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These are the smallest cases I have seen, but only marginally so. Both Firewire 400 AND 800, as well USB 2.0. Are they really any better than your no name $10 USB enclosure - no. It is just the smallest form factor I have seen, but only beating the others out by millimeters.

2.5" (laptop)
  or
3.5"

My first drive I bought is a SmartDisk Firelite. They make USB and FireWire versions. These come with an HD pre-installed.

I have since bought a 2.5" enclosure - Vantec NexStar. This is a USB2.0 enclosure for 2.5" drives. Very handy for making use of old laptop drives. The best part is that these new ones pull power off the USB line. I can't speak to the FireWire drives.

I also have some high capacity 3.5" drives in external enclosures. One is a Metal Gear Box. The other is a Mad Dog. The Metal Gear unit is all aluminum with vented sides for maximum cooling. The Mad Dog is not so good for cooling. It is a tight fit and the outer case feels like plastic. Also, the Mad Dog plays havoc with AM radios. I suspect it is because it is a non-metal housing. Well, it says it is anodized aluminum, but it feels more like plastic.

Generally speaking, you will pay a lot more per GB for a pre-installed hard drive, compared with smart shopping for bargains on enclosures and drives.

Good luck.

Uh, well, ok. I actually meant my first link to be merely an example to show that such things exist. I expected the questioner to find their own sources. But if want available product, how about this, this, or this

The iPod is completely different. This is for offloading storage from digital cameras and other flash memory based devices. It allows the user to plug that device directly into it and with one press of a button, it copies all of the data on that flash device to itself. This is VERY useful in the realm of digital photography and a large percentage of digital photographers are already using technology that is similar called FlashTrax.

One of the most useful applications for the floppy drive was the flashpath readers

These were nice because they were one of the only ways to read media on some laptops.

It also allowed you to essentially have a zip drive out of a regular floppy if you used the 128MB media.

This kind of device (portable media devices with 20GB+ HDs) is a must-have for any long trip in a vehicle when the user isn't the driver.

I bought one of these 20GB Portable Storage Devices (PSD for short) that came without any fancy LCD screen or Audio output, but did have USB 2.0 and a CF card so that I could have a 20GB store for all my photos when I was taking pictures on vacation. The total cost of the unit was about $240, but considering that I have no laptop, and didn't want to take a laptop-sized device with me, it fit the bill perfectly.

Now with the Archos GMini and the SmartDisk FlashTrax among these new entrants in the market, there are more uses than just a portable storage device.

I don't know if any of the new portable media centers can or will be able to directly connect to my camera via USB (I imagine it's just a matter of getting the right software on it), but if they want to have my business, they need at least a Compact Flash card, or I'm not getting rid of my Aplux Tripper PSD.

Don't knock the iPod for being a novelty item. It is a very well designed (and well marketed) pocket MP3 player. These new devices competing with Video and Photos and connecting to digital cameras in the same space at competing prices will surely force Apple to invest more in this market.

We are seeing a convergance in small digital devices. I predict that within a decade we will have a digital camera, cell phone, MP3 player, portable storage (20GB is low end, but maybe 20GB in Flash RAM), and Photo viewer in the form factor of a $100 watch.

The only thing preventing most of this today is battery consumption. But Sony, and other large corporations are certainly capable of producing the hardware, and they have designs on the drawing board. Japan will embrace these before the US. After all, what's new over here is 5 years old over there.

I use FireLites, too. They must be good; people keep stealing 'em ;-)

However, SmartDisk's advertising is just a tad misleading..... The picture in the linked page shows a lovely, calming blue light; the unit you get will sport a rather hideous green light. SmartDisk managed to change the photo on the packaging (not a small task), but somehow can't bring itself to simply swap in the new photo on the web site.

Similarly, the first review they link to speaks in "glowing" terms of the blue light and the excellent carry case....Yes, this was a wonderful case -- some sort of cushiony spandex that ably protected the case from table-top height drops; but the case is no longer included (nor, apparently, even available as an option).

(Yeah, I still carry FireLites, and I still recommend them; I just don't recommend buying them from SmartDisk until they clean up their advertising...oh, wait...maybe that's where all of mine disappeared to...)

If you want something even smaller, they have a FireFly drive that's only 3.3 ounces.

If you want something even smaller, they have a FireFly drive that's only 3.3 ounces.

http://www.smartdisk.com/ Smartdisk is a good place to get highly portable firewire and usb 2.0 drives. I've heard good things about them and they're not a small or new company.

