Unlike optical discs, pen drives come in many shapes, sizes, and capacities. Fortunately, Vinpower takes that into consideration when we designed our USB duplicator. The Vinpower USBShark USB Duplicator series works with virtually any size USB pen drive and can copy asynchronously regardless of the size of the content. So if you need to transfer content from a USB pen drive to multiple other USB pen drives, or any flash device for that matter, Vinpower has the equipment that will make the task incredibly simple, quick, and reliable.

Vinpower announced the recent release of its Hard Drive (HDD) Duplicator, boasting the exceptionally fast duplication speed of max 150MB/sec. That’s all well and good, but what does that mean in real time duplication and will it really make a difference in the time it takes to duplicate a HDD?

When you look at many of the competing HDD Duplicators, you’ll find that most of them top out at around 90MB/sec. So if you look at it more closely, that means the Vinpower HDD Duplicator can copy approx. 9GB/min, while the competition can only copy at 5GB/min. So, if you extrapolate that out over a now standard 500GB HDD, in theory, the Vinpower duplicator can copy the entire HDD in less than 30 minutes while the competition will take nearly an hour to complete. Take that further to a 2TB HDD and the time gap between the two becomes even further apart. The Vinpower unit, using the same criteria, could take less than 4 hours to copy while the competition would take nearly 7 hours to complete.

I don’t know about you, but I can think of much better things to do with my 3 hours than wait for a duplication job to finish. So if your time and money is important to you, I would recommend you read the specs carefully and judge for yourself which type of HDD Duplicator you’d rather use, the one that saves you time or the one you’re constantly waiting on, I know what I’d choose.

Recently, I inadvertently launched a particularly nasty viral assault on my office desktop computer. What I quickly and painstakingly discovered, was that this virus not only cleaned out my hard drive, but also followed the data stream back to our server and wiped out the entire back-up data as well. I’m not an overtly technical person, so I never even imagined this was a possibility. I assumed that once you create a back-up file away from the primary computer, the files would be safe. To my chagrin, I couldn’t have been more wrong.

The saving grace in this case, was that our company, in its infinite wisdom, also keeps a hard copy of all back-up files from our server on optical discs. Optical discs (like DVD (especially archival grade) or Blu-ray) are the only true back-up solutions that are impervious to viral attacks, accidental or deliberate deletion, hacking, etc. If we didn’t have the foresight to use optical discs to back up our back-up, I would have completely lost nearly 8 years’ worth of painstakingly laborious content including reports, pictures, proposals, templates, email history, and so much more.

I thought, what if this happened to my home computer where I don’t have the back-up systems in place I have at work. All of my family photos and videos would be gone forever. Irreplaceable memories wiped out with a single keystroke. That is not something that you can put a price tag on, or could even be replaced for that matter. I went home and backed up my entire hard drive’s irreplaceable files, especially the pictures and videos on our new archival M-Disc media. I dodged a bullet this time, will you be so lucky?

In the recordable optical media world, price is often king. There are plenty of those that still care about the disc quality and also realize that paying slightly more for a better disc will cost you less in the long run when you factor in the number of failed discs that are wasted from the cheaper brands. So when rumors started flying that one of t preeminent media manufacturers, Mitsubishi Kagaku Media (MKM), is looking to close their manufacturing plants, it makes enough sense for reporters and bloggers to take the rumor and run it as factual content.

That happened recently, where it was reported that Mitsubishi Chemical (MKM’s parent company) was indeed shuttering its doors in a Japanese newspaper, Asahi Shimbun on Monday. That story was quickly refuted by MKM to which they reported to remaining vigilant in their dedication to manufacturing their continued lines of recordable DVD and Blu-ray media.

For more details on this story, please click on the below link:
In the recordable optical media world, price is often king. There are plenty of those that still care about the disc quality and also realize that paying slightly more for a better disc will cost you less in the long run when you factor in the number of failed discs that are wasted from the cheaper brands. So when rumors started flying that one of t preeminent media manufacturers, Mitsubishi Kagaku Media (MKM), is looking to close their manufacturing plants, it makes enough sense for reporters and bloggers to take the rumor and run it as factual content.

That happened recently, where it was reported that Mitsubishi Chemical (MKM’s parent company) was indeed shuttering its doors in a Japanese newspaper, Asahi Shimbun on Monday. That story was quickly refuted by MKM to which they reported to remaining vigilant in their dedication to manufacturing their continued lines of recordable DVD and Blu-ray media.

For more details on this story, please click on the below link:
http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/News/Details.aspx?NewsId=32245

Jack Nicholson had an iconic line in the movie The Shinning where in his altered state he declared, “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” Well even though Vinpower and our staff have not gone insane, (which, I guess is up for debate), we are looking for something less dangerous than traipsing around an abandoned haunted hotel but every bit as exhilarating. What we found was a hobby outside of duplicators to throw in our collective excitement, car racing.

