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If you're building a massive media library--high-definition home video, recorded TV shows, DVD rips, etc.--there's no such thing as too much storage.

The biggest hard drive you can buy today holds 3TB--and usually costs a pretty penny, even for internal models. But until April 16, Office Depot has the Seagate Expansion 3TB USB hard drive for $124.99 shipped (plus sales tax in some states).

Update: Sorry, folks. Looks like Office Depot is out of stock.

To get that price (it'll show up as $149.99 when you click the link), you need to pad your … Read more

According to AppleInsider, Apple may be looking into building its own external battery pack for iOS devices and Macs, a popular third-party accessory for many Apple product owners.

A patent filed by Apple and found by AppleInsider shows how Apple would build a rechargeable battery into its power adapters, allowing anything from MacBook Pros to iPods to get an extra boost of juice when batteries are running low and a wall outlet is not available. Despite many rechargeable battery packs being available on the market, Apple says they may not provide the best solution:

MacFixIt Answers is a feature in which we answer e-mailed questions from our readers. This week we have questions about a Mac not booting after months of no use, heat differences between the 15-inch and 17-inch MacBook Pro, upgrading a commercial external hard drive, bootable backup options, and the difference between partitioning and using two drives. We continually answer e-mail questions, and though we present a few answers here, we certainly welcome alternative approaches and views from readers and encourage you to post your suggestions in the comments.

Question: Mac not booting after months of no use MacFixIt reader "… Read more

In reality we do not recommend you "smack" your hard drive or other system components, but sometimes a little love tap or two can fix odd problems. Recently we received an e-mail from a MacFixIt reader who wrote in with a fix he found for his Western Digital MyBook external hard drive that had stopped working. The drive would appear to start mounting or otherwise be recognized by the system, but then seem to hang and not be recognized.

This problem started happening after the system had been using the drive successfully for a while, and had performed … Read more

An external flash is a great tool, a valuable asset in a dSLR or advanced compact owner's camera bag, and the more you can control the light that comes out of it and that hits your subject, the better your photos will look. A flash can really enhance your photos and lend to your creativity. While straight-on, automatic flash will yield a perfectly acceptable image, external flashes have the ability to yield beautifully lit, professional-looking photographs with a little tweaking. Here are five things you can do to get the most out of your external camera flash.

1) BOUNCE IT: For most indoor shots the addition of some bounced light from your external flash will enhance your photos. Angle it toward the ceiling, giving you a large light-colored surface to reflect down off of, creating a giant pseudo soft-box. Rotate it to the left or right to bounce it off a wall; angle it and rotate it into a corner. Try some different things, and see the results of the soft, diffuse light it creates.

2) REFLECT IT: Sometimes due to high ceilings or being outdoors bouncing the flash is not an option, but you can reflect it to reduce the harshness of direct flash. Some flashes have a white card built in that extends out from the top of the flash head, so that when the flash head is pivoted up there is a surface for it to bounce off of toward the subject. Although these cards are small, they are very convenient. There are a host of products on the accessory market that attach to your flash that provide a surface to bounce off of. An old trick is to use an index card and a rubber band, pivot the flash head upward at an angle, rubber-band the index card to the top of the flash head so that it extends out above the flash tube, and you have a great bounce card.… Read more

It's been a slow news day, deal-wise, so I hope you'll forgive me for posting "yet another hard drive."

While supplies last (code for "this will probably sell out soon"), OfficeMax has the Seagate Expansion 1TB external hard drive for $59.99 shipped (plus sales tax in some states). That's a solid 50 bucks off the regular price.

Granted, this same drive was $10 less back in November, but judging by the huge volume of e-mail I received (especially after the deal expired), lots of people are dying for a rebate-free drive in … Read more

LAS VEGAS--It seems that portable hard drives get progressively smaller as CES 2011 continues.

Yesterday, Verbatim introduced the USB 3.0 External SSD, which beat the recently reviewed LaCie FastKey both in terms of storage space and portability. Now, as the show is nearing its end, Pretec, a company known more as a maker of system memory, has unveiled an ultracompact USB 3.0 flash drive of its own, the i-Disk Rex 100.

Measuring 2.9 inches by 0.7 inch by 0.2 inch, the i-Disk Rex 100 is arguably the tiniest flash drive in the world that offers … Read more

LAS VEGAS--At CES 2011, Verbatim introduces a series of peripherals to arm travelers with digital tools to complement a digital lifestyle. The first two products are hard drives: the Titan XS SuperSpeed 3.0 external hard drive wrapped in a shock-proof rubber enclosure for twice the toughness and 10 times the transfer speed of traditional USB 2.0.

The other HDD is the Store 'n" Go SuperSpeed that has onboard connections for USB 3.0 and FireWire 800. It's also compatible with Macs right out of the box thanks to the HFS+ formatting. Unfortunately, the capacity for both … Read more

LAS VEGAS--Just a day after Seagate announced what's arguably the most compact portable hard drive, the GoFlex Slim, the record is now broken by what Verbatim announced today, the Titan XS SuperSpeed USB 3.0.

While it's hard to put in numbers how much smaller the Titan XS is, I've seen them both and it is indeed smaller--though admittedly not by much.

The Titan XS is a rugged portable drive, though not nearly as rugged as the ioSafe Rugged Portable. Like the name suggests, it supports SuperSpeed USB 3.0 (5Gbps) and is housed in a shock-resistant … Read more