The hot swap bays let me yank a drive out on my way out of the house if the place catches on fire. Yes, I know I should be storing that third drive at a friend's house, but it's too inconvenient to retrieve it every time I want to backup my array. So a fire may destroy everything if I'm not home or can't safely pull a drive on my way out. I'm comfortable with that.

You can resolve this issue with high-capacity, portable storage. I keep all most critical stuff (software, licenses, photos, pr0n, etc.) on my 40GB portable drive. Forget those keychain things. The FireLite SmartDisk is a USB 2.0, aluminum encased laptop drive. It draws power from USB - it even worked on my old USB 1.l system. They provide a special power cable, in case your old USB ports aren't pushing enough power. I toss thing in backpack every day and lug it all over - it has yet to show signs of weakness.

I totally agree with your configuration. For my Linux server, I've been using Linux (RH7.2) Software RAID-1 mirrored for ~3 years without a single issue.

I think the iRiver is fairly stylish compared to SmartDisk's similar (and also Linux based) FlashTrax device. The Flashtrax has more GB, an iR remote and can download from flash cards, but the interface really needs work and the battery life is pretty poor (especially on the 80GB model).

What about this little fellow? The form factor and screen may not be perfect, but it seems do be the iPod killer of today. And at $350-$400 is a heck of a lot cheaper that the M$ BS...

When I bought one of these FlashTrax things I was suprirsed to see in the 'about box' that it ran on linux. A query about getting the source came back with a 'our software engineering partners are considering releasing parts of the code as source', and nothing more ...

Who needs to be contacted/go to action about this?

Instead of buying this kind of expenshuge flash card, I am considering Photo Memory Bank from SmartDisk ($549 (40GB); $699 (80GB)) or a Belkin Media Reader for iPod (price $109) - since I already have the iPod.

However, this is still all eggs in one basket - you loose the thing, no pictures left. I guess the ultimate solution is to simply bring a portable with me for my photo expeditions and transfert my pictures on a daily basis on my computer and then either on CD-ROMS or on my web site.

Loosing pictures is not an option for me - these moments almost never come back.

For instance:

Digital media players will be released which can store and display gigabytes of photos. Hard disk space and small liquid crystal displays are cheap; and both nature and marketing people abhor a vacuum.

Ummmm....I bought one last June. It's called a FlashTrax. I got the 30GB one, but I think they're up to 80GB now. It backs up compact flash cards from digital cameras, displays the photos on it's 3.5" LCD, and can also play MP3s. The battery life is pretty crappy, though.

I work as a photojournalist at a local newspaper, just about to switch to digital photography. It would be great to have a small multipurpose device to backup a compact flash card but ~22 minutes for a 512MB card.

IIRC Smart Media's pinout is the same as an ATA drive or something like that

Maybe in the near future, we will see Serial ATA RAID controllers utilizing a PC Card slot that supports say two drives in either RAID 0 or RAID 1, that would connect to drives and powered by either a battery or an external power source.

Software RAID under Windows may not be the most optimal solution due to it's processor overhead, but it's still a somewhat viable option.

Perhaps this would do the trick? It even comes with a Li-Ion battery.

RAID

Not exactly iPods, but what would be cool is if you can hook this up to an iPod. Music for the rest of the decade.

Oh really? Here's a link to the Smardisk Firefly, a small portable drive with the same mechanism. It sells for $199, and you can be sure Apple is getting them for way less than that in bulk.

Personally I'd rather have a Firewire one instead. Transferring 1GB over USB would take quite a while.

At $199-$250, I would have bought two, immediately. Instead, at $399, I am buying zero, and expect that many other people will feel the same way.


At first I thought it should be more in the $300 range. However, after looking at the link someone supplied for a device from smartdisk (that most likely uses the same harddrive), I have to realize I was wrong. The smartdisk device is a 5GB firewire harddrive. That's all and it's the exact same price. Suddenly, it looks like a good deal!

http://www.smartdisk.com (It's the firefly)

jason

I wonder who makes such a small hard drive?

Toshiba, as found in the SmartDisk FireLite.

http://www.smartdisk.com/Press%20Releases/5GBHardD rive.asp

$400!!!! for a freakin MP3 player!?!?!?

No, $399.95 MSRP for a freakin' .2x1.8" 5 GB Toshiba FireWire bus-powered hard drive.

http://www.smartdisk.com/Products/Storage%20Produc ts/Hard%20Drives/FWFL.asp

Apple's version throws in the MP3 player for free.

Not such a bad deal looked at that way, yes?

The Linux drivers are at the SmartDisk web page. You can get 64MB on a "floppy", readable in a standard floppy drive. The media is also compatible with a wide range of products (cameras, MP3, etc). You pay more for the media, but save on the drives and get better portability. As a bonus, the media is much smaller and is immune to magnetic fields.

It isn't networking, but it will allow you to get more than a floppy's worth of information out of a system at a time. SmartDisk makes a product called the FlashPath, which allows you to read and write to smart media or sony memory sticks through a PC's floppy drive. In short, you'd be able to read/write up to 64mb of data at a time (and soon, 128mb). It does require a driver to be installed in the PC to be used, but it will allow you to get more data in and out without any hardware modifications at all... just a quick driver install (and yes, the driver will fit on a floppy and is available for Win9x/NT/2000, Mac and Linux here).

Oh yeah, it'll run you US$89.95 at the SmartDisk store with a 16Mb SmartMedia card, or you can head over to PriceScan's Digital Film Readers section and find one for under US$60 without a card.

Some day I hope to have a .plan.

It isn't networking, but it will allow you to get more than a floppy's worth of information out of a system at a time. SmartDisk makes a product called the FlashPath, which allows you to read and write to smart media or sony memory sticks through a PC's floppy drive. In short, you'd be able to read/write up to 64mb of data at a time (and soon, 128mb). It does require a driver to be installed in the PC to be used, but it will allow you to get more data in and out without any hardware modifications at all... just a quick driver install (and yes, the driver will fit on a floppy and is available for Win9x/NT/2000, Mac and Linux here).

Oh yeah, it'll run you US$89.95 at the SmartDisk store with a 16Mb SmartMedia card, or you can head over to PriceScan's Digital Film Readers section and find one for under US$60 without a card.

Some day I hope to have a .plan.

It isn't networking, but it will allow you to get more than a floppy's worth of information out of a system at a time. SmartDisk makes a product called the FlashPath, which allows you to read and write to smart media or sony memory sticks through a PC's floppy drive. In short, you'd be able to read/write up to 64mb of data at a time (and soon, 128mb). It does require a driver to be installed in the PC to be used, but it will allow you to get more data in and out without any hardware modifications at all... just a quick driver install (and yes, the driver will fit on a floppy and is available for Win9x/NT/2000, Mac and Linux here).

Oh yeah, it'll run you US$89.95 at the SmartDisk store with a 16Mb SmartMedia card, or you can head over to PriceScan's Digital Film Readers section and find one for under US$60 without a card.

Some day I hope to have a .plan.

There are also linux drivers/kernel modules avaliable for FlashPath floppy adapters:

http://www.smartdisk.com/Downloads/Software/FlashP ath%20for%20Linux.htm

And, although it doesn't meantion this on the webpage, if you d/l the driver file you'll find that its distributed as sourcecode and is licensed under the GNU GPL.

I remember a discussion here on Slashdot a while ago about SmartDisk. Somebody was asking if there were any Linux drivers being developed for SmartDisk's amazing disk adapters that allow you to use your existing 1.44MB floppy drive to read/write 2MB - 128MB flash memory modules (the answer was a resounding "yes"). Neat huh?

Anyway, I quickly discovered that the folks at SmartMedia make a bunch of other cool products too, such as ultra-portable USB hard disks (ignore the fact they only mention Macintosh systems in the summaries - the details state they can be used on PCs too). The 4 GB disks are about $180, 6 GB disks are $20 more. If USB is too slow for you, and you have the capacity, they also offer FireWire versions (you probably will need a Mac for these). And finally, if you can't make up your mind, they offer 3 GB - 30 GB versions that support both USB and FireWire environments.

I can't offer any experience with these disks, but I really want to try one out! Maybe someone can post their experience with SmartDisk products? Failing that, you could always get one of these drives and then do us a favor by submitting a review to Slashdot or something. :)

I remember a discussion here on Slashdot a while ago about SmartDisk. Somebody was asking if there were any Linux drivers being developed for SmartDisk's amazing disk adapters that allow you to use your existing 1.44MB floppy drive to read/write 2MB - 128MB flash memory modules (the answer was a resounding "yes"). Neat huh?

Anyway, I quickly discovered that the folks at SmartMedia make a bunch of other cool products too, such as ultra-portable USB hard disks (ignore the fact they only mention Macintosh systems in the summaries - the details state they can be used on PCs too). The 4 GB disks are about $180, 6 GB disks are $20 more. If USB is too slow for you, and you have the capacity, they also offer FireWire versions (you probably will need a Mac for these). And finally, if you can't make up your mind, they offer 3 GB - 30 GB versions that support both USB and FireWire environments.

I can't offer any experience with these disks, but I really want to try one out! Maybe someone can post their experience with SmartDisk products? Failing that, you could always get one of these drives and then do us a favor by submitting a review to Slashdot or something. :)