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New USB 3.0 Flash Drive Has 2 TB of Storage

First time accepted submitter Dr Max writes "During Display Taiwan, Transcend and Taiwan's ITRI displayed a finger-long USB stick that reportedly offers 2 TB of storage. That's no typo. It somehow holds up to 2 terabytes worth of information. So far neither company has released anything official in regards to specs or a simple introduction, nor does the high-capacity USB 3.0 stick appear on Display Taiwan's website. But as seen in the video below, the 'Thin Card' thumb drive is even smaller than a thumb, measuring slightly thicker than a penny. It offers a minimum of 16 GB and a maximum of 2 TB."

212 comments

  1. It'll store 2TB, however... by ByOhTek · · Score: 5, Insightful

    you can only read back the first 1GB...

    --
    Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
    1. Re:It'll store 2TB, however... by wsxyz · · Score: 2

      Yeah, any run of the mill computer store in China will sell you whatever size you need: 2 TB, 10 TB, 1000 TB: If you name it, they'll sell it to you.

    2. Re:It'll store 2TB, however... by eviljolly · · Score: 1

      I bought my 1 Exabyte drive there a while back. For some reason it keeps overwriting my data though!

    3. Re:It'll store 2TB, however... by jhoegl · · Score: 5, Informative
    4. Re:It'll store 2TB, however... by CastrTroy · · Score: 1

      I'm using it for my database. Just make sure you use the Blackhole storage engine on MySQL. Otherwise the database may not work as designed.

      --

      Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
    5. Re:It'll store 2TB, however... by ortholattice · · Score: 2

      It seems this kind of scam has been going on for at least 50 years. A friend from Rio (Brazil) told me that in the early 60's, you could buy cheap D cells that when you opened them up, inside was an AA-sized cell with the rest just loose filler like dirt or something. They'd pass the standard battery check when new but of course wouldn't last nearly as long. This was quite a rip-off of poor people who lived in areas with no electricity and depended on these for powering their radios, since the batteries were a significant expense given their meager incomes.

    6. Re:It'll store 2TB, however... by DrXym · · Score: 2

      EBay is full of fake cards too. I got stung for one a few years back - claimed it was 4GB but only the first 256MB worked. Packaging and card looked authentic including hologram but even so it was bogus as a test revealed. I initiated a fraud complaint and got my money back. The scam works (judging by all the A+++ comments) because very few other people bother to actually test the card so the fraudster gets away with it for a few months before being shut down. I assume they set up again with a new name and rinse & repeat.

    7. Re:It'll store 2TB, however... by Grizzley9 · · Score: 1

      While having a single in there posing as a bigger battery is a scam, many times the bigger batteries are just multiples of the smaller batteries (at least they appear to be and carry the same form factor, actual power may differ). See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3qPrlun45c&feature=related

    8. Re:It'll store 2TB, however... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe. If you got it in China.

    9. Re:It'll store 2TB, however... by iamhassi · · Score: 1

      Transcend is a big name in flash drives, not a back ally Chinese computer store

      My guess is she misunderstood. The flash drive that she demonstrates is only 16gb, there is no drive there that is labeled 2tb, and at one point in the video she even mistakenly calls it a 2 gigabyte drive instead of 2 terabyte indicating she's pretty good at making mistakes. She was probably told that in the future it could be 2tb, but it is not a product that will be released anytime soon.

      --
      my karma will be here long after I'm gone
    10. Re:It'll store 2TB, however... by Pharmboy · · Score: 1

      I will reply since I'm out of mod points for the first day in two weeks, and you are 100% correct. All she was *really* claiming is that the company thinks that eventually they will have one "as big as 2tb" in that same form factor size. No more, no less. And yes, it is obvious that she is only vaguely (and likely, incorrectly) parroting back something that someone else told her.

      There is no 2tb stick in that size, only the hopes or plans that they will someday in that same size. Obviously, this story should not have even made it to the front page of /.

      --
      Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
    11. Re:It'll store 2TB, however... by LinuxIsGarbage · · Score: 1

      Batteries are composed by cells. In this case the lantern battery is composed of AA cells.

