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

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.)

60 of 359 comments (clear)

  1. Obligatory pr0n comment by syntap · · Score: 5, Funny

    But seriously... with this and an optical data line, running your own household Usenet server starts to become practical.

  2. Creative paperweight... by Anonymous Coward · · 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."

    1. Re:Creative paperweight... by saintp · · Score: 4, Informative
      Infact -- speaking of which -- with SATA getting bigger and bigger this thing is a "waste of money."
      Right on. This past weekend, I priced out a 2.5 Tb roll-your-own NAS box from Newegg for about $2500. Why would I spend $400 more for 900 Gb less?
    2. Re:Creative paperweight... by Squareball · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Exactly. I think I'll wait 2 years and buy a 1.6TB drive at BestBuy for $149.

    3. Re:Creative paperweight... by Cpt_Kirks · · Score: 2, Interesting

      But by then there will be a 500 TB drive on the horizion, so the question really is, when do you buy something like this, when is the best time to get the most bang for your buck?

      About 9 months to a year after it comes out. Newer, faster, larger versions usually come out about then, making the last "new, fast, large" unit fall in price.

      If there has been a jump in technology the time may be shorter, but 9 to 12 months is a good rule of thumb.

      Also, the blood from the "bleeding edge" tends to clot by then...

    4. Re:Creative paperweight... by really? · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Because your NAS box does take way more space on your desk? Not that _I_ would even cosider buying this overpriced POS.

      Here (http://www.century.co.jp/products/suto/goodfaith. html) is a four drive enclosure that I saw selling for about 24000 yen - 230 US bucks or so. Add your own 400GB HD for about US$ 350 a piece. The nice thing about these boxes is that you can select whether you want the drives seen as one big drive, or as individual drives.

      I have the 2HD version and I couldn't be happier.

      --

      "Consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life. The only completely consistent people are the dead." A. Huxley
  3. Recent trend? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    the recent trend towards demand for higher storage capacities

    This is a recent trend?

    1. Re:Recent trend? by vrt3 · · Score: 3, Funny

      In Korea, only old people are recent.

      --
      This sig under construction. Please check back later.
    2. Re:Recent trend? by capnjack41 · · Score: 3, Funny
      +3 Funny, WTF!?

      Haven't you heard? "Old Korean people" is the new "In Soviet Russia"! It's all the rage.

  4. internets by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    how many internets can this hold?

    1. Re:internets by Lord_Slepnir · · Score: 2, Funny

      Dude. Use a real unit. Like Library of Congresses. I wont' be satisifed until I can get a data-density rate of at least 5.6 Library of Congresses per Hogshead!

  5. couldn't you just buy by hsmith · · Score: 2, Insightful

    6 250gb hd's a good controller for ~$1200? what is the point of this besides having another toy?

    1. Re:couldn't you just buy by Forge · · Score: 2, Insightful

      400GB SATA drives are $355 each (See price watch.com).

      A custom microITX Motherboard (With onboard SATA RAID and a reasonable amount of memory plus some kind of embedded OS in FLASH rom can be built for under $300.

      Add a $30 custom case and 5 of these drives and these guys are making $600 a pop above retail. Not bad really.

      My biggest surprise actually is that Dell doesn't sell such a box. Mr.. Dell said in more than one interview that they are in the business of retailing other peoples innovations after slapping on a recognized brand and a decent warranty.

      This storage device is about as obvious a match for them as a "low end" color laser printer.

      --
      --= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
    2. Re:couldn't you just buy by tattoi.nobori · · Score: 2, Insightful

      HDZ: $2900 (turnkey, etc.)
      DIY: ~$1400 (depending on SATA RAID controller.)

      If anybody's really that interested in a turnkey solution, I'll gladly set on up for... say, an even $2000? ^_^

  6. Hmm by pHatidic · · Score: 2, Funny

    But then where do I put my shoes?

  7. $2900 = $1500 for prettiness? by stupidfoo · · 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 · · 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?

