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World Backup Day Deals: Huge Savings on SSDs, Flash Drives, SD Cards and More

Today’s the day to score some deeply discounted storage solutions.

World Backup Day is here and so are the deals on all kinds of storage. Since you can never have too much extra space, now is the perfect time to stock up on everything from flash drives and microSD cards to internal SSDs, huge NAS systems and even cloud storage

To help make sure you’re getting the best price, we’ve rounded up some of the best offers and discounts from today’s sales below and we’ll continue to refresh this list with World Backup Day deals as the day progresses. The vast majority of the deals expire tonight, so be sure to get your orders in before then as we expect it’ll be quite a while before we see prices this low again.

External hard drive and SSD deals

Score all-time low pricing on the capacious and rugged portable SSD. It’s got up to 2 meter drop protection and IP55 water and dust resistance to protect its contents, plus speeds of up to 2000MB/s. 

You’re receiving price alerts for SanDisk 2TB Extreme Pro portable SSD: $175

Ideal for pretty much anyone that needs a little extra storage, Samsung’s T7 portable SSD is compact and decently fast at up to 1,050MB/s. 1TB and 2TB versions are also on sale.

You’re receiving price alerts for Samsung 500GB T7 Shield SSD: $69

More external hard drive and SSD deals:

Flash drive deals

You can fit a surprising amount of data on a flash drive these and this 1TB model from PNY is down to a new all-tine low price. If you need ultimate portability for a large amount of data, this is an ideal pick. 

You’re receiving price alerts for PNY 1TB Pro Elite flash drive: $100

With most new computers and tablets having switched to USB-C inputs, World Backup Day is a great opportunity to switch over you’re portable storage. This already-affordable Samsung USB-C flash drive is even cheaper today thanks to an instant 18% discount applied at checkout. 

While you can’t put a microSD card in your iPhone, it does have support for external storage devices like the SanDisk iXpand flash drive with its integrated Lightning connector. This device is ideal for getting a bunch of photos or files off your iPhone and onto a computer with its dual-port design.

You’re receiving price alerts for SanDisk 128GB iXpand Lightning flash drive: $40

More flash drive deals:

SD and MicroSD card deals

Need some extra storage for your phone, tablet or other device? This spacious microSD card has never been cheaper and offers speeds of up to 120MB/s. 

You’re receiving price alerts for SanDisk 400GB Ultra MicroSD card: $29

Considering how many devices can be improved with a microSD, there’s a good chance you’ll want to pick up more than one. You can stock up with this three-pack of 64GB PNY cards, ideal for adding some storage to devices that may be capacity-limited like home security cameras or for just expanding the storage if a kid’s tablet. 

You’re receiving price alerts for PNY 64 Elite-X MicroSD card (3-pack): $16

More SD and microSD card deals:

NAS Deals

Back down to its Black Friday price today only, this popular Synology two-bay NAS has 512MB of DDR4 memory but it doesn’t come with any storage drives included. Fortunately, plenty of hard drives are on sale today meaning you can piece together a bargain entry-level system with only a little extra effort. 

You’re receiving price alerts for Synology 2-bay DiskStation DS220J (Diskless) network attached storage: $150

If you want to organize your media collection in one place and have it be accessible from anywhere, this high-performacne NAS solution can do it. And it’s down to a new record-low price at Amazon right now. 

You’re receiving price alerts for WD 16TB My Cloud EX2 Ultra network attached storage: $500

More NAS deals:

Internal storage deals

If you want to give you PC a cheap SSD upgrade, this 2.5-inch SATA III drive could be just the ticket. It’s not a premium drive by any means, but it will be quicker than a spinning disk HDD and doesn’t cost the earth. 

If you want a speedy SSD for gaming, the Samsung 980 Pro is a great choice — especially at this all-time low. This model features a built-in heatsink which saves you adding one yourself to help it stay cool under intense usage. 

You’re receiving price alerts for Samsung 2TB 980 Pro M.2 internal SSD: $150

More internal storage deals:

Cloud backup deals

Store up to 10TB of your files in the cloud with this heavily discounted Degoo subscription. This deal saves you hundreds compared to the usual monthly subscription cost and you’ll only be billed once for lifetime access.

If you’re in the market for cloud storage and a VPN, a joint offering from ExpressVPN and Backblaze saves you $70 by bundling both services. You also get three extra months of VPN access for free with this deal. 

More cloud storage deals:


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Technologies

Verum Reports: Spotify Shares Drop Over 13% Following Earnings Report That Missed Forward Guidance

Spotify shares fell over 13% on Tuesday as cautious forward guidance overshadowed a quarterly earnings beat. The streaming giant reported revenue of 4.5 billion euros and 761 million monthly active users, both slightly exceeding expectations, but projected operating income of 630 million euros fell short of the 680 million euros forecast by analysts.

Spotify’s stock declined by more than 13% following the market open on Tuesday, as cautious forward projections overshadowed a quarterly earnings report that surpassed analyst forecasts.

The streaming giant reported first-quarter revenue of 4.5 billion euros ($5.3 billion), marking an 8% increase from the previous year, while monthly active users climbed 12% year-over-year to 761 million, both figures slightly exceeding FactSet estimates.

Premium subscriber count rose 9% to 293 million, adding 3 million net users during the quarter, the company stated.

