Cristine Reyes

CISB11

    Hitachi (http://www.hitachi.us) is a global company that manufactures hard drives as one of it's product line. However, Hitachi also manufactures numerous other products that range from televisions to air conditioners to power tools. Hitachi bought IBM, a former leader in the hard disk market in 2003, to expand as one of the leading hard drive manufacturers in the world. Hitachi sells hard drives for desktops, notebooks, external storage and many other applications. For desktop use, Hitachi has it's Deskstar hard drives which emphasize quiet acoustics, lower power usage and fast transfer rates. It's notebook line, Travelstar, emphasizes easy on-the-go storage. Finally, it's enterprise drives feature better multi-user functionality, performance, and reliability.
    I looked mostly into their desktop hard drives, because that is the product that would be of most use to me. All of the desktop hard drives had the similar features that differ in speed and storage capacity. I really like that their desktop hard drives feature efficient power usage, which is an important consideration to all consumers. Also, I tend to work on projects into the late hours, or like to listen to music as I work, so a quite hard drive is definitely something that I appreciate, so that the noise is not disturbing.
    LG (http://www.lge.com) is a major manufacturer of CD/DVD-RW drives. LG is also a global company that ventures into different business domains including home entertainment, home appliance, mobile communications, air conditioning, and business solutions. LG is also a company that prides itself on social and environmental responsibility. LG currently has a campaign focusing on the importance of sustainability that tries to help create a cleaner environment while they do business. LG realized and responded to the fact that people are very aware of environmental issues.
    One of the coolest CD/DVD-RW drives I saw that LG offered was the BH08LS20 model. I really liked this model, because it wasn't just a CD and DVD reader an writer, it also reads and writes Blu-ray Discs. LG's was one of the very few Blu-ray reader/writers that I came across while searching online for a Blu-ray drive. This shows that LG is really on top of new technologies and realizes that consumers needs and wants will change just as quickly as the technology does. I think that it would be really cool to be able to burn your own high definition Blu-ray discs on your computer at home, so this product really caught my eye.
    SanDisk (http://www.sandisk.com) is the world's largest suppliers of USB Flash drives and is probably one of the most widely known and recognized ones. SanDisk supplies to both consumers and has contracts with other leading manufacturers who use SanDisks storage devices in their end products- like for digital cameras or cell phones. SanDisk is also the only company worldwide who has the rights to manufacture and sell all the different flash drive formats, like micro, mini, and memory flash sticks.
    My favorite product from SanDisk is their newest: the SanDisk Ultra Backup USB Flash Drive, which was just released this past April. I really like this USB drive because it is the first one to offer back up protection by just pressing a button on the USB drive itself. You don't have to worry about losing your important files, because you can easily back them up whenever you want. It also offers password protection and encryption so that you know your files are secure. The SanDisk Ultra Backup USB Flash Drive comes in four different sizes; 8GB, 16GB, 32GB, 64GB, so that you have a large amount of storage to work with.