Wondering why Microsoft's hard drive for the Xbox 360 is priced at US$ 179.99? You might find the answers you're looking for in this article. A hardware analyst was able to break down the total cost of the HDD for the console. Details in the full article.

Thin is in, but can it stand up to the heavyweights? Gizmodo ran some real world benchmarks on the MacBook Air, pitting it against the MacBook and the MacBook Pro. They ran speed tests to see how much the MacBooks differ in speed. And the winnnaaaaah iiiiiiis ... in the full article.

After acquiring competitor Maxtor, Seagate promoted a new portable media storage device known as DAVE. Now this nifty device had so much potential for multiple devices capable of WiFi and Bluetooth that Sony's PlayStation 3 and PSP were worthy candidates. But when asked about the possibility of Sony versions of the product, Seagate gave the most peculiar reply. That and more at the full story.

Via Retrodata, we've learned of a particularly nasty flaw in Seagate Macbook drives that could essentially destroy the data on your computer.

Some faulty Seagate 2.5" hard drives from China have surfaced and, according to Retrodata, "the read/write heads appear to fail mechanically, quickly causing deep scratches to the platter surface, and rendering the drives practically unrecoverable."

If you're an MMORPG player who's recently acquired a Maxtor Personal Storage 3200 unit, you may want to have it checked. Some units were shipped out with a virus loaded into them.

According to Seagate, "All units now leaving the facility in question have been cleared of the virus and units in inventory are being reworked before being released for sale." That being said though, MMORPG players may be the most affected by the virus that was in the problematic units. What the virus does, after the jump!

Leading hard drive manufacturer Seagate has just unleashed its next-generation hard drives which are supposed to herald a revolution in the industry. The line is headed by the Momentus 5400 PSD (Portable Savings Drive) which runs faster with less power.

The Momentus 5400 PSD targets the fast-growing mobile computer industry with its revolutionary hybrid mode which allows the battery life to last longer without compromising disk performance.

The secret behind the Momentus 5400 technology lies in the combined capabilities of the traditional fast hard drive platters working with 250 MB of solid state memory. This allows commonly used files to be stored on the cache, allowing the RPM rate to take a break.

The fast solid state memory doesn't just benefit normal disk operations, it also improves the boot process by speeding it up using stored boot files in the cache. In traditional booting conditions, hard drives had to spin up, making users wait for the operations to optimize. The Momentus 5400 PSD allows the boot process to happen from the much faster, non-spinning solid memory, giving the hard drive a chance to catch up without making you wait.

Hybrid drives will be immediately compatible with the Microsoft Windows Vista operating system. Plans of mass marketing this type of storage for desktops are underway to boost business work stations and home PCs alike.

Playing high-end games like Halo 2 on your PC isn't as simple as popping in the disc, installing the game, and running it. A lot of times, you need to have the best hardware possible to run the application smoothly.

This can be quite tricky for the non-tech savvy crowd because of the ever-evolving specs of today's computers. Fortunately, there are people who care about guys like that.

A-Power has taken the liberty of custom-building the best possible system to run Halo 2 and making it available to the market. The machine is loaded with some pretty big specs, which will ensure that you can run pretty much everything currently on the market. What's more, even the case is customized to feed that Halo craving. These are the complete specs of their offered bundle:

• Processor: Intel Pentium CORE 2 DUO E6600 2.4GHz 4MB
• Memory: OCZ Gold XTC OCZ2G8002GK 2x1GB DDR2 800Mhz
• Mainboard: ASUS P5K Deluxe P35 Chipset DDR2 S/PDIF Out (Coaxial + Optical), DTS Connect & IEEE1394 Firewire
• Optical Drive: Samsung SH-S182F/BEBN Black 18x18 DL DVD Writer
• Hard Drive: Seagate 320GB 7200RPM SATA-II 16MB
• Video: eVGA E-GEFORCE 8600GTS 256M DDR3 PCI-E
• Audio: Realtek ALC883 6-channel (5.1) CODEC
• Network: Marvell 88E1116 PHY Gigabit LAN controller
• Case: Antec Nine Hundred Black 18.4" Ultimate Gamer Case
• Power: OCZ 700W GameXStream SLI Power Supply
• Keyboard: Microsoft Reclusa Gaming Keyboard
• Mouse: Microsoft Habu Gaming Mouse
• Included OS: Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate (Direct X 10 Supported!!)
• FREE GAME! Halo 2 PC Edition (Limited Quantity)
  

This hotrod starts selling on May 22. The price is still unrevealed, but it obviously won't come cheap. We'll keep you posted for more on this dream machine.

All you Apple fans waiting for the OS X Leopard will have to sit down and wait some more, but if you're itching for that new OS experience and it's causing you to lose sleep, why not try Windows Vista for now to cool your rods?

The new Microsoft Windows incarnation is compatible with Apple hardware, which means you can split your hard drive to accommodate both. For users crazy about speed and tweaking, the typical MacBook Pro hard drive with 80GB of space may not be enough, so the guys at Extreme Tech decided to try and upgrade the disk to accommodate both systems at optimum performance levels.

What they did was not like anything you'd do with the regular MacBook which requires only screwing the disk loose and popping in a new one. With the Pro, you'd have to really dig in and void your warranty. Extreme Tech took a Seagate 7200 hard drive and replaced the Mac 5200. The new hard drive runs much faster because of the substantial RPM increase. It has 160GB of space, which should be enough for just about anyone. You can check the read URL to find instructions on how to do it yourself.

Well, isn't this a bit of a surprise. Over at PS3scene, Xantium has what looks to be the first pics and video up of Team Xecuter's PS3 Hard Drive Xtender (HDXT) and the IDE to SATA Adapter. Combined with a power source, some technical know-how, and these videos and pics, you'll also be able to install your own HDXT in time. For now however, let's have a look-see at the components.

As you can see above, The pictures show off both the pre-installed and completed make-up of the HDXT installation process. Since there aren't any formal installation procedures yet, you'll have to wait until they release it to the public.

To top it all off here's a video of the proof of concept, showing the formatting of the drive and the enabling of a Seagate 500 GB drive, as well as some additional pics of the HDXT items. Enjoy!

More pictures after the jump!

First of all, we offer our condolences to the Crecente family. For the guys wondering what this is about, it will be remembered that on February 15 2006, 18-year-old Jennifer Ann Crecente - niece of Kotaku's Brian Crecente - was shot and killed by classmate Justin Crabbe in Southwest Austin, Texas.

Brian's brother (and Jennifer's father), Drew, eventually set up Jennifer Ann's Group - an NGO designed to help spread awareness regarding teen dating violence.

Now, in light of this group's activity, we are letting the gamers know about four ongoing auctions at eBay, whose proceedings are to fund this movement. The items under auction were donated by Nintendo and Seagate to Kotaku, and include a Wii Gift Pack, a DS Lite Gift Pack, a Nintendo Swag Gift Pack, and a Seagate 750GB external HD. All groups interested in helping the movement out (and bagging themselves some sweet new hardware) can check out each of the pack details below to see what's up for grabs on eBay:

• Wii Gift Pack
• A brand new Wii console (including a Wiimote, a Nunchuk, a stand, a sensor bar, and a copy of Wii Sports.)
• Extra Nunchuk controller
• Wii Play (includes extra Wiimote controller.)
• A Wii Messenger Bag
• WarioWare: Smooth Moves
• Excite Truck
• The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
• A Nintendo notebook
• Nintendo paper shopping bag

Details for the DS Lite, Swag, and Seagate Packs are available in the Full Article