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" if you have hardware and software that can create video at >4GB/s you're pretty special."

Protip: Most game modern engines can EASILY do that with just the video card. AGP had a maximum throughput of 2166MB/s, half your requirement. That was replaced roughly a decade ago.

Bandwidth of a video card interface and the throughput of a 3D gaming engine is irrelevant to this discussion. We're talking creating video through something like Avid or Premiere/After Effects by compositing multiple streams of video and effects and then mixing that all down to a single stream for output.

Whilst some acceleration of this is done on the GPU (and this is why the 3 year old Mac Pro has 2 GPUs even in it's base configuration) the main requirement here is fast and consistent throughput to mass storage.

There are plenty of video professionals that use a Mac Pro with it's stock 256 GB internal SSD and then hook it up to an external 8- or 12-bay Thunderbolt RAID (or two) that can transfer in excess of 2 GB/sec - something like this http://www.lacie.com/as/en/pro...

I don't care how big your PC workstation case is, if you want 50 or 100 TB of storage, you're looking at external RAID or SAN anyway. The internal storage is only used for the OS, apps and scratch space.

I just wait for someone to start selling "your new, own personal cloud to put in your home!!" devices.

Like this?
Or this?
Or maybe this?

I use a LaCie Cloudbox http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?id=10563 .

It does the backup itself, so you don't need to keep your PC running. Also, it has built-in encryption.

This could be the product that matches your described use-case the most closely.

Its only/main real use will be DisplayPort.

Wow, for a "geek" site, Slashdot seems inordinately populated with techno-IDIOTS, who don't bother to KEEP UP on IN THE PIPELINE THUNDERBOLT PRODUCTS. And there is beginning to be interest shown by other companies, like Canon, AJA, Apogee, Sonnet, and others.

Plug computers are widely overrated. For the same price you can get a cheap home oriented NAS box like http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?pid=11384 with 1TB of storage that can be reflashed http://lacie.nas-central.org/wiki/Main_Page to do whatever you want.

If you don't need the storage as much as you need the always-on/low power processing, you can get a WRT54-based router that can be relfashed with Tomato or DD-WRT, then you can install optware. The Asus WL-500G has enough guts to run Asterisk while still doing its primary purpose. Or maybe a cvs, svn or other repository. All for maybe half the price of the Sheevaplug. And much more available. Of course, it doesn't have the wall wart form factor, for good or bad. And it's not quite as discreet, if that's a requirement.

Plug computers are widely overrated. For the same price you can get a cheap home oriented NAS box like http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?pid=11384 with 1TB of storage that can be reflashed http://lacie.nas-central.org/wiki/Main_Page to do whatever you want.

Small USB flash drives which are barely bigger than the slot they go into are commonplace. It isn't hard to slide something about the size of a postage stamp into a card compartment of a wallet.

A keychain isn't too farfetched either. http://www.lacie.com/us/products/range.htm?id=10052 is a good example, if you want true "USB key" functionality.

Do not give LaCie your money.

For years they have made a two disk external drive called Big Disk. This device uses a proprietary RAID 0 configuration. With a single drive external, if there is a problem, you can pull the drive and get a decent chance of recovering your data. If LaCie's Big Disk device fails in any way, your data is gone. LaCie will not help you. They won't even tell you what the offset or stripe size of the RAID is. Buy another device, and try putting the drives in that is their only advice. Clean room recovery is your only option, and that service for a RAID is quite expensive.

Not only do they continue to sell this device, they *advertise it for backup purposes*!

Here is their current ad:
http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?pid=11138

Some excerpts:

        * Sturdy aluminum heat sink design for high reliability
        * Ideal for large volume backups or creative pro use
        * Genie and Intego Backup Manager Pro incl.
        * Time Machine Compatible

Selling that device to people for backup use is unconscionable. Don't give LaCie your money.

I did not see the LaCie iamaKey USB flash drive in the review, but I noticed on a Lifehacker post yesterday and thought it would be a perfect USB drive:

http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?pid=11225

I constantly have problems with flash drives breaking off my keychain. This would solve that issue and looks very durable. Probably will buy it today.

first, 'upgrade' was referring to using drivers that reenable the disabled features of the pro card's drivers.

