Over the years I’ve had the chance to check out a lot of different hard drives and data storage solutions. In all that time WD has been one of the best, most trusted names in the industry. Their products have a great reputation for quality, reliability, and longevity. I’ve been able to try out their small pocket-sized hard drives. I’ve been able to try out their small business networked attached storage (NAS) solutions. I’ve even been able to try out their routers. Through all of that, they’ve always stood out as well built products which I was confident in trusting with my precious data.

Personal Computers (Otherwise known as PCs) can seem pretty confusing. A lot of people have no idea what's going on inside, and haven’t even seen the inside of one. They can seem like mysterious boxes that you just plug things into, press some buttons, and stuff just magically happens. Even if you’re not looking to build a computer from scratch or perform do-it-yourself repair work, its good to have some idea of what components combine to make a PC, and what everything does if for no other reason than to simply demystify these gadgets we tend to use on a daily basis.

Installing a new operating system to your PC can seem like a daunting task to many. It can be a pain free process for the most part these days with Windows 8 but of course you should still take care to make sure you have everything backed up first when you start the process. That's where Western Digital can come on to help.

There is certainly no shortage of NAS devices out there these days. They come in a wide range of shapes, sizes, and price points. Many of the newer entries to the scene are smaller, more consumer oriented devices that, while functional, are pretty basic. Not so with Western Digital’s DX4000 Sentinel NAS.

The wait is finally over, this week marks the release of the sequel to one of the best Transformers games ever.  That's right, Transformers: Fall of Cybertron is available now, and already the game is receiving widespread praise among critics.  That begs the question, is this the best Transformers game ever?

Everyone loves USB flash drives. They’ve become the standard go-to method for portable data storage. They come in a seemingly endless variety of shapes, sizes, and configurations. There are so many available that can easily become daunting. We’ve already looked at some considerations to look at when shopping for one, and how size isn’t everything with USB flash storage. With all that data in your pocket, you might be neglecting its safety. Just because a USB flash drive can often be replaced for a few dollars doesn’t mean your data can, after all.

USB flash drives are pretty ubiquitous these days. They come in all sorts of various shapes, sizes, and configurations. It seems like there is no end to the selection. Unfortunately a lot of people get overwhelmed with all that choice and it becomes easy for all the options to look effectively the same. Many people only look at capacity and price but you might be surprised how much more there can be to consider.

The My Book series of external hard drives from Western Digital have always been pretty popular. With great performance, high quality, and a slick aesthetic, it's hardly a surprise. Western Digital has a pretty strong name in the hard drive market. Lately they have been dipping their toes into the networking market too so seeing a product like the Western Digital My Book Live is a natural fit.

Seagate has a great history manufacturing reliable PC hard drives. These days, while internal PC hard drives are still in high demand, there is a lot more to talk about in the evolving external hard drive space. There are two particular models that we’ll take a look at today; Seagate’s Backup Plus portable drive, and the Seagate Expansion Portable hard drive. 

It was only yesterday when we took at look at the world of Solid State Drives (SSDs) to see what they were all about and how they differed from traditional Hard Disk Drives (HDDs) for storage media. Today we’ll examine a specific SSD product category; Thunderbolt SSDs. These external drives let you capitalize on the speed and reliability of an SSD without all the benefits of an external hard drive. 

You’ve probably heard of a hard drive before. It's a type of storage technology used in your computer to keep all of your data. It's commonly abbreviated to HDD and uses a series of spinning platters not unlike vinyl records in concept. The next generation of computer storage is here now and already making waves. Abbreviated to SSD, solid state drives are becoming increasingly popular. They’re already common in Macbooks and Ultrabooks but their use is spreading throughout the computer market.

With Backup Awareness Month in mind, I thought we could take a moment to sit down and discuss the world of network attached storage - NAS for short. They can be really handy for data storage, file sharing, and of course as part of your backup solution.

You may have heard about cloud computing before though even if you haven’t it's something you’re probably already using without even realizing it. It's a growing trend in the computer scene so you can expect to hear about it a lot more. With June being Backup Awareness Month, it's a good time to take a look at this term and what it means for you and your backup needs.

Did you know June is backup awareness month? Probably not. You probably have been meaning to backup your computer for a while, but you know, just haven’t gotten around to it. See, that’s a shame because today there are more and more files that you cherish that are only on your computer that photo album or shoebox of pictures has been replaced by your hard drive. Now, what if that hard drive fails? And believe me, all hard drives will eventually fail. Just today a friend asked me about drive recovery services for another friend. My friend’s friend got quotes of $600 to over $1000 to recover a crashed drive.

Yep, that’s about right. Now figure you can buy a 2 terabyte hard drive that can back up all of your files for less than $150, what’s the better deal? All this month here on the Tech Blog we’re going to talk about keeping your machine backed up. I’m going to kick things off with telling you about how I back up my files.

Do you remember that excitement of starting up that new computer for the first time? Everything feels so snappy and responsive. There's no mess of icons cluttering that beautiful desktop. The hard drive is spacious. Everything is idyllic. Fast forward a few years and it doesn’t quite seem like that anymore. Many people have no idea that with just some routine, and simple maintenance they can keep a modern computer running like new for years. Even some who know, still manage to procrastinate and put things off. Spring is here, and there's no better time for a good old fashioned spring cleaning of your computer to get it in tip-top shape. In this first part of our guide, we’ll look at what PC users can do to clean up the software end of their Windows computer to get it tuned up and back in like-new shape.