Archive for ◊ October, 2009 ◊

Asus Moves USB 3.0 to a Brand New Mobo
Friday, October 30th, 2009 | Author: Grace

asus_p7p55d_usb_3_mobo_news

Hot on the heels of the Gigabyte announcement yesterday, Asus has re-announced its production of a pair of motherboards packing USB 3.0. Great news on the heels of the Intel production delay last week. The two Asus motherboards, the P7P55D-E and P7P55D are built for Intel’s latest Core i5 and i7 processors. The P7P55D-E is the big dog of the two and carries USB 3.0 and the new 6GB/s SATA support on-board. The P7P55D has the same 2 hot new features but only when accompanied by their U3S6 expansion board. This mobo actually was announced 2 months ago along with the SATA 6GB/s expansion card. Whatever setback they had on the original P6X58, which was unexpectedly cancelled, has been overcome on the P7P55D-E as well as being added to the daughter card.
Asus, we still love you, you still have our hearts from the eee. But considering that Gigabyte hasn’t broken our heart, we’re putting you on notice. One more mix up and we’ll drop you like a hot soldering iron. The Gigabyte mobo boasts most of the same specs. The race is on now between the P55A and the P7P55D motherboards to see who will be the first on sale.

Category: USB Products  | Tags: ,  | Leave a Comment
Official Tool Enables USB Install for Windows 7
Friday, October 30th, 2009 | Author: Grace

official_windows_7_usb_key_tool_news

Microsoft has finally owned up to the exciting new tool it’s releasing with Windows 7, a bootable USB Installer creator. Aimed squarely at netbook owners, which have eschewed the venerable optical drive for weight and battery life. Microsoft’s tool will let you take your downloaded install files and turn a sufficiently sized USB drive into a bootable installer. Be prepared, if you’ve never tried to put a few gigabytes of files onto an average flash drive in one sitting, you’re probably in for a bit of a wait. A USB hard drive is probably a better bet but not as cool. The program may also be called Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool.
Microsoft’s site describes the process as downloading the installer directly to the USB drive. We’ll have to wait for a few people to report back to find out exactly how it works. Having the option will definitely help netbook owners as well as system administrators. Being able to do away with CDs and DVDs for installs would definitely make support installs and server installs go a lot faster. It’s available now at Microsoft’s online store for download and purchase.

Category: USB Products  | Tags: ,  | Leave a Comment