  2. WIC? by Moraelin · · Score: 1

    Did they come up with a hardware implementation of the wavelet intelligent compressor? ;)

    --
    A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
  3. Why is this surprising? by Joehonkie · · Score: 1

    We can fit 64MB on a microSD card, so why it it surprising that something much larger can fit 2TB?

    1. Re:Why is this surprising? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      64MB?

    2. Re:Why is this surprising? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is a joke right? 64MB anything havent been produced in a few years ;)

    3. Re:Why is this surprising? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But we all know that 640K is all anyone will ever need.

    4. Re:Why is this surprising? by meloneg · · Score: 1

      More likely a typo. The largest MicroSDs I've seen are at 64GB right now.

    5. Re:Why is this surprising? by Joehonkie · · Score: 1

      Yes. Ooops. Must be motor memory messing up my typing.

    6. Re:Why is this surprising? by geekoid · · Score: 1

      Because of how much larger ti is. You don't go from 60GB to 2TB. The there is the read mechanizes, and other data retention issue, so it's highly doubtful. If this is real,and it mass producible, it would change the SSD market; which would be fine.

      IF you where using the same space between bit* it would need to be over 30 time bigger.

      *yes, a very crude view,.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    7. Re:Why is this surprising? by sleigher · · Score: 1

      Can't they just use a 256GB flash chip and then overwrite the cells to reach 2 TB. Then have some sort of recovery software built in that will read the previously overwritten data when you need it? If the DOD requires 8x overwriting to "erase" data then certainly they can use that to their advantage... right? :)

      --
      All points of time and space are connected.
    8. Re:Why is this surprising? by c6gunner · · Score: 1

      Because 31 microSD cards sandwitched together would still be several times larger than this thing?

      I'm more curious about the cost. A 64GB microSD is what ... at least $100, right? I'm not seeing much of a market for a $3,000 flash drive.

    9. Re:Why is this surprising? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We can fit 64MB on a microSD card, so why it it surprising that something much larger can fit 2TB?

      Apparently you didn't do the math... Exactly how much space do you think 31,250 microSD cards would use?

    10. Re:Why is this surprising? by datapharmer · · Score: 1

      you are mixing up platter storage with solid state... I won't even get into the other issues with that statement.

      --
      Get a web developer
    11. Re:Why is this surprising? by Coren22 · · Score: 1
      --
      APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
    12. Re:Why is this surprising? by sleigher · · Score: 1

      Then will you get into some humor? I know that it would only work with magnetic storage. Except that it wouldn't work then either...

      I guess I should give up on trying to be funny huh?

      --
      All points of time and space are connected.
    13. Re:Why is this surprising? by sosume · · Score: 1

      Create a raid array of 3 stacked 32GB micro SDs, then chain 16 of those to create one huge filesystem. If you leave out all the redundant crap, that could be about the size of a finger.

    14. Re:Why is this surprising? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm glad to see the "put comment in time capsule" feature was working well in 2001!

    15. Re:Why is this surprising? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ...unless you LIKE failing miserably at it...

  4. Storage space increasing? by elrous0 · · Score: 1

    Wow, and I thought we were done.

    --
    SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
  5. A Tiny Looking Beowulf Cluster by mfh · · Score: 1

    Okay okay, I'll be quiet now. :D

    --
    The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
  6. For just... by timmy.cl · · Score: 1

    I bet this will cost you around $10,000.

    1. Re:For just... by Reverand+Dave · · Score: 2

      No, it's only $100.00, but that's only imaginary dollars. Also the only retail outlet is in Atlantis so we'll have to wait for the oceans to recede to buy one.

      --
      I got here through a series of tubes
    2. Re:For just... by NatasRevol · · Score: 1

      Item #1 on What are the good things to look forward to from global warming.

      --
      There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
    3. Re:For just... by geekoid · · Score: 1

      The waters aren't receding.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    4. Re:For just... by LordLimecat · · Score: 1

      I thought global warming caused the oceans to rise...?

    5. Re:For just... by rubycodez · · Score: 0

      The oceans have been rising since the last ice age, and if you look at graph of past 10,000 years, there were thousands of years where it was rising at a much faster rate than now. But alarmists look at inhabited places essentially at sea level and get alarmed when they get overrun with water. Those places were doomed anyway, just as more of them will certainly be.

