.
• Only 5 Macro keys

The Aivia Osmium gets the Tech-Critter Silver and Recommended product award! Gigabyte managed to do so many things right with the keyboard but ever so slightly short of the Gold. This is a keyboard that I'd gladly pay RM470 for. My only concern is routing the thick and quite rigid cable that comes out of the top and of the limited programmable buttons. Probably in the next iteration of the Osmium we'll see an improvement.

SAPPHIRE Bundles Battlefield 4 across R-Series Graphics cards!

SAPPHIRE Technology, the world leading supplier of graphics cards based on the latest GCN (Graphics Core Next) architecture from AMD, has just announced that it will now bundle vouchers for the exciting new game Battlefield 4 with several new products in its recently launched R-Series of graphics accelerators.

Battlefield 4 has been heralded as the most exciting and realistic game to be launched for some time, and looks its best and runs most smoothly on GCN based graphics cards. SAPPHIRE originally launched a Special Edition of the flagship R9 290X graphics accelerator bundled with a Battlefield 4 voucher.

Now the game voucher will be included with additional members of the R-Series. These include the SAPPHIRE R9 290 - recently launched to great critical acclaim as great value for money for the gaming enthusiast - and several products in the SAPPHIRE Dual-X series.

The voucher will only be bundled with specially branded editions of the SAPPHIRE R9 280X Dual-X, the SAPPHIRE R9 280 Dual-X, the SAPPHIRE R9 270X Dual-X and the brand new SAPPHIRE R9 270 Dual-X. The R9 270 is a new member of the series with a similar architecture to the R9 270X, but operating at lower clock speeds, offering all the features of this series to users on a more limited budget.

All the members of the Dual-X series use SAPPHIRE exclusive dual extraction technology – a highly efficient cooler with graduated heatpipes and two aerofoil section fans running quietly and efficiently to deliver great performance with low noise levels.

Cards with the Battlefield 4 voucher will be available to order from November 13^th from SAPPHIRE’s existing etailers and retailers.

For more information on SAPPHIRE graphics cards, please visit www.sapphiretech.com

AMD R7 & R9 Launch @ GSC Signature, Gardens

It's here! we celebrate the launch of the awaited AMD R7 and R9 GPUs at GSC Signature in the Gardens Shopping Mall. A collaborative effort from both AMD and ASUS, this promises to be a good one for the books... or the blog.

A banner of the Asus R9 280X  Matrix greeted us at the escalator leading to the launch.

 And to our delight, goody bags!

Here are the contents of the bag we got ;) I know where it will belong... on my desk where the IT manager walks past everyday :p

We see the Vector team here again, probably pondering what can they do to max out the performance of that setup.

Sweet looking peripherals they have there isn't it? New toys from CM Storm with a touch of Aluminum.

The interview session with the Vahn featuring the 'AMD Collector's DeskPC'

While he's at it, we peek inside to see the awesomeness of the setup.

And on top of it featured a new set of peripherals courtesy of Cooler Master, featuring the new Mechanical Gaming Keyboard from CM Storm, MECH and their gaming mice, Reaper. Hope that we can get our hands on them soon for an unboxing & review article.

The wait for the event to start is never boring, trying out your skills on the new Battlefield 4 should keep you busy enough.

This rig by Goldfries has new chassis, new fans and of course the new AMD R9 GPU in it, sweet!

A good read of the features of the AMD GPUs and contents of the Vector AMD Collector's DeskPC

The start of the event, pretty much everything you need to know about them new R series.

A comparison chart against the green camp...

complete with an explanation of the architecture ;)

The lucky draw session being conducted... no we didn't win any of the Asus Orion ROG headsets or copies of Battlefield 4. Would've made a good review out of it too :p

Lo and behold the lucky winners!

A quick snap of the (overkill) setup used to display the presentation slides

No use running away with these, the contents are mounted in the rigs.

After the end of the presentation, we were treated to watch Thor: The Dark World :) 

It won't be the last that we see of these products, more to come in the future!