  8. Sheesh.... by MHleads · · Score: 3, Informative

    Supported operating systems are Windows Me, 2000 and XP.

    It doesn't support any of unices.

    1. Re:Sheesh.... by zenmojodaddy · · Score: 3, Funny

      Is it just me, or is there a tendency to say that hardware supports Windows, but is supported by Linux/Unix? As if the only thing that keeps Windows stumbling onwards is a big pile of hard drives and sound cards propping up its carcass...

    2. Re:Sheesh.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Who would have a use for this type of storage, yet would at the same time run Windows Me?

  9. LaCie has 1.6TB external as well by Schweg · · Score: 5, Informative

    LaCie has an external FireWire800/USB2 external drive available for about $1000, see here.

  10. So? by digitalamish · · Score: 2, Insightful

    With the cost of IDE hard drives dropping, you could get 4 300 Gig IDE (or SATA) hard drives, and put them in an external case. I think you could shave a $1000 off that price. Even better would be if it was a network storage device.

    1. Re:So? by Total_Wimp · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Ok I am wrong sorry. Just Mod my origional message down I haven't used Windows 2000/XP enough to really check those features I was basing it on my NT knowlege.

      I think this happens a lot. People keep wanting to compare the current features of Unix and/or Linux to the features of NT4.0. They used NT back in the day, it left a bad taste in their mouth, and they moved on to something else. They keep this snapshot picture in their mind of the bad ol' days because they got burned so badly they didn't want to try it again with a more recent version.

      I've seen people do this to Linux too. Linux is not the same OS it was 10 years ago, or even 5 years ago when a lot of people tried it and came to the conclusion that it didn't quite meet their needs. I personally tried Linux about 5 years ago and disliked it for a variety of reasons. But I've been using a few versions recently ranging from 6 months to a year old and almost all of those objections have been fixed.

      Windows Server OSs have grown up a lot since NT 4.0 and and deserves a much better reputation too. Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003 are stable and flexible, even if they're still closed and expensive. People who used NT in the past should at least give the new Windows a chance before dismissing it.

      TW

  11. If it's 1.6TB... by Slayback · · Score: 5, Informative

    Then why does it clearly say 1.2TB on the front of the case?

    1. Re:If it's 1.6TB... by oexeo · · Score: 2, Funny

      > Then why does it clearly say 1.2TB on the front of the case?

      You missed the sub-text: "0.4TB of complimentary porn included"

    2. Re:If it's 1.6TB... by Woogiemonger · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Then why does it clearly say 1.2TB on the front of the case?

      I'm sure you already knew this, but obviously they figured it looks the same as an older model of the same line, seen here: http://www.iodata.jp/news/2004/12/hdz-ue.htm You can also see how much you save by going for four 300MB drives (over $600 saved), or four 250MB drives (nearly $1900 saved) on that page.

    3. Re:If it's 1.6TB... by meatspray · · Score: 2, Funny

      Those were canadian TB's.....

      umm yeah...

  12. LaCie Bigger Disk Extreme by luiss · · Score: 4, Informative

    Only $2199. Been available for a while now, there's probably a Slashdot story about it too.
    http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=1055 1

    1. Re:LaCie Bigger Disk Extreme by DLG · · Score: 4, Interesting

      We are using the 1TB variety as an experiment in harddrive back ups. We ship the drives offsite. The cost is not that much larger than our tape budget and we are able to back and restore more quickly.

      They are firewire 800 so they go pretty fast.

  13. 4 drives? by Woogiemonger · · 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 :)

  14. Boatload? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

    Stupid metric system... what's the conversion rate from boatloads to Libraries of Congress?

  15. CORRECTION by Schweg · · Score: 5, Informative

    LaCie's 1.6TB drive lists for $2199, their older 1TB drive is $999.

  16. 1.6TB In a Shoebox, If You've Got the Money by Jumbo+Jimbo · · Score: 4, Funny

    I'd rather have the $2,900 in a shoebox, thanks

  17. You young wimpy whippersnappers! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    $2900 for 1.6 TB!?! And you're complaining!?! Bah!