    6. Re:For just... by GameboyRMH · · Score: 1

      Exactly. Who cares about size, I wanna know the cost! If I was filthy rich I could probably have a 2TB custom thumb drive built right now.

      --
      "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
    7. Re:For just... by SuricouRaven · · Score: 1

      They reced about twice a day.

    8. Re:For just... by UnknowingFool · · Score: 0

      The logical fallacy you seem to miss is the source. While it is true that things like sea level rise has occurred in the geologic past, humans did not cause it millions of years ago by pumping CO2 into the atmosphere. It would be the same as saying that since oil spills occur naturally, it's not a big deal when BP spilled millions of gallons into the Gulf of Mexico last year. Alarmists would see ocean life covered in crude oil and get alarmed by how it is killing them. That sea life was doomed anyways.

      --
      Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
    9. Re:For just... by rubycodez · · Score: 0

      You are committing the logical fallacy of saying the source of current sea level rise is man's CO2 emissions. A cursory glance at natural historical records shows that to be utter rubbish, the sea has been rising, is continuing to rise, with no part of it provably attributable to man.

    10. Re:For just... by toastar · · Score: 1

      Not on Mah Lake

    11. Re:For just... by UnknowingFool · · Score: 2

      Your logic baffles me. You are saying that since something occurred in the past that precludes all other factors today. You know people died in the past from natural causes therefore no one can possibly die from gunshot wounds today. Now can say you don't believe the evidence that CO2 is causing sea level rise but ignoring humans might be responsible is pure denial.

      --
      Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
    12. Re:For just... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's just the short term problem.
      As the earth continues to heat up, the water will boil away into space, leaving the earth a barren desert wasteland.
      But that's not the end. Next the rocks will begin to ooze, becoming molten, then starting on fire.
      Finally as the corona continues to expand... wait, that's the death of the sun, not global warming... never mind.

    13. Re:For just... by LordLimecat · · Score: 1

      The point that is often made is that a single volcanic eruption absolutely dwarfs mans CO2 emissions such that they become irrelevant.

      But honestly, I stopped caring about the whole discussion long ago. We should work on cutting emissions regardless, and we should look for ways to improve energy efficiency regardless, and as long as they are done in a sane way (ie, tax breaks etc) and not a stupid way (trying to legislate scientific progress, trying to legislate people giving a darn, carbon credits), it doesnt really matter to me.

      Im not a climatologist, so I dont really feel like getting super invested in some opinion that I wouldnt really be qualified to defend anyways.

    14. Re:For just... by UnknowingFool · · Score: 1

      The point that is often made is that a single volcanic eruption absolutely dwarfs mans CO2 emissions such that they become irrelevant.

      That is not factually true.

      Volcanic eruptions can enhance global warming by adding CO2 to the atmosphere. However, a far greater amount of CO2 is contributed to the atmosphere by human activities each year than by volcanic eruptions. T.M.Gerlach (1991, American Geophysical Union) notes that human-made CO2 exceeds the estimated global release of CO2 from volcanoes by at least 150 times.

      According to the USGS, volcanic eruptions emit 130 M ton of CO2. According to newscientist, human CO2 emissions are in the 26.4 G ton range in 2007.

      --
      Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
    15. Re:For just... by LordLimecat · · Score: 1

      I stand corrected; due to the lateness of the hour I didnt actually check my facts before posting.

    16. Re:For just... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Logic baffles me.

      FTFY

  7. News is spam (maybe) by mehrotra.akash · · Score: 4, Informative

    From one of the comments on the linked site:

    On the video it says "Actually the one that we looked at on display was only 16GB but the technology behind that particular 16GB stick is capable of scaling to 2 Terabytes." In other words they'll have to wait years for smaller manufacturing processes to occur before a 2 TB drive is made.

    I cannot watch the video to verify it.. but if true, then the news is as good as spam

    1. Re:News is spam (maybe) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

      I used to sell floppy disks on the same principle -- the disks really only held 120k, but since the technology of reading data from a magnetized disk scales to higher densities, I'd sell them at 200MB floppies. People would sometimes bring the disks back and demand a refund because they got write errors after the first 120k, but I just pointed out to them that the problem wasn't the disks, it was the drive. It was a great business for a while.

