These new hard drives from Platypus Technology are cool. You can read the article on Slashdot or http://www.platypustechnology.com/pages/frameset_products_drive.html to get more info. I think in a few years/months when they come down in price it would make it possible for the 100 mbps ethernet. And no one would need to worry the shocks mounts.



Reg_2845 Serial #00173

I hate to spoil your fantasy, but...

Firstly, have you actually seen the drive? It's not anything like a normal IDE drive, it's a full length PCI board with up to 8 1GB SDRAM cards on it. Furthermore, in order to keep the actual contents, you need an external UPS system. The whole thing would take extensive rewiring of the empeg in order to fit it in, to say nothing of the power considerations.

Then, have you seen the cost of 1GB SDRAM modules? RAM prices are not coming down any time soon, and even if they do they'll still be out of the reach of most of us.

And, thirdly, consider that, at the very most, we need to read 400KB/sec off the drives continuously. My Zip drive can do that! The empeg fills up its (8MB?) buffer and then switches the hard drive off, for greater efficiency. The QikDrive is designed for applications like caches, swap files and databases where you need the high bandwidth requirement and are prepared to pay the big bucks to get it.

This, to my mind, is just another one of those things that exemplifies Slashdot's role in modern news. It's a neat gadget, but to actually consider it as a useful solution to store your MP3 files on it is typical of the average Slashdot reader's lack of contact with reality.

Nice gadget, wrong application.

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