    I remember paying $2000 for a 100 MB SCSI disk when they first came out. And this was before that new-fangled internet thingy came out; so we didn't have on-line porn to fill up our disks with! No, siree. Back then, we had to fill up our hard disks with actual source code!

    Oh, where or where have all the real hackers gone, these days?

  18. Who needs it? I'll get one from China by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Here's the Japanese press release." (At current conversion rates, this would cost nearly $2,900.)

    Hahah who needs a hard drive? I don't have hard drives. i just keep 30 chinese teenagers in my basement and force them to memorize numbers. It's a lot cheaper.

  19. Which is how much space? by Freexe · · Score: 5, Funny

    Can someone convert it to Libraries of Congress, I cant work in Terabytes.

    --
    "In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act." - George Orwell
    1. Re:Which is how much space? by theparanoidcynic · · 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? :)

      --
      Only in a Slashdot fantasy can a Slackware install turn into several hours of sex . . . . .
    2. Re:Which is how much space? by thisissilly · · Score: 3, Funny
      3900 hours of divx porn.

      That's only 13hrs/day, 6 days a week, for 1 year (with two weeks' vacation, of course). Well within the capabilities of your average 15 year old male.

    3. Re:Which is how much space? by madprof · · Score: 2, Funny

      In a year or two we'll see double the capacity of drives so even frenetic rabbit-like young men can find themselves sated.
      I am not sure that they will be able to download that much data or afford those many DVDs to fill it all though....perhaps they should bundle a cable modem/ADSL upgrade with it? ;)

  20. Storage History by TJ_Phazerhacki · · Score: 2
    My dad (Comp Tech for the USPS) talks about storage at his old college - they were one of the best systems in the state at the time, with a whopping 1.5 MEGABYTE storage. Give it a year or two - first comes the commercial application, then the compu-phile edition, then every Gateway and Dell is shipping with a TB Drive standard.

    The Law of steadily increased storage, much like moore's law, never ceases to amaze.

    --
    Physics is nothing like religion. If it was, we'd have an easier time trying to raise money!
  21. Re:How Much is Enough? by vidarh · · Score: 4, Informative
    I've got about 300 DVD's, and I want them available on demand and there's no way I'm going to reencode anything in MPEG4. Filling 1.6TB is easy :) Add my almost-there MythTV setup and storage needs rapidly increase.

    Archiving video is becoming a mainstream activity these days :-)

  22. Huge cost decrease by Ruzty · · Score: 2

    Now, granted we did this with EMC storage which has caching SCSI controllers and ports for fibre attachment, but...

    About 4 years ago my former* employer bought about 1.5 terabytes in an EMC cabinet for about $3,600,000.00. It was a cabinet of 18Gig 10K rpm drives. Yes, they paid a steep markup, but it's still insane compared to the equivalent quality gear available at over a 100 fold decrease in price. Going cheap, like the device in the article or a LaCie bigdisk, would be about a 1,000 fold decrease.

    * They blew through $80 million in VC money in under 3 years. About 10% of that went to EMC for gear that never saw a bit of data stored on it or routed through it. I'll never work for another startup again...

    --
    The Master (Angelo Rossitto) in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, "Not shit, energy!"
    1. Re:Huge cost decrease by silas_moeckel · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Funny worked at a startup 4 years ago and EMC tried to get my fired for not buying there 3.6 Mill 1.5 TB POS. Then the sales guy went to the I'm going to loose my job if you dont buy it. They also took the your just not testing it correctly stance (was testing through through a server to a load farm with copies of real world work)

      Never ever buy something from EMC they fired there engineers years ago it;s a sales and marketing company. That and the fact they trust embeded windows to run the clarion line :)

      We did 68 Mill in VC in about 2.