    2. Re:News is spam (maybe) by RatherBeAnonymous · · Score: 1

      I watched the video. That is what the reporter said. I'm guessing that someone off camera told her that the technology could scale to a theoretical or estimated 2 Terabytes. At only 16GB I can hardly see the point of putting it on a USB 3.0 interface, except as a proof of concept.

    3. Re:News is spam (maybe) by Joce640k · · Score: 2

      Something like that...

      The video says they're waiting for the USB3.0 spec to be finalized before they can release a product.

      If a 2TB version is available, why wait? Why not make a USB2.0 version of it?

      --
      No sig today...
    4. Re:News is spam (maybe) by jhoegl · · Score: 1

      You are correct, the video just assumes 2TB sticks, why USB 3.0 is linked to this capacity as well, I do not know.

      Anything for hype I guess.

    5. Re:News is spam (maybe) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Of course it can scale up to 2 TB. Just put enough chips in a 3.5" enclosure with a USB 3.0 dongle...Nobody ever says that the 2 TB version will fit into the thumb drive form factor except the headline writer.

      What a f-ed up reporting job by both Tom's HW and Slashdot. I expect better.

    6. Re:News is spam (maybe) by jimmyswimmy · · Score: 4, Interesting

      As of right now the largest FLASH I can find is a 512 Gb unit from Micron (MT29F512G08CUCABH3-12) in a 100 ball LBGA. Couldn't find that package description but maybe a similar one is 9x15.5mm dimension. You'll need more than 32 of these to get to 2 TB, plus a couple of controller ICs.

      In short, with tomorrow's technology (what Micron is still developing), you will need a 6" long stick, covered with ICs on both sides. This will not be an inexpensive device for at least a few years.

      --

      Just my $0.55 (US inflation, 1774-2008, for $0.02)
    7. Re:News is spam (maybe) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You are damn lucky you didn't sell one of them to the DA's wife.

    8. Re:News is spam (maybe) by geekoid · · Score: 1

      Because at USB2 speed, you could never practically use all the data.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    9. Re:News is spam (maybe) by iampiti · · Score: 1

      Please, someone with mod points mod parent up. This looked suspicious from the beggining, right now it seems to be a total scam

    10. Re:News is spam (maybe) by Joce640k · · Score: 2

      There's no terabyte-size USB hard drives in the shops where you live? Maybe you could come to Planet Earth where we're more advanced?

      --
      No sig today...
    11. Re:News is spam (maybe) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "more than 32" ? 32*512 = 16384 ~= 16TB ...

    12. Re:News is spam (maybe) by vrt3 · · Score: 1

      The size of the flash unit was given in gigabits, not gigabytes.

      32 * 512 Gb = 16384 Gb = 2048 GB.

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      This sig under construction. Please check back later.
    13. Re:News is spam (maybe) by tlhIngan · · Score: 1

      The video says they're waiting for the USB3.0 spec to be finalized before they can release a product.

      What? The USB 3.0 spec isn't finalized yet? So what's with all those USB 3.0 devices out there?

      Such a pity. The USB IF guys certainly are good at teasing us though. Harumpth. USB 3.0 Spec available for download. Especially since this group of "USB 3.0" devices doesn't exist (dated January 2010. Yes, 2010).

      Yup, they're still waiting nearly 2 years after the spec's been available to show off their 2TB flash drive.

    14. Re:News is spam (maybe) by citizenr · · Score: 1

      6" long stick

      But that is exactly how she likes them.

      --
      Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
    15. Re:News is spam (maybe) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Bullshit. There are already USB2 2TB external HDs.

      My guess is this has more to do with the power requirements.

    16. Re:News is spam (maybe) by UnknowingFool · · Score: 1

      I think the parent is referring to 2TB USB3 flash drives. There are 2TB HDDs with a USB2 interface these days. I assume there is a lot more engineering and problems when trying to couple the USB2 interface with flash memory that are better solved with with USB3. Current 2TB drives take a normal HDD and pair the IDE or SATA with a USB2 frontend.

      --
      Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
    17. Re:News is spam (maybe) by Grizzley9 · · Score: 1

      Exactly, just like the SD cards when they came out. The original form of the SD card had sizes "up to" 32 GB. That was the theoretical at the time and under those standards at the time when 256MB up to 1GB was standard (back when new SD memory digital cameras came with cheapo 4MB cards in them). With the coming of other flavors of SD cards, I believe that went by the wayside but it was still a long time before anyone was seeing 32GB out of a SD card when initially introduced.