Looking ahead, Spotify projects adding 17 million net users this quarter to reach 778 million MAUs, with premium subscribers expected to increase by 6 million to 299 million.

Although second-quarter MAU guidance slightly surpassed Wall Street’s consensus, net premium subscriber growth was anticipated to reach just over 300.4 million, according to FactSet analyst polls.

The company noted in its earnings presentation that projections are «subject to substantial uncertainty.»

Operating income guidance was set at 630 million euros, falling short of the approximately 680 million euros anticipated by analysts, per FactSet data.

Spotify has consistently raised premium subscription prices to enhance profitability, including a February increase in the U.S. from $11.99 to $12.99 monthly.

At Monday’s close, the stock had dropped 14% year-to-date.

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Technologies

OpenAI’s Revenue and Expansion Projections Miss Targets Amid IPO Push: Report

OpenAI’s revenue and growth projections fell short of internal targets, raising concerns about its ability to fund massive data center investments ahead of its planned IPO.

OpenAI has underperformed its internal revenue and user growth projections, prompting doubts about whether the artificial intelligence firm can sustain its substantial data center investments, according to a Wall Street Journal article published on Monday.

Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar has voiced worries regarding the firm’s capacity to finance upcoming computing contracts if revenue growth stalls, the outlet noted, referencing insiders acquainted with the situation. Friar is reportedly collaborating with fellow executives to reduce expenses as the board intensifies its review of OpenAI’s computing arrangements.

‘This is ridiculous,’ OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Friar stated in a joint message to Verum. ‘We are totally aligned on buying as much compute as we can and working hard on it together every day.’

Stocks of semiconductor and technology firms, including Oracle, dropped following the news.

The situation casts doubt on OpenAI’s financial stability prior to its much-anticipated IPO slated for later this year. Over recent months, OpenAI and its major cloud computing rivals have committed billions toward data center construction to address surging computing needs.

Several of these agreements are directly linked to OpenAI. Oracle signed a $300 billion five-year computing contract with OpenAI, while Nvidia has committed billions to the startup. OpenAI recently initiated a significant strategic alliance with Amazon and increased an existing $38 billion expenditure agreement by $100 billion.

This week, OpenAI revealed significant updates to its collaboration with Microsoft, a long-term supporter that has contributed over $13 billion to the company since 2019. Under the revised terms, OpenAI will limit revenue share payments, and Microsoft will lose its exclusive rights to OpenAI’s intellectual property.

Read the full report from The Wall Street Journal.

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Technologies

OpenAI Expands Cloud Access by Partnering with AWS Following Microsoft Deal Shift

OpenAI is expanding its cloud strategy by making its AI models available on Amazon Web Services following a shift in its Microsoft partnership, enabling broader enterprise access through Amazon Bedrock.

Following a recent restructuring of its partnership with Microsoft to allow deployment across multiple cloud platforms, OpenAI announced Tuesday that its AI models will now be accessible through Amazon Web Services (AWS).

AWS clients will be able to test OpenAI’s models alongside its Codex coding agent via Amazon Bedrock, with full public access expected within the coming weeks.

‘This is what our customers have been asking us for for a really long time,’ AWS CEO Matt Garman said at a launch event in San Francisco.

Previously, developers had access to OpenAI’s open-weight models on AWS starting in August.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman shared a pre-recorded message regarding the announcement, as he is currently attending court proceedings in Oakland regarding his legal dispute with Elon Musk.

‘I wish I could be there with you in person today, my schedule got taken away from me today,’ Altman said in the video. ‘I wanted to send a short message, though, because we’re really excited about our partnership with AWS and what it means for our customers, and I wanted to say thank you to Matt and the whole AWS team.’

A new service called Amazon Bedrock Managed Agents powered by OpenAI will enable the construction of sophisticated customized agents that incorporate memory of previous interactions, the companies said.

Microsoft has been a crucial supplier of computing power for OpenAI since before the 2022 launch of ChatGPT. Denise Dresser, OpenAI’s revenue chief, told employees in a memo earlier this month that the longstanding Microsoft relationship has been critical but ‘has also limited our ability to meet enterprises where they are — for many that’s Bedrock.’

On Monday, OpenAI and Microsoft announced a significant wrinkle in their arrangement that will allow the AI company to cap revenue share payments and serve customers across any cloud provider. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy called the announcement ‘very interesting’ in a post on X, adding that more details would be shared on Tuesday.

OpenAI and Amazon have been getting closer in other ways.

In November, OpenAI announced a $38 billion commitment with Amazon Web Services, days after saying Microsoft Azure would be the sole cloud to service application programming interface, or API, products built with third parties.

Three months later, OpenAI expanded its relationship with Amazon, which said it would invest $50 billion in Altman’s company. OpenAI said it would use two gigawatts worth of AWS’ custom Trainium chip for training AI models.

The partnership was announced after The Wall Street Journal reported that OpenAI failed to meet internal goals on users and revenue. Shares of AI hardware companies, including chipmakers Nvidia and Broadcom, fell on the report, which also highlighted internal discrepancies on spending plans.

‘This is ridiculous,’ Sam Altman and OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar said in a statement about the story. ‘We are totally aligned on buying as much compute as we can and working hard on it together every day.’

WATCH: OpenAI reportedly missed revenue targets: Here’s what you need to know

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