      --
      No sir I dont like it.
  23. Like the coyote finaly getting the Road Runner... by SWTP_OS9 · · Score: 2, Informative

    Like the coyote. You finaly obtain it.

    But then have that sick realization of "How are you going to back up this bad boy?"

  24. At last some competition... by CPM+User · · Score: 4, Funny

    for /dev/null ...

  25. cheap stuff by Sai+Babu · · Score: 2, Interesting

    160gig maxtor have been as low as $30/each (closer to $37 incl tax) after rebate. For about $1500-$1600 total you can put 20 of them together in 3 sets of 5 plus 5 spares and have 1.9TB of RAID. Yes, it costs more for power. About the same as my 5 x 9gig 5.25" 70GB FDDI attached array run by a SPARC20 that cost almost $25k back in the day...

    A couple of years ago I duplicated the system I sold for $500k that incorporated this array, a FDDI switch, and a half doz SGI Indigo 2's for less than $1000. Really underscores the adage that when it comes to computing, if you don't need it now, don't buy it now.

  26. Those Crazy fortunes by Matey-O · · Score: 3, Interesting
    How appropriate that the quote at the bottom of the page for this article is:
    Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes. -- Dr. Warren Jackson, Director, UTCS
    --
    "Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
  27. MythTV and all that jazz by killmenow · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Just a quick question:

    Does MythTV or another tool have an ability to basically create your own TV channel?

    That is, if I took all of my DVDs and encoded them (DivX, or whatever...), could I basically set up a box to keep a stream playing all the time, randomly jumping around the entire library?

  28. Not mine by supergiovane · · Score: 4, Funny
    Unfortunately, my Internet broke yesterday. I backed it up last week by dragging it from the desktop to the CDR, but I don't know how to copy it back to my PC. I see it on the CD, but if I click the 'e' it doesn't do anything.

    Can anyone send me a working Internet by e-mail, please?

    --
    Signatures are for stupids.
  29. Media backup by MadEmperor · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Everyone is going overboard about how this external unit is overpriced, however there are more things to consider than price.

    1. Many people have hundreds of gigs of movies in the form of divx, and would like to make a portable backup to travel.

    2. Building a cheap pc with internal hds is not always practical. It would have a much higher chance of breaking with all the extra parts, use more power, not be easy to move.

  30. WiebeTech RT5 by silicon-pyro · · Score: 2, Informative

    WiebeTech also has a product, the RT5, that has 2TB of storage. The price is much higher though. With this model, you can choose the RAID 0-5, and hot-swap the drives. They also purport to support Windows XP, 2K, Mac OS X, and Linux via dual Firewire 400/800 connections.

  31. OT: Best Buy is crooked by davidwr · · Score: 2, Informative

    Even the Ohio Attorney General thinks so.

    Yeah, I'm offtopic, but I'm also informative. So there. :P

    --
    Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
  32. 1.6 T in a shoebox for $2900 by Coffeehound · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It was not that many years ago.... OK, it was a long time, when Radio Shack was selling a 5K Tandy hard drive (the size of two shoeboxes) for $5,000.

  33. Hot Swap? by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Right on. This past weekend, I priced out a 2.5 Tb roll-your-own NAS box from Newegg for about $2500.

    Question for the audience: Does the 2.6 kernel support SATA hot-swap yet? I know you can get add-in boards that present virual SCSI hot-swap for plenty of money, but I'd like to do it with cheap controllers.

    I'm pretty darn happy with XServe RAID under linux but I'm always watching for the cheap alternative.

    --
    My God, it's Full of Source!
    OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
  34. Re:How Much is Enough? by ...+James+... · · Score: 2, Informative

    I wanted that too. Instead I have a pair of Sony DVP-CX777ES 400 disc DVD changers hooked up to an Escient DVDM-100 media manager. I just pick the DVD I want and it does the rest (even downloads cover art and movie info from Escient). $1700 for the manager, $500 for each changer (up to 3). You can have 1200 DVDs on demand for $3200. Probably the second best purchase I've made for my theater, next to my projector/screen.