      I don't doubt one day the avg consumer may in fact see a 2 TB flash drive, but given the cloud emergence and wireless data capabilities of many gadgets, I don't see that happening for a while.

    18. Re:News is spam (maybe) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Indeed, he would have had to do a perp walk. And maybe then go on the lamb (it's mandated in Deuteronomy I think - that's a dirty book).

    19. Re:News is spam (maybe) by hitmark · · Score: 1

      Yea, i think a flash drive is more likely to saturate a USB3 connection then a HDD. Especially if it is using some kind of connector bridge.

      --
      comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
    20. Re:News is spam (maybe) by Coren22 · · Score: 1

      Naa, she prefers a good foot long...I would know.

      --
      APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
    21. Re:News is spam (maybe) by Joce640k · · Score: 1

      I'm fairly sure he said there was no practical way to use a 2Tb storage device with USB 2.0 ... the shelves full of terabyte hard disks seem to contradict him.

      --
      No sig today...
    22. Re:News is spam (maybe) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You pick up her lunch?

    23. Re:News is spam (maybe) by Coren22 · · Score: 1

      You could say that...some women like to eat a liquid lunch after all.

      --
      APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
    24. Re:News is spam (maybe) by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 1

      In short, with tomorrow's technology (what Micron is still developing), you will need a 6" long stick, covered with ICs on both sides. This will not be an inexpensive device for at least a few years.

      This doesn't make sense. I can buy a 64GB MicroSD today. The memory part of the chips is half the actual form factor. 32 of those could fit inside an average USB flash drive pretty easily, plus an IC to arbitrate.

      --
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    25. Re:News is spam (maybe) by wgoodman · · Score: 1

      SDHC cards are up to 32GB. Original ones were only up to 2GB (though some made it to 4 with a small tweak that rendered them useless in many readers). Now there are SDXC which are up to 2TB, but those are more just removing an artificial limitation in SDHC than they are an expansion of the technology that sd to SDHC was.

    26. Re:News is spam (maybe) by chrismcb · · Score: 1

      Its not spam. Vaporware maybe, but not spam.

  8. Cool. by MetalliQaZ · · Score: 1

    USB3 devices exist. Thumb drives exist. multi-TB drives exist. With enough money, you could have all three. I looks expensive. Cool toy, though.

    --
    "Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
  9. They aren't actually selling a 2TB flash drive by Ryxxui · · Score: 1

    From the comments on TFA: On the video it says "Actually the one that we looked at on display was only 16GB but the technology behind that particular 16GB stick is capable of scaling to 2 Terabytes." In other words they'll have to wait years for smaller manufacturing processes to occur before a 2 TB drive is made. Well, of course we'll have 2TB flash drives someday. Submitter and Tom's didn't actually watch the video before using this headline.

  10. Excuse me by paiute · · Score: 2

    Have you seen my Library of Congress? I dropped it around here somewhere.

    --
    If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
    1. Re:Excuse me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Here... use mine...

  11. What market does this target? by Hadlock · · Score: 4, Interesting

    What market does this target? In the past, removable solid state media like CF cards and SD cards (mostly CF cards) were well taken by professional photographers because it meant they could fit more pictures on a single memory card, which meant as long as their battery lasted, they could continue working uninterrupted.
     
    I think everyone here agrees that the 2GB-8GB flash drive/thumb drive has completely replaced the floppy drive in this decade. People are still leery about keeping important data on a thumb drive for long periods of time, either due to ease of loss or possible read/write problems down the road (cue the know-it-all slashdotter telling me that they've solved all those problems despite continued miniaturization throughout the last half-decade.)
     
    So who are these for? Eventually the 2TB thumb drives are going to drop below $500, then below $150, and be mass produced for $99 or less during a Thanksgiving Black Friday Sale in our near future.
     
    Blu-Ray is only 50-60GB completely maxed out. That's the biggest common media I can think of that consumers have access to these days. Even all of Wikipedia will fit in a 60gb rar archive. Databases are bigger than 2TB. Or if you want a better reference, the plans for the Deathstