Apple hardware hoarders do exist - a friend told me that he'd only just replaced a 2013 vintage 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro this month - these folks continue to enjoy repairs or miscellaneous services at Apple Stores and authorized service providers on some products. Unfortunately there is potential bad news for preservationist owners of the original Thunderbolt Display and the first generation iPad Air tablet - a leaked internal memo suggests that Apple has decided to add these two antiques to their end-of-life (EOL) device list, according to MacRumors. Apple's Thunderbolt Display was released back in the summer of 2011, the company boasted that its fancy 27-inch 1440p monitor was the world's first display with Thunderbolt I/O technology (at the time), the asking price was $999. Alongside its requisite Thunderbolt I/O port (designed to connect to compatible Mac Notebooks), the monitor had a number of other spiffy features including an in-built 720p webcam, three USB 2.0 ports, a FireWire 800 port and a Gigabit Ethernet port.

Apple stopped making the Thunderbolt Display in 2016, and customers had to wait another six years for a successor to turn up - the Studio Display launched alongside the Mac Studio in March 2022. The original (1st gen) iPad Air was released on November 1 in 2013. It was the first entry in the iPad tablet family to feature a thinner design - its standard (non-Air) predecessors were a bit chunkier in comparison. It was discontinued in March of 2016, and Apple has so far released five generations of iPad Air products - last year's model debuted with the ARM-based M1 chipset.

Other World Computing (OWC), a leading zero emissions Mac and PC technology company, announced today that it has expanded its OWC Mercury Elite Pro mini line by 50 percent more capacity to a new maximum of three terabytes (3 TB) storage. The bus-powered Mercury Elite Pro mini is now available in 18 different hard drive or OWC Mercury SSD-equipped configurations. With interface options including USB 3.0, eSATA 6Gb/s, and FireWire, the Mercury Elite Pro mini delivers high performance storage to Mac or PC users in a portable plug-and-play footprint, with no AC adapter required.

The Mercury Elite Pro mini features a fanless brushed aluminum enclosure and measures a compact 5.5" L x 3.8" W x 1.1" H. Because it is bus-powered, the Mercury Elite Pro mini doesn't require an AC adapter, so it's ideal for on-the-go business professionals, creative/entertainment professionals, students, and anyone else needing to back up data, transport large files between computers, gain additional storage capacity, or perform video editing, photo editing, and live music recording. The fanless drive ensures super-quiet operation, an important criteria for creative professionals.

Belkin today introduced the Thunderbolt 2 Express Dock HD with cable, a powerful docking solution for both Mac and PC computers. Equipped with two Thunderbolt 2 ports, it allows users to take full advantage of Thunderbolt 2 technology's high-speed 20Gbps bandwidth, and provides reliable transfers between laptops and up to eight other devices using one single Thunderbolt cable.

Designed for PC and Mac ultrabook, laptop and desktop users, the Belkin Thunderbolt 2 Express Dock HD helps increase productivity, portability and connectivity. With eight ports including support for HDMI, USB 3.0, Gigabit Ethernet, audio and Thunderbolt 2, the Thunderbolt 2 Express Dock HD supports up to eight devices connected directly to the dock, with support for up to four additional (five total) Thunderbolt devices through a daisy-chain setup. Display the clearest picture through either the HDMI or Thunderbolt 2 port at a resolution of up to 4K. The USB 3.0 ports open the ability to charge smartphones, tablets and other higher amperage devices, even when the host computer is asleep or not connected to the dock. It also offers Thunderbolt 2 data transfer speeds of up to 20Gbps, which is two times faster than Thunderbolt, four times faster than USB 3.0 and up to 25 times faster than FireWire 800.

Eurocom is shipping the most powerful supercomputer class fully configurable laptop in the world, equipped with NVIDIA GeForce GTX 880M in single and SLI (Dual) configuration, an X79 Express Chipset supporting Intel Core i7-4000 and Intel Xeon E5-2600 V2 processors, up to i7-4960X or Xeon E5-2697 v2, 32 GB DDR3-1600 and 6 TB Of RAID 0/1/5/10 storage. NVIDIA GeForce GTX 880M graphics card has 1536 CUDA cores running at 954 MHz + boost with 8 GB GDDR5 memory running at 2500 MHz. In SLI the two 880M graphics cards offer users a whopping 16 GB DDR5 video memory and 3072 CUDA cores giving Eurocom users epic performance.