    James

  35. Awesome until one of the drives fail by nolife · · Score: 2, Interesting

    We recieved two of these from a vendor for data processing. Half way into coping the files off, the device stopped responding and we started to get the dreaded head clacking from one of the drives, the whole device and all the data on them is now useless to us. I am not a statistician but I assume a 5 drive device would have a 5 times greater chance of failing then a single drive would. Those are not very good chances based on my experience in the past few years with IDE drives. YMMV

    --
    Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
  36. Your using it wrong... by Belial6 · · Score: 2, Informative

    I have an 80 hour, and a 120 hour ReplayTV, as well as a 250 hour drive in a PC for the server (http://www.dvarchive.organdistilloccasionallyruno utofspace./
    How do I do this? I often set up channels for things that I MIGHT watch. For example WAM has been showing the TV show 'Weird Science'. Now, when I set up the channel, I didn't KNOW I was going to watch it, but thought that I MIGHT want to watch it. So, I set up a 10 hour channel, and let it run. A month later, I noticed that I had 10 hours of this show, so I had a 'Weird Science' Marathon. It was entertaining, and didn't require constant attention.

    My wife has programs that she recorded over a year ago, and still hasn't seen. I have no doubt she will eventually watch them, as I periodically see her watch old shows.

    'Good Eats' alone has 120 episodes, and at a medium quality takes up ~120 gigs. (2gb/hour * 60 hrs = 120 gig)br
    The real benefit of DVRs is not that they make better VCRs. The real benefit is in allowing you to watch WHAT you want WHEN you want it. That requires a lot of disk space.

  37. RAID 0 = your data is vulnerable by haggar · · 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.

    --
    Sigged!
    1. Re:RAID 0 = your data is vulnerable by EmagGeek · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Why would you do Raid 1+0 with 4 drives when you can get higher capacity with Raid 5? You'd have 3x the capacity of a single drive instead of 2x.

  38. Re:How Much is Enough? by sootman · · Score: 2, Insightful

    So, I take it you haven't ripped any of your CDs to MP3/AAC/WMA/ogg/etc.? 'Cause, you know, it's just so easy to walk over to your wall, pull down a CD, pop it in your player... :-)

    Even if I *weren't* so totally lazy, I'd *still* want to rip all my DVDs. First of all, as a TiVo owner, I *totally love* the whole "press a button and see a list of everything I have" thing.

    Secondly, I hate media. That is, little plastic and metal things I have to move around. (Furethermore: I could care less about CD liner notes, and every DVD box is the same--picture of the actor on the front, and a back panel listing all the special DVD features like... interactive menus, and subtitles! ooh... But anyway,)

    I hate taking out these fragile things and moving them into and out of the player (and then the bonus: that I *have to* sit through the bullshit red warnings in nine languages, and the 30-minute intro montage just to get to the fscking menus.) If I scratch one while taking it out of its shitty case (I never thought they'd find worse packaging than plain-old jewel cases, but here we are--press the center button, bend your DVD backwards, and hope it doesn't get scratched when it *finally* springs out of the vise-like holder) then yippee, I get to pay for it again!

    I'd much rather have it all on HDs. I shouldn't touch anything but buttons. Plus, once it's all, y'know, *computerized*, you get all kinds of neat bonuses, like "Show me all the Harrison Ford movies I have" or "what comedies have I not watched in the last six months" and things like that.

    And the randomness is a bonus. Sometimes I can't really think of what I'd like to watch, and I've even had this happen: I'll be flipping around HBO or Showtime, see a move on *that I own*, and I'll leave it on, just because it's already on and it's as good of a choice as I could have made on my own. So a "random play", just like all CD and MP3 players have, would be cool, too. Especially if my Humongo Media Server has shows as well as movies--maybe Used Cars, maybe The Simpsons, maybe Terminator 2, maybe Seinfeld, maybe Law and Order... just the thing to have on for a long Saturday of room-cleaning and slashdot-reading.

    --
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