Tag Archives: Akitio

OWC Acquires Akitio

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OWC, a leading zero emissions Mac and PC technology company, announced it has acquired Akitio, a maker of premium external computer storage products and accessories with an emphasis on Thunderbolt 3 technology.

The acquisition brings together two of the leading innovators in Mac and PC storage, expansion and performance kits in the world. Details of the transaction were not disclosed.

“This acquisition gives us the opportunity to strengthen our core prosumer lineup and market reach with photography, video and music pros with some really exceptional new offerings,” said Larry O’Connor, OWC Founder & CEO. “Our product lines and brands are quite complementary, with Akitio bringing a strong reputation in the Windows space and segments like performance gaming, AR/VR, high-end creative strengths to our base. I see tremendous opportunities ahead for our team and our customers.”

OWC’s Woodstock facility will serve as worldwide headquarters for all OWC brands including Akitio, and the Akitio California and International teams will remain and continue onboard at their current locations. Management was quick to announce that customer support will remain first class for all existing lines including the award-winning support now behind Akitio brand products. All warranties will be honored as provided in the original purchase.

“The new combined organization brings unique market strengths, excellent geographic coverage, an outstanding engineering team, and exceptional design and product development capabilities,” said Tommy Chen, CEO of Akitio. “OWC has developed an incredible reputation in the market for delivering products that are lightning fast, high-performance and reliable, and our entire team is proud to join OWC and take that reputation even higher.”

OWC will be hosting a suite at CES in Las Vegas from January 8-11, #30-105 at the Venetian. The OWC team will also be in attendance with their newest products at CES Unveiled and ShowStoppers.

Akitio Neutrino U3+ USB 3.0 Hard Drive Enclosure Review

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Akitio has come out with the Neutrino U3+ a stylish 2.5 Sata HDD enclosure that supports  bus powered USB 3.0 or Firewire 800. The all Aluminum casing with heat sink guarantees your drive will not overheat. The best part is multiple drives can be daisy chained together using the firewire ports. Priced at $79.00 this is one of the lowest priced USB 3.0 Hard Drive Enclosures on the market.

The drive can fall back to USB 2.0 if needed. The package includes a USB 3.0 cable, Firewire 800 cable, enclosure minus hard drive, power adapter for when you are unable to take advantage of Bus Power. The enclosure itself is brushed aluminum to match mac body design.

This is the third product from Akitio that I have reviewed, and I am always surprised by the quality of the product.

 

Akitio Cloud Hybrid Review

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This weekend I have been lucky enough to have a electrician in, and we have been running CAT 5 cable all over my home, along with the installation of a equipment rack. The Akitio Cloud Hybrid that I got to review a couple of weeks ago, is now residing in it along with a bunch of other gear that my wife wanted out of my studio. Do not get me wrong the Akitio Cloud Hybrid could have just as easily set on my desk but hey it looks cool in the rack.

I installed a 2TB drive in the unit, plugged it into my network, and then within minutes logged into the device and started configuring it. It literally took me longer to plug a network cable into it, and hook up the power cord then it did to set the device up. When they say 45 second setup they are not kidding. If you have it sitting close to your computer you can also connect to it via a USB 3.0 connection. Making it a Network Attached Storage / Direct Attached storage.

Some of the features include:

  • Built-in UPnP-AV media server for digital media players
  • High speed data access over Samba (read speed above 60MB/s)
  • File browser for WebDAV access
  • iTunes music server
  • Web portal for remote login
  • Includes a Free App for iOS and Android based mobile devices

It supports a lot of devices:

  • Xbox 360 (JPG, MP3, WMV, XviD)
  • PlayStation 3 (JPG, MP3, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, XviD)
  • iTunes (MP3)
  • DLNA certified UPnP clients
  • Windows 7 (Windows Media Player

A lot of those terms may scare the beginner, but do not let the terms scare you, breaking it down what you have is a fully capable storage device that simply can be connected to by nearly any device in your home. The best part is you can connect to the device when you are away from home via your mobile phone or computer.  They make it real easy you just go to myakitio.com login with username and password and you have access to all of the devices files.

The device will go into a power save mode when not in use and the front panel will tell you when the hard-drive is getting full. The price is right at about $100.00 on a variety of websites. If your looking for a simple to use Network Storage Device that a beginner can use yet serve up some powerful features this is it.

Akitio has a full line of network attached storage products. This is the second piece of gear I have reviewed from them and I am impressed by the approach they take to making it easy for consumers. Do not let the brand fool you this company is doing some cool stuff. Don’t miss their thunderbolt gear either.