"At Eurocom we specialize in offering the most powerful, capable, high quality and upgradeable systems to our clients. The EUROCOM Panther 5 is the epitome of this, it supports a wide variety of processors, graphics, displays, memory and many of components while offering a very high quality chassis." Mark Bialic, Eurocom President. "We choose the absolute best components to offer our customers to build into their systems from NVIDIA GeForce, Quadro and AMD Radeon graphics to Intel Xeon and Core i7 processors as well as Micron memory modules and Intel DC 3700 storage drives, just to name a few. The EUROCOM Panther 5 is built for professionals that require the utmost in reliability and dependability"

Newer Technology Inc. (NewerTech), a leading developer of Macintosh, PC, iPod, iPhone, and iPad performance upgrades and accessories announced a new 5 TB + 5 TB capacity for the Guardian MAXimus line of dual-bay, high-performance external storage solutions.

High-Performance, Multiple Interfaces
The Guardian MAXimus, available in capacities up to 5 TB + 5 TB, adds tremendous storage capacity and throughput to any Mac or PC with USB 3.0, eSATA, FireWire 800, or FireWire 400. Mission critical applications such as financial records, accounting data, medical files, business projects, and Time Machine backups are enhanced with access to data at sustained data rates up to 238 MB/s read, 245 MB/s write.

Sonnet Technologies today announced the launch of the Fusion QR, a compact and portable four-drive RAID 5 SATA storage system. The Fusion QR replaces the company's Fusion D400QR5, which also offered reliable and affordable RAID 5 storage. Like the legacy system, the Fusion QR integrates a high-performance RAID 5 controller for maximum versatility, critical data protection, and added value, and offers a flexible quad interface that includes eSATA, dual FireWire 800, and USB 3.0.

"With the Fusion QR, we took everything that pros loved about the D400QR5 and made it lighter, more portable, and more affordable than ever. It is a great solution for on-location or mobile productions that require a reliable and versatile four-drive SATA storage in a compact package," said Robert Farnsworth, Sonnet CEO.

Other World Computing (OWC), a leading zero emissions Mac upgrade and storage technology company, announced the new 25% larger capacity for the Mercury Elite Pro Qx2 RAID storage solution for enterprise, professional and prosumer users. The Mercury Elite Pro Qx2 combines multiple high speed interfaces and hardware RAID with massive capacity to handle demanding 4K video content, in a four-bay professional-grade storage solution. With high-speed sustained data rates of up to 260 MB/s, the Mercury Elite Pro Qx2 is ideal for creative professionals using USB 3.0, FireWire 800 or eSATA equipped Macs or PCs, including the Mac Pro 2013.

The Mercury Elite Pro Qx2 features user selectable options of Hardware RAID 0, 1, 5, 10, Span, and Independent modes, offering the discerning user the ideal combination of speed, capacity, and redundancy to handle demanding applications.

Sony's new 2 TB (terabyte) portable storage hard disk drive takes the worry out of back-up in the field, and gives professionals reliable, bus-powered high-speed storage.

The new 2 TB hard disk drive (PSZ-HA2T) expands Sony's line of portable storage drives, and joins three current models including a 500 GB and 1 TB (PSZ-HA50 and PSZ-HA1T) hard disk model and a 256 GB solid state drive (PSZ-SA25).

Akitio, a leading manufacturer of storage solutions, announced today that the Akitio Thunder Dock is now available with an MSRP of just $269. Stock is limited, so if you haven't pre-ordered your docking station already, head over to our shop now. The Thunderbolt dock links past, present and future technology to your computer with just one Thunderbolt cable. The new Thunder Dock allows you to access your data on both legacy and future storage drives by providing multiple host ports for USB 3.0, eSATA and FireWire 800. It also has two Thunderbolt ports for daisy chaining additional Thunderbolt devices and storage.

Other World Computing (www.macsales.com) the world's leading destination for cutting-edge and easy-to-install Mac and PC upgrades and accessories, announced higher data throughput and USB 3.0 compatibility for its multi-interface, four-bay professional-grade Mercury Elite Qx2 RAID storage product for enterprise, professional and prosumer users.

The Mercury Elite Pro Qx2 is now compatible with native USB 3.0 'SuperSpeed' interface technology, in addition to offering FireWire 800 and eSATA connectivity. The improved Elite Pro Qx2 features four hot-swap bays, diverse multiple interface support, and up to 16 TB of available storage capacity. It is engineered specifically for applications such as backup, audio/video, photography, data management, and data-intensive applications. Massive data storage and backup capacity, inter-operable interface support, user-selectable RAID 0, 1, 5, 10, span, and independent modes all provide the speed, capacity, and redundancy necessary to meet a wide array of application requirements.