The below video shows some of the utter exhilaration from a recent “drifting” car race staged in Taiwan. Vinpower helped sponsor this event in collaboration with Torco Oil, a popular high end racing brand of motor oil. Check out for yourself why Vinpower is so excited about this latest venture and how what looks like insanity behind the wheel, can put us in a more relaxed frame of mind.

img_0876.MOV

We’ve all seen these handy little devices that plug into the USB ports on our computers and allow us to carry around a tremendous amount of data. The current size leader is the Kingston DataTravler 300, boasting a massive 256 GB of data in the palm of your hand. This is equivalent to carrying around one of the following:

•  365 CD’s (700 MB each)
• 54 DVD’s (4.7 GB each)
• 10 Blu-ray’s (25 GB each)

The majority of these units are actually in the 4 GB to 8 GB range. Which is much larger than the $100 1 GB hard drive I bought 20 years ago. I wouldn’t have been carrying that around in the palm of my hand because there wouldn’t have been anything convenient to plug it into, to extract or share the data. Plus, one static shock or a strong magnet could wipe out all my data.

More and more we are receiving calls and inquires regarding our flash duplicators. We have flash duplicators ranging in size from 3-targets to 63-targets. The Vinpower units have many desirable features such as asynchronous copy mode and an encrypted erase function. The other day a wedding photographer asked me if this was the next wave for picture sharing. I’m not certain but now that USB ports are becoming a standard feature in cars and the fact that many of us carry these devices on our key chains, I’d have to say USB  might just be the next big wave of the future.

Recently our CEO, Calvin Chang, traveled to Tokyo, Japan for business. Even though Tokyo was technically not significantly affected by the earthquake and tsunami that devastated the northern region, life is obviously altered there as well. The entire country appeared to be in a state of morning and events that used to attract a large number of citizens are now sparsely attended if at all. Case in point is the annual cherry blossom event. From previous excursions during this time in Tokyo, Mr. Chang witnessed heavy crowds of people, predominantly Japanese along with tourists, shoulder to shoulder strolling along the beautiful display of blooming cherry blossoms. On this recent trip, there were only a small handful of people, and even those that were there did not seem to display the same enthusiasm. Even though the blossoms are as magnificent and bountiful as in the past, the desire to celebrate amid the current devastation and challenges is greatly diminished. The below pictures show the beauty of the cherry blossoms as well as the scarcity of people enjoying them.

I don’t often tout other companies products, and I rarely discuss products not related to the duplication field, but I came across a product recently called the BeatRoute which blew me away! It’s a Bluetooth enabled stereo speaker which connects to any Bluetooth enable smartphone or PC so that the listener can hear wireless crystal clear music or communications without using a docking station. I saw a demonstration in person and knew this was going to be a monster idea, especially for the holidays. I don’t work for the company, but I would highly recommend that you check out their website to learn more about this new gadget. Go to: store.beatroute.com/ or click on the below link. They have a pretty cool little animated video at the bottom of the below link – check it out and share with your friends – you’ll thank me later!

http://store.beatroute.com/Bluetooth-Speakers/c1/p1/Phoenix-Bluetooth-Stereo-Speaker-with-Microphone/product_info.html

Every so often the Earth reminds us that ultimately we are but inhabitants on this planet and that we should not take anything for granted, especially our ability to control our environment. The Earthquakes that have taken place in Japan since Friday, March 11, 2011 have cause tremendous devastation in terms of loss of life, damage to property/infrastructure and commerce.

It is a tremendous tragedy that so many people lost their lives or lost loved ones from either the earthquake or the tsunami that followed. Then on top of that there’s the loss of personal property and livelihoods that will linger for who knows how long. But some may feel sad for the plight of people that live thousands of miles away from them and have no connection with. So they may not see how their lives will be affected.

However, based on multiple news feeds that have been coming in, show that there will be a bigger effect on our wallets in the coming days. Many of the high-end components for a majority of the technological gadgets that many of us use on a regular basis are still produced in Japan. Things for items like cell phones, cars, Blu-ray products, etc. are still manufactured in Japan and all industry is affected by the natural disasters and the subsequent human disasters that have taken place in its wake.

So, there’s no question that the shortages of these products will have an impact on the products made around the world and soon there will be price increases on many items that we have taken for granted as readily available. Even though it’s a foregone conclusion that most of the world’s CE products come from China or Taiwan, many of the key components still come from technological giants like Japan. So this event that has paralyzed a country, will spread to touch many other nations across the globe. The world is flat, as the saying goes, and the positive and negative effects are felt across every nation sooner or later.

Introducing Vinpower’s newest executive in training, Ian Swerdloff