If a pro card is installed but features are disabled that's stupid, and I don't want to be a customer of said business. All this does is increase the cost.

secondly, unless your photography somehow involves high end opengl 3d acceleration needs, then i think you have been misled about what the 'pro' card gives you

Fact is is that while online graphics may not need much it's totally different for print. High res and deep colour depths are important for some things. If you're getting married and higher a photographer you want your photos to be as good as they can be. The same if you're an ad or commercial photographer or a fine art photographer. Pro photographers can go through tyme, hassle, and money to make sure what they see on their monitor matches what they print. An Eizo monitor, even a 24" can cost thousands of dollars. NEC and LaCie are just as expensive. Monitors with an S-IPS/H-IPS type panel can be quite expensive, but of you make your living in photography or other graphics arts you need such a monitor. Once you have a good monitor you then have to use a colorimeter like an Eye-one or Huey to calibrate the monitor. If you're also doing the printing yourself and not having a pro lab do it you also have to calibrate the printer. Going through all this you don't want a cheap graphics card driving your monitor.

Falcon

I like the LaCie drives.

LaCie's had 2TB models out for a while now. Why is 1.5TB important?

http://www.lacie.com/ca/products/product.htm?pid=11111

That is not a single 2TB drive. It's two 1TB drives in one enclosure.

With that enclosure, and two of these drives in it, you would have 3TB.

LaCie's had 2TB models out for a while now. Why is 1.5TB important? http://www.lacie.com/ca/products/product.htm?pid=11111

No sweat. I've got a 4GB flash drive and a 20 GB Little Disk. Beyond apps and OS, what do I need or even want an internal HD for? Using external drives is far more secure and modular.

I've been using Lacie network drives for years and never had a problem with them. This is our current home NAS solution:

http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?pid=10953

($379 - 1TB)

If you don't need the RAID, you can always just go with this instead:

http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?pid=10882

($319 - 1TB)

And just for fun, backup to Amazon S3. You can't beat that for reliability (and cheap cost for 1 TB).

I've been using Lacie network drives for years and never had a problem with them. This is our current home NAS solution:

http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?pid=10953

($379 - 1TB)

If you don't need the RAID, you can always just go with this instead:

http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?pid=10882

($319 - 1TB)

And just for fun, backup to Amazon S3. You can't beat that for reliability (and cheap cost for 1 TB).

If you prefers 4:3 monitors then that's just fine. I do too, actually. Between a 1680x1050 and a 1600x1200 monitor, I'd choose the 4:3 one if for no other reason than having more pixels, but only if cost wasn't a concern. Considering how much more affordable reasonably good 22" monitors are, I'm more than willing to sacrifice the 150 pixels.

I addressed several points in my post, but I think quite clearly stated in the first sentence you quoted what a proper replacement (as opposed to an upgrade) for a 4:3 20" was. These 1600x1200 20" monitors are still available from Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, Samsung and a whole bunch of other OEMs/manufacturers. Seriously, just use google or something.

Pretending no more 20" monitors exist, I can understand how the 24" could be the only acceptable alternative. But again, the whole point of the numbers exercise was to show how unreasonable it is to claim that the prices have not gone down or that there is price gouging going on. Car analogy time: OH NOES, BMW might discontinue the 5-series at some point in the future so obviously I can't get one now... and yet the 7-series is more expensive. Those assholes!

Yep, and one of the 21" Eizo monitors is $1 850. I know that. I also filtered the results to only show 4:3 monitors, because this is what you were looking for. Both Eizo and LaCie also make widescreen models, not to mention NEC, in which they make up almost half of their model range.

Two Firewire 800 devices that I use every day:

Lacie external drives http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?pid=10922

RME Fireface 800 http://www.rme-audio.de/en_products_fireface_800.php

While they don't use the full bandwidth individually, it's nice to be able to chain without worrying about audio/video dropouts.

So does coupling power with data restrict the potential to chain SATA devices in the future when the bandwidth out paces the drives?

Well, if what you're saying is true, it runs contrary to what I've read in the past, and every bit of info that I just found via a quick Google search on the matter. Also, you'll find that many high end LCDs for graphics work are S-IPS, or some variant there of, such as the LaCie 319.

