[olug] from slashdot: Credit Card-Size Hard Drive Can Hold 5GB

[Christopher Cashell]

At Tue, 21 Jan 03, Unidentified Flying Banana Eric Penne, said:

> Credit to slashdot but the link is from PCWorld.
> http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,108816,tk,dn011603X,00.asp

Interesting.

> I'll walk out onto a big strong limb here and claim this to be the
> latest thing that everybody will want but nobody will be able to
> purchase.

I actually wouldn't be surprised if the product does eventually ship.
It does look rather impressive, and I'll be surprised if it ships within
a year (I'd guess closer to two, and at least 3 before they offer 5GB
disks in a credit card size), but compared to some other (currently
available) options, it's not all that "out there".

A few examples which in some way compare to this are IBM's MicroDrive,
and the ORB Drive.

IBM MicroDrives can fit as much as 4GB into a 1 inch by 1 inch square,
that fits into a CompactFlash Type II slot.  That's really freakin'
small.  They're not cheap, but they work.

When you want high density storage at the absolute smallest size, the
MicroDrives are the key.

Everyone's familiar with Zip drives, and many people know about Jazz
drives.  Personally, I wish ORB drives had been the one to catch on.
The drive runs around $200.  The disks run for $40 for a 2.2GB disk
(the price it was initially introduced at, over 2 years ago now, which
was amazing then), or $60 for a 5.7GB disk.  They way it works, is they
take an actual Hard Drive platter and embed it into a portable plastic
case.  This gives you performance that is very comparable with a
standard Hard Drive.

Although they aren't nearly as small as a credit card, they've been
offering these products for almost 3 years now.  It may not sound all
that impressive today, but imagine it then.

One thing that got me originally, particularly from the Slashdot
headline, is the idea that they were going to sell 5GB disks for $15.
Now *that* seemed way out there.  However, from the article, they'll be
making disks from 100MB to 5GB, which means the 100MB disks will likely
cost $15 (not all that impressive of a price point right now, will be
even less so in a year or two when (if) these are released), and the 5GB
cards will likely run upwards of a few grand.

Oh, well.  We can keep our fingers crossed and hope, anyway. ;-)

> Eric

--
| Christopher
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| A: No.                                         |
| Q: Should I include quotations after my reply? |
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