Sonnet today introduced the Tango 3.0 PCIe, a combination USB 3.0 and FireWire 800 PCIe adapter card. The Tango card provides users with a simple way to add USB 3.0 and FireWire 800 connectivity to Mac Pro and Windows computers with PCIe slots, and to Thunderbolt-to-PCI Express expansion chassis. This Sonnet adapter can run bus-powered devices such as hard drives through each of its ports, and it is also backward-compatible with USB 2.0 and FireWire 400 devices.

USB 3.0, which offers a tenfold increase in data transfer speeds over USB 2.0, has become a standard interface on Mac systems and most Windows PCs, as well as external storage devices. The iconic, but now discontinued, Mac Pro tower never included native USB 3.0 ports, and many perfectly functional PCs were built with only USB 2.0 ports. Therefore, users wanting to take advantage of the new fast interface have to rely on third-party expansion cards. The Sonnet adapter provides four USB 3.0 ports: two external USB 3.0 ports and a 20-pin header for two internal USB 3.0 ports. The internal ports support panel-mount connector kits (sold separately).

Other World Computing (OWC) www.macsales.com, the world's leading destination for cutting-edge and easy-to-install Mac and PC upgrades and accessories, has expanded its Mercury Elite Pro Dual mini portable hardware-RAID storage product line with two new 3.0 TB models, available as 3.0 TB RAID-1 (for robust data protection) or 3.0 TB RAID-0 (for maximum performance).

What it does: This bus-powered (no AC adapter is required) unit stores a tremendous amount of data safely using RAID technology, or even more data with super-fast access. Featuring hardware RAID-1 (mirrored) redundancy for data protection or RAID-0 (striped) for maximum throughput, the Mercury Elite Pro Dual mini contains two 2.5" hard drives or OWC Mercury Electra 6G SSDs for up to 3.0 TB of capacity. A "quad interface" of FireWire 800, FireWire 400, USB 2.0, and eSATA connections delivers data transfer speeds of up to 300 MB/s with Mac and PC computers.

GIGABYTE created UEFI-equipped revisions of most of its socket AM3+ motherboards with the advent of FX "Vishera" processors last year, but held back with its flagship motherboard for the platform, the 990FXA-UD7. The company released an updated revision of the motherboard, dubbed 990FXA-UD7 Rev 3.0, completely skipping "Rev 2.0." While the new board is essentially laid out similar to its predecessor, a lot has changed.

To begin with, its based on GIGABYTE's newer (though not latest) Ultra Durable 4 construction. A 10-phase high-amperage VRM powers the AM3+ socket, which appears to be ready for AMD's FX-9000 series CPUs for overclockers. The CPU VRM uses driver-MOSFETs, although not quite the PowIRStage chippery we find on Ultra Durable 5 motherboards. A thicker, chunkier heatsink is used to cool these driver-MOSFETs and the AMD 990FX northbridge. This cluster of heatsinks is connected to the one that cools the AMD SB950 southbridge over a heat pipe. The AM3+ socket is wired to four DDR3 DIMM slots, which support up to 64 GB of dual-channel DDR3-2000+ MHz memory.

Ahead of its grand Computex launch alongside the Core "Haswell" processor family, Intel's homebrew socket LGA1150 Desktop Board products are being previewed online. One such covers the company's flagship motherboard, the DZ87KLT-75K "Kinsley." The board features a CPU power supply that's most compliant to Intel's iVR design for Core "Haswell" processors, with an 8-phase design. You'll either love or hate the new heatsink design. Expansion slots include three PCI-Express 3.0 x16 (x16/x8/x4), three PCI-Express 2.0 x1, and surprisingly, a legacy PCI.

Storage connectivity includes six SATA 6 Gb/s ports from the Z87 PCH, two from a third-party controller, and an mSATA 6 Gb/s. The board features a single first-generation Thunderbolt port, which doubles up as mini-DisplayPort, the only other display output than HDMI. A variant of this board without Thunderbolt (in which the port works only as mini-DisplayPort), could be sold as DZ87KL-70K. Rest of the board's connectivity include eight USB 3.0 ports (six rear, two by header), eight USB 2.0/1.1 ports, two 800 Mbps FireWire ports (one rear, one by header), 8-channel HD audio with optical SPDIF, two gigabit Ethernet interfaces, and an optional front-panel module that gives the board front-panel USB 3.0 ports, 802.11 b/g/n WiFi, and Bluetooth 4.0. In addition to the five 4-pin PWM fan headers, the board appears to feature several overclocker-friendly features. Find a video presentation at the source.

In addition to the Z87N-WiFi mini-ITX motherboard, GIGABYTE showed off a couple of its top ATX products from its mainline Z87X series, the Z87X-UD4H and Z87X-UD5H. The two mark GIGABYTE's complete breakaway from the blue color scheme, and lack the color even on their heatsinks. The Z87X-UD4H features a hot-rod red+silver+black color-scheme, while the Z87X-UD5H features gold+silver+black. Both boards are based on the company's Ultra Durable 5 construction. Both boards appear to offer overclocker-friendly features that are reserved for the high-end, such as redundant BIOS, diagnostic LEDs and measurement points for each power domain, and high-grade electrical components.

The Z87X-UD4H offers a 16-phase CPU power supply, three each of PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slots (electrical x16/x8/x4), PCI-Express 2.0 x1, and a legacy PCI. It offers eight internal SATA 6 Gb/s ports, two eSATA 6 Gb/s, ten USB 3.0 ports (six on the rear panel, four by headers), 8-channel HD audio, and display outputs that include DVI, D-Sub, HDMI, and DisplayPort. The Z87X-UD5H, on the other hand, offers the same 16-phase CPU VRM and the same expansion slot layout as its sibling, but tops it up with ten internal SATA 6 Gb/s ports, dual gigabit Ethernet, a second DVI connector instead of D-Sub, and FireWire (by header). The two will most likely be part of GIGABYTE's first wave of socket LGA1150 motherboards, and could be priced above $150.

Other World Computing (OWC), a leading zero emissions Mac, and PC technology company, announced today that its OWC Mercury Elite Pro Qx2 Hardware RAID data storage/backup solution supports USB 3.0 'SuperSpeed' performance when paired with the Newer Technology eSATA to USB 3.0 Adapter. The adapter, which utilizes an available eSATA drive port, offers a Plug and Play connection to USB 3.0-equipped Macs or PCs for real-world sustained data transfer rates of more than 200MB/s from the Qx2 to meet the needs of demanding performance-intensive professional applications such as Audio/Video editing, HD-video, digital photography, professional music, graphics, redundant backup, and any use requiring data storage performance and reliability.

Newer Technology, Inc. (NewerTech), developer of PC, Macintosh, iPod, iPhone, and iPad performance upgrades and accessories, today announced the miniStack MAX, is now available in DVD/CD only read/write optical drive models for those computer users that don't require the Blu-ray functionality other miniStack MAX models provide. As the only four-in-one external drive, optical drive, SD card reader and USB powered hub solution on the market, the miniStack MAX supports multiple interfaces for Plug and Play storage of entire music, photo and video libraries, as well as burning backups via the internal optical drive, with new and legacy Macs or PCs.

Orico unveiled the new 9648RUSI3 drive enclosure that can either be used as a 1U rack-mounted device, or on a desk, with its feet attached. The enclosure, which comes in graphite black, and silvery aluminum, packs four 3.5-inch caddies with SATA 6 Gb/s interface, supporting drives as big as 3 TB. It features RAID 0, 1, 0+1, JBOD modes, and a total volume size of 12 TB is supported. While it's not quite a NAS due to the lack of a network interface, it features two high bandwidth interfaces: eSATA 6 Gb/s, and USB 3.0, in addition to FireWire 800. It is priced at the equivalent of $480.

ROCSTOR, a leading provider of fast, high-capacity data storage and encryption solutions, announces the launch of Amphibious X5. The Amphibious X5 is a secure, ruggedized portable hard drive with real time hardware encryption and offers advanced single-factor authentication, USB and FireWire 800. In addition, the crypto module is FIPS 140-2 certified.

The Amphibious is considered as one of the most secure and user-friendly devices in the world for size, strength of encryption, and method of authentication. It offers users the option of using the device in a cross platform and Operating System independent fashion, and no GUI or software installations required. The Amphibious is the result of a year of intensive R & D effort and collaboration. For the user it offers the value of data security by using an original concept of single-factor authentication, real time hardware encryption, and futuristic design sense. The Amphibious X5 is appropriate for consumers, SOHO's, enterprises, institutions, military and government applications who want to store data in a secure manner.

G-Technology, a leading developer of innovative storage solutions engineered specifically to meet the needs of the content creation and Apple Mac communities, today announced that it is now shipping its popular G-Technology G-DRIVE mini and G-RAID mini external storage solutions with new high-quality, 1 TB, 2.5-inch 7,200 RPM hard disk drives from HGST.

"Today, new kinds of devices and media formats require considerably more interface bandwidth, capacity and higher transfer rates to move, store and edit data quickly. The new Travelstar drive is the first and only 7,200 RPM, 1 TB, 9.5 mm 2.5-inch drive, and delivers the highest 7,200 RPM performance in PCMark Vantage testing," said Mike Williams , vice president and general manager, G-Technology/HGST Branded Business. "Now incorporated into our well-known G-RAID mini and G-DRIVE mini solutions, consumers and content creators can continue to receive unmatched performance, style and reliability in their G-Technology storage solutions."

Other World Computing (OWC) www.macsales.com, a leading zero emissions Mac and PC technology company, announced today its award-winning OWC Mercury On-The-Go Pro bus-powered portable storage solution has expanded its storage and back up capacity by 50% to a massive 1.5 TB. That's enough space to hold up to 1.5 million JPEG photos, 750 DVD movies, 115 hours of digital video, or 526,000 MP3 songs in your back pocket.

The new Mercury On-The-Go Pro 1.5 TB model is available in two interface configurations:
- USB 3.0 and FireWire 800/400 $199.99
- USB 3.0/2.0 only $179.99

Apple today unveiled a completely new iMac with a stunning design, brilliant display with reduced reflection, and faster processors.* With third generation Intel quad-core processors, powerful NVIDIA graphics and an innovative new storage option called Fusion Drive, the new iMac is the most advanced desktop Apple has ever made.

"With a stunning design, brilliant display and faster performance, we've made the world's leading all-in-one desktop computer better in every way," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. "The all-new iMac is unbelievably thin, yet packs an incredible amount of performance and technology into our most innovative desktop."

Seagate Technology plc. today introduced SuperSpeed USB 3.0 to the award-winning Backup Plus storage for Mac. Currently available through Amazon.com and from Apple Stores in November, both Backup Plus Portable for Mac and Backup Plus Desktop for Mac drives will feature the new USB 3.0 interface, which is also compatible with earlier USB 2.0 ports. This new interface means faster transfer of data, so you can backup more quickly, up to 10x that of USB 2.0, via TimeMachine or simply transferring a file from a computer to external storage.

Selected as the Editor's Choice portable external drive by PC Magazine, Seagate Backup Plus hard drives were first introduced in June of this year. Designed to work interchangeably with both Windows and Apple computers, these new drives deliver features to protect, share and save nearly every aspect of one's digital life. Seagate Backup Plus products include a software feature that makes them the world's first external hard drives to provide a way to backup content from social networks, such as Facebook and Flickr. The Seagate Dashboard software included on Backup Plus for Mac drives delivers a quick and easy path to Save and Share personal photos and videos on Facebook and Flickr.

Sharkoon is expanding their range of "QuickPort" docking stations: The Sharkoon SATA QuickPort U3 FireWire is a true all-round talent in terms of fast data transfer and connectivity diversity. The hard drive adapter not only supports the eponymous FireWire standard, but with USB3.0 and eSATA also two other external interface standards. With the additional FireWire port Sharkoon now especially appeals to the Mac community, since their Apple devices primarily use a FireWire interface.

The new QuickPort model also provides three IEEE-1394 ports: one for the older 1394a standard (FireWire 400) and two for the faster 1394b standard (FireWire 800). The appropriate connection cables for all available ports are enclosed. The internal SATA interface supports the SATA standards 1.5 Gb/s to 6 Gb/s.

External enclosures are a great way to have high capacity data storage on the go. Data can also be a critical factor for media, backup, or music professionals. Some of the top tier hard drive companies have made their own all in one enclosure with hard drive included. However, one of the known major causes of hard drive failure is due to excessive heat buildup caused by a lack of a proper cooling system. Also, a majority of hard drive manufactures only allow a 1 year warranty on their all in one external hard drives.

This can be fatal for someone who has just lost their data and has to spend a significant amount of money in order to recover their data. There are other external enclosures in the market that provide a cooling system to help prevent this, but the physical placement of the cooling system does not always allow for the optimal airflow to cool the hard drive. Going above and beyond, the MB080USEB-1SB Blizzard is the next generation of external enclosures dedicated for maximum performance in cooling.