Do you have any sources to back up your claims? If not, I'm afraid I'll have to stick with my original statement.

LaCie Ethernet Big Disk $299

LaCie has a 2 Disk RAID system that is local (USB/Firewire). I just hung one off of my home server and all our backup needs are taken care of. It does RAID 1 with hot swappable drives and will build a new drive to match other drive.

Something that I found not to long ago was LaCie's Ethernet Big Disk http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?pid=10882. Its an external usb hard drive that also has a built in gigabit nic. As a bonus feature, an additional external usb hard drive can be connected through a port on the drive itself. The software for the disk has to be run every time the computer is turned on to be able to see the drive(at least in windows, I haven't been able to test the mac or linux versions of the software yet), but the software doesn't install on your system. There are a number of sizes you can get, but the one that would probably work best for you is the 1 terabyte version that retails for 299.99. Hope that helps.

I hate to pimp for the company I work for, but these are actually pretty good, and I don't see a lot of breakdowns with them. $200, 500GB. You don't get blazing speed, but you're not likely to find that in any prepackaged NAS system. It's certainly cheaper than you could build a box (with equivalent capacity) for. http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?pid=10844 If you need more capacity, there's also the 1TB ED Big Disk ($299), though that's a two-drive unit, and somewhat more prone to breakdowns. http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?pid=10882

I hate to pimp for the company I work for, but these are actually pretty good, and I don't see a lot of breakdowns with them. $200, 500GB. You don't get blazing speed, but you're not likely to find that in any prepackaged NAS system. It's certainly cheaper than you could build a box (with equivalent capacity) for. http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?pid=10844 If you need more capacity, there's also the 1TB ED Big Disk ($299), though that's a two-drive unit, and somewhat more prone to breakdowns. http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?pid=10882

Put an HD DVD compatible drive in there for $100-200 bucks more, or if someone would make an add-on hd-dvd drive that matches in appearance/dimensions so you can mate them much like the external hard drives such as this one, then you'd have something extra interesting.

An implicit sub-problem of his selected hardware is the requirement for portability. The drive will be moved to distant locations where a NAS or SAN will not be available.

How about LaCie? They even offer the source codes for download to everyone, you don't even need to buy one of those disks.

The GPLv3 might force them to make it easier to tinker with the drives, but i'm not sure about that (currently it involves operations that are sure to void your warranty).

http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?pid=1 0462 Some people value form, as well as function.

LaCie (www.lacie.com) by selling it's "LaCie Ethernet Disk RAID" is
violating copyrights of hundreds of software developers by distributing Linux,
Busybox, Samba, etc... Without a copy of the GPL (or even a notice of the gpl.)

I also called their tech support line (503-844-4503) and they have told me the
source code was not available and that the OS is proprietary. They said someone
would get back to me about it 2 weeks ago. When I called back, they told me the
source code is not available.

See product at:
http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?pid=1 0876

They claim in the product spec sheet that the OS it is running is "Linux
2.6." So there is no question to if they are violating the GPL or not.

You can see they are using busybox by downloading the latest firmware for the
product at:
ftp://207.189.107.141/BCFv13b524-external.zip
link from the page:
http://www.lacie.com/us/support/drivers/driver.htm ?id=10101

(the pkg file is just a tarball with some extra info at the start of the file.)

LaCie's contact info can be found at
http://www.lacie.com/us/contact/index.htm

LaCie apparently believes it is above the GPL.

Maybe they should be using Microsoft if they don't want to honor the GPL

LaCie (www.lacie.com) by selling it's "LaCie Ethernet Disk RAID" is
violating copyrights of hundreds of software developers by distributing Linux,
Busybox, Samba, etc... Without a copy of the GPL (or even a notice of the gpl.)

I also called their tech support line (503-844-4503) and they have told me the
source code was not available and that the OS is proprietary. They said someone
would get back to me about it 2 weeks ago. When I called back, they told me the
source code is not available.

See product at:
http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?pid=1 0876

They claim in the product spec sheet that the OS it is running is "Linux
2.6." So there is no question to if they are violating the GPL or not.

