14 DAY TRIAL // While the industry is focused on the new video cards and updates on upcoming processors, other companies decided to release products of their own, such as Apacer, whose HDD collection has just been expanded.
While the majority of hard disk drives are still 3.5-inch models meant to be placed inside desktops, various other sorts of such storage units exist.
In fact, thanks, largely, to the USB connection, many so-called external and/or portable drives have been released over time.
The biggest point for the universal serial bus connection is that, in addition to performing the actual data transfer, it supplies the power needed by the storage units to function.
Coupled with the growing adoption of the compact 2.5-inch form factor, and the large capacities of HDDs in general, portable HDDs have been getting more and more popular each month.
To build upon this growing popularity, Apacer has reportedly created a series of HDDs known as AC430 and composed of two members.
This external HDDs naturally uses the 2.5-inch form factor, its enclosure being made out of aluminum with a metallic hairline finish and colored in a shade of silver.
No doubt its most important asset is the use of the SuperSpeed USB 3.0 interface standard.
For those interested in a reminder, USB 3.0 is the newest iteration of the USB specifications and has a maximum theoretical transfer speed of roughly 5 Gbps.
This is ten times as fast as USB 2.0, whose top data rate is limited to 480 Mbps.
Granted, that highest limit is difficult to reach, especially for platter-based devices, but Apacer still managed to enable read and write speeds of 92 Mb/s and 85 MB/s, respectively.
Unfortunately, the 500 GB and 640 GB hard disk drives have not been given prices, nor is it perfectly clear when sales will commence.