SUPER TALENT
FSD56GC25M 256GB 256MB Solid State Hard Drive: $7,200
www.supertalent.com

SOLID STATE MEMORY WITHSTANDS much tougher treatment than your magnetic hard drives. For proof, try jogging with an MP3 player that uses a mechanical drive. Solid state drives—at least the ones Super Talent has already seen so much success with— can withstand temperatures between 0 degrees and 70 degrees C. They’re also able to tolerate an astounding 1,500G operating shock and 16G operating vibration without failure.

In the past, solid state hard drives suffered from performance that was inferior to that of the much more mature magnetic drive technologies. However, Super Talent has gone to great lengths to change the performance attributes of its SSDs. The latest generation features a .1ms access time, up to 60 MB/s sequential reads and 45 MB/s sequential writes. There are no specs listed for random read or write performance, but expect those numbers to be slightly lower.

Capacity can seem a weak point when you put an SSD up against a typical magnetic drive. Nevertheless, you have to admit that 256GB of fl ash memory in a 3.5” form factor is still a crazy amount of solid state storage. The reliability of Super Talent’s drives is on the rise as well. The company rates its latest models at more than 1,000,000 hours MTBF with builtin ECC and wear-leveling algorithms to spread the loading out across the drive. If the $7,200 price tag is too much to swallow, check out Super Talent’s 128GB model, which still offers a boatload of capacity for $3,250.

SENTRYSAFE
Fire-Safe Waterproof Hard Drive: $339
www.sentrysafe.com

YOUR CUSTOMERS BACK UP IMPORTANT INFORMATION ON, external hard drives to protect against a hardware loss on their machine. Then they’re told to make another copy and take it off-site, protecting against a fi re or theft. But you have to think: At what point does backup become such a hassle that busy business owners stop making it a priority? In many cases, customers who’ve never lost a hard drive can get incredibly lax about saving the fi les that matter. Don’t expect them to consistently swap external drives or take tapes offsite.

SentrySafe showed us its latest solution to on-site loss at CES. Its Fire-Safe Waterproof Hard Drive consists of a 2.5” 160GB Maxtor drive sealed inside a SentrySafe chassis. As its name suggests, the box is both waterproof and fi reresistant. They use the word “resistant” because, like most safes, there is a limit to the exposure and temperature its Fire-Safe can withstand. In this case, it’s 30 minutes at up to 1,550 degrees Fahrenheit. The company seems to have done its fi re homework: SentrySafe representatives told us that most fi res sweep through rather quickly, so 30 minutes of protection are more than enough. Because the average residential fi re burns at around 1,000 degrees, you have some headroom there as well.

The Fire-Safe connects via USB 2.0 cable and is powered by the USB bus. In the event of a fi re, the connecting cable simply melts off. When we asked SentrySafe reps about fi re or water danger through the cable’s route into the Fire-Safe, we were assured that the enclosure is designed to continue providing protection should the cable melt off. SentrySafe bundles the drive with password protection, data encryption, and SafetyDrill drive imaging software.

PC POWER AND COOLING
Turbo-Cool 1200: $499
www.pcpower.com

AMD BROADLY ANNOUNCED ITS CROSSFIREX TECHNOLOGY, not too long ago. NVIDIA did the same with its 3-way SLI confi guration, going a step further by specifi cally limiting the technology to its highest-end graphics cards. Both technologies have the potential to add serious GPU processing horsepower to enthusiast platforms (in addition to some crazy display output confi gurations). They’re also incredibly demanding, though. NVIDIA’s system requirements for 3-way SLI include a dual- or quad-core Core 2 processor and—get this—a power supply with at least 1,100W of peak power available. There aren’t many units out there that can crank out 1.1KW, so you can imagine that only a handful of spenders will be able to afford the hardware needed for such a beefy setup.

Fortunately, PC Power and Cooling has just the ticket for those enthusiast customers. Its Turbo-Cool 1200 goes above and beyond NVIDIA’s base requirements to level 1,200W of continuous power at whatever demanding graphics card-laden platform AMD or NVIDIA can think up. Peak output is even higher at 1,300W. Whereas most high-end supplies divide power output across several +12V rails, the PC Power and Cooling unit employs one massive rail that can crank out 90A of current, conveying the benefi t of optimal utilization.

Despite its massive output, the Turbo-Cool maintains at least 83% effi ciency. Six PCI Express power connectors and 15 drive connectors ensure you’ll be able to attach whichever cards and peripherals your customer wants. Finally, a seven-year warranty should give your customer the peace of mind that his juggernaut of a PSU was engineered to last longer than the rest of his system.

ANTEC
Fusion Black 430: $229
www.antec.com

ANTEC IS PERHAPS LESS, known for its VERIS family of media components than its tower enclosures and power supplies. But the same engineering that goes into those more commonly used chassis helps make the Fusion Black 430 home theater PC enclosure an exciting option for anyone interested in taking high-defi nition media from the desktop to the big screen.

The beefy chassis is aesthetically a job well done. The black aluminum front bezel looks like what you might expect from any other consumer electronics component in an entertainment rack, complete with a large volume knob, LCD display, and front panel I/O. A matching drive cover hides the door of whichever optical drive you install. And an IR receiver built into the case is fully compatible with the MCE remote and Windows Vista.

Inside the box you’ll fi nd enough room for a microATX motherboard, two 3.5” hard drives, four expansion slots, and a chambered architecture designed to isolate heat and noise. Antec includes one of its own 430W power supplies to further cut back on noise output. Also, Antec throws in a pair of side-mounted 120mm TriCool fans, which are adjustable for the right balance between cooling and acoustics. The brackets holding your internal storage are equipped with silicone grommets, keeping vibration to a minimum. The Fusion is pricey as far as chassis go. But integrated into a home theater system, the enclosure pays for itself with its professional look and solid effort to cut noise as much as possible.