You can see they are using busybox by downloading the latest firmware for the
product at:
ftp://207.189.107.141/BCFv13b524-external.zip
link from the page:
http://www.lacie.com/us/support/drivers/driver.htm ?id=10101

(the pkg file is just a tarball with some extra info at the start of the file.)

LaCie's contact info can be found at
http://www.lacie.com/us/contact/index.htm

LaCie apparently believes it is above the GPL.

Maybe they should be using Microsoft if they don't want to honor the GPL

LaCie (www.lacie.com) by selling it's "LaCie Ethernet Disk RAID" is
violating copyrights of hundreds of software developers by distributing Linux,
Busybox, Samba, etc... Without a copy of the GPL (or even a notice of the gpl.)

I also called their tech support line (503-844-4503) and they have told me the
source code was not available and that the OS is proprietary. They said someone
would get back to me about it 2 weeks ago. When I called back, they told me the
source code is not available.

See product at:
http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?pid=1 0876

They claim in the product spec sheet that the OS it is running is "Linux
2.6." So there is no question to if they are violating the GPL or not.

You can see they are using busybox by downloading the latest firmware for the
product at:
ftp://207.189.107.141/BCFv13b524-external.zip
link from the page:
http://www.lacie.com/us/support/drivers/driver.htm ?id=10101

(the pkg file is just a tarball with some extra info at the start of the file.)

LaCie's contact info can be found at
http://www.lacie.com/us/contact/index.htm

LaCie apparently believes it is above the GPL.

Maybe they should be using Microsoft if they don't want to honor the GPL

Sorry to reply to my own comment, but now that I've RTFA and realized that we're talking about portable drives, I figured I should point out that these are also available from LaCie:
http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?pid=1 0691

and have been for many moons.

LaCie had a 500GB AES 128-bit hardware encryption fingerprint-biometric (with FireWire 800, FireWire 400, & USB 2.0) like, 6 months ago! Why is this news?

http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?pid=1 0872

SilverKeeper (a free-as-in-beer download from LaCie) is actually more flexible than you might think. If you look into the advanced options, you'll notice that you can set exclusions (such as ~/Library/Caches when you back up your home directory, or other individual files/folders). It's more of a file synchronization utility than a back-up solution, but it can be scheduled to run automatically, and it's much friendlier than, say, rsync.

I don't think the hard drive will disappear completely, but as the costs come down, the companies cannot make money producing the smaller capacity drives.

I agree. This is a big problem for larger companies that want maximum performance, but don't have that much data. They stripe 8, 16, 32 drives, and it's a pain in the wrist to find someone that can sell small enough drives so that you don't massively overshoot the space requirements.

We will see 1Tb hard drives readily available someday, sure thing.

"Some day"? Some day, as in far, far into the future?!? First of all, a Tb is 128 GB. Second: Lacie BiggestDisk. You, my friend, are suffering from "Future Shock"

Please repeat after me, "Terabyte storage is available now for prosumers. By 2016, petabyte storage. By 2026, exabyte storage."

But different people have different needs. Hard drives are beginning to augment backup strategies because they have become so cheap and high in capacity.

A solid state drive has a higher G-shock tolerance, is quieter and requires less power than a hard drive. These features are why the technology is attractive to the people who need it. And not everyone needs a hard drive that is 400gb in size. Network appliances may only need a small 1gb boot drive, and these kind of devices will need this new phase-change memory, or whatever will work for the task beyond flash.

Once again, agreed, but from a different perspective... Disk sizes are growing way more rapidly than other parts of the computer, including OS sizes.

Smaller/faster (and more expensive) "disk" technologies keep popping up.

Why not do it like Ye Olde Amiga did? IE, the default install is to use different partitions for "OS" and "Data". The OS fits onto the (NG) flash memory described in this thread, the rest goes onto the "Data" partition. This would also go some way towards improving boot-up times as discussed in recent threads on /.

It would be cool to have something like this that is your main memory AND your storage space in one. We could call it Run-In-Place. We could then have a instant-on computers. Just imagine Windows XP or Linux booting up in under 3 seconds!

I, personally will not be satisfied until boot-times are cut down until they are comparable with my old C=64. (I used to reboot my C=64 by flipping the power switch down, then up again, as fast as humanly possible. Once, in five years, I actually managed to do it too fast (<.05 seconds?) leaving the computer in a strange, scrambled state.

You can always just shoehorn it in:

http://compreviews.about.com/cs/pchardwarebasics/t p/aatp1394pccards.htm
http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=1048 2

with at least some indication that performance will be fine:

http://www.barefeats.com/fire42.html

The Apple used in that test might have better cardbus support than a Dell, who knows, but at least cardbus can reasonably support firewire 800.

So really, firewire 800 isn't really where you should be making your decision; software preferences and the like are going to be more important.

Right here: http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=1018 8. Sure, it's probably not a real 1TB drive, but it's in an external box and plugs into a USB port, so what's the difference between it and a single-drive solution? For most people, probably none at all.

Anybody know if a USB 2.0 drive is fast enough to keep up with video playback? If so, then I may have to pick one of these up for the HTPC...

If you used Google, you could rebut all of your arguments yourself and we wouldn't have to do it for you.

The file format "choice" doesn't matter. Apple will release material to play back on that machine.

I specified "on demand" several times now. All you need is to plug it into a TV, plug it into your fast download connection, pick your shows from an "on demand" service and use your remote on that show.

What is missing is a service to get the media to the box and a vast library of content.

Which is why I started this whole thread with "wait a year."

It doesn't need the internal disk capacity and I/O that you specify unless you are planning on building a media library; which is a topic I'm not addressing, but if you were, Firewire enclosures that fit right under the mini are available.

http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=1047 6
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/ministack/

I've tested these machines for this purpose and am speaking from experience. Honestly, I don't get what you're not getting.

Cheers,

Actually, there exists a wide range of audio-less iPods.

LaCie have network storage available in 1TB and 2TB 1RU rack mountable that also has 3 or 4 USB ports on the front for adding more external storage (albeit at USB speeds) They are compatible with all OSes but I'm unsure what format they are in. You could always read their online gear at : http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=1064 7/. Downside : Powered by XP Embedded. As for service plans/etc. I guess that would be up to whoever you brought it through in the end.

Though it requires a small investment, it's definitely possible and worthwhile to set up a practical backup solution. I had all my data on a Powerbook with a 120GB HD, but I purchased a 250 GB external hard drive and left it on my desk at home. Every few weeks I'd plug it in and click on "backup" (the drive came with backup software called silverkeeper). The initial backup took a little over 30 minutes, and incremental backups took 5 or 10.

Last month my laptop was stolen, and though I was pretty upset, at least I didn't lose a meaningful amount of data. I just picked up a new MacBook Pro, plugged in the hard drive, and restored in a little over 30 minutes.

So there is a practical backup solution out there. That's mine. You're right that DVD's are certainly not it. But I'm pretty happy with mine. Unless two geographically seperated disks die in the same timeframe, I'm good.

Cheers.

I would suggest that you not buy this:

http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=1075 3

Those panels are removable. Among other things, they are there to reduce the psychological affect of adjacent colors of surrounding objects possibly distorting the percieved colors.

Do 8 and 10GB flash media drives even exist at this time?

An interesting titbit from the lacie encrypted hdd:

"Regarding the SAFE drive, the key is stored in the SDRAM memory. Thus, it is almost impossible to access - except of course for authorized governmental organizations if requested."
http://www.lacie.com/download/more/whitepaper_safe _enc_en.pdf

On a similar topic, Lacie released a portable hard drive with built in encryption (Triple DES) and a fingerprint reader.

It probably won't protect data from the govt (assume they can read anything), but it's a good idea if you travel and need the capacity.

I just got a Mac Mini for this very purpose. Combine it with a USB 2.0/Firewire TV Tuner and stack it on top of an external hard drive, and you've got everything you need in one nice, tiny package.

There are a number of solutions out there that provide an external hard drive with the same styling as the min. Take this one from Lacie: http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=1072 7

BTW I should note that there are competitors to Front Row that are appearing one the scene. For me MythTV still feels a bit clunky to install, but this one looks like a possible candidat: http://www.equinux.com/us/products/mediacentral/co mpatibility.html