1.6TB In a Shoebox, If You've Got the Money

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1.6TB In a Shoebox, If You've Got the Money

Posted by timothy on Wednesday December 1, 2004 @02:50AM from the incrementalism dept.

zmcnulty writes "While not exactly a technological marvel in itself, IO Data Device's new 'HDZ-UE1.6TS' exemplifies the recent trend towards demand for higher storage capacities -- it's an external hard drive setup offering a total capacity of 1.6TB. Not much larger than four 3.5" hard drives, the HDZ-UE1.6TS goes to show that any (rich) consumer can now easily have a boatload of storage space. Here's the Japanese press release." (At current conversion rates, this would cost nearly $2,900.)

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Creative paperweight... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-01 02:52 · Score: 5, Insightful

Seems to me like this will be one of those pieces of equipment we will all "laugh at" next fall. I mean the size is good and all... but it is huge.

Sorta reminds me of the 270gb MaxAttach file storage unit I have sitting in my rack @ work. The thing is huge... but 3 years ago it was "modern." Now I can buy a 400gb SATA hard drive that is 1/20th the size and has even MORE space.

Infact -- speaking of which -- with SATA getting bigger and bigger this thing is a "waste of money."
Recent trend? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-01 02:53 · Score: 3, Insightful

the recent trend towards demand for higher storage capacities

This is a recent trend?
$2900 = $1500 for prettiness? by stupidfoo · 2004-12-01 02:54 · Score: 5, Insightful

Hmm... $2900 for 1.6TB of storage? And no ethernet? Why not just build your own NAS unit that has the same amount of storage, includes ethernet, and would cost you about $1200-$1400? You could even put it in a fancy case for that price.
1. Re:$2900 = $1500 for prettiness? by Threni · 2004-12-01 03:25 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  The amusingly cheap dollar has something to do with this. Perhaps they'll let you pay for it with a currency of some value - Pounds sterling or Iraqi dinars maybe?
4 drives? by Woogiemonger · 2004-12-01 02:56 · Score: 3, Insightful

The device is basically an external hardware RAID implementation. I'm just wondering what they do to help the reliability of the data. I also wonder if you can choose to change the RAID configuration of the device. For people that don't care too much about the preservation of data, 4 drives running in parallel, at 4 times the speed would be kinda neat :)
Re:Which is how much space? by theparanoidcynic · 2004-12-01 03:16 · Score: 5, Insightful

You want "real world" units?

700 kbps video + 128 kbps audio * 2 channels = 410 MB per hour.

1.6 (marketing) terabytes / 410 MB = 3900 hours of divx porn.

"Real world" enough for you? :)

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Re:Sheesh.... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-01 03:33 · Score: 5, Insightful

Who would have a use for this type of storage, yet would at the same time run Windows Me?
RAID 0 = your data is vulnerable by haggar · 2004-12-01 05:55 · Score: 3, Insightful

These 4 disks are striped (RAID 0), which is great for performance, but if any of the drives fails, you lost all the 1.6 TB of data. Given that there are 4 drives in the enclosure, your chances of a disk failure are about 4 times higher than that of a single drive.

Bear in mind that typically, these disk enclosures for home use have poor ventilation, so the likelyhood of a drive failing is higher than with the PCs internal drives.

For me, the odds don't seem good. I would much rather have RAID 1 + 0 (two mirrored disksets that are then striped) with half the capacity but better protection from data loss.

This is precisely the reason why I am holding off from buying one of these disk boxes, even though I like the idea of having a place to store all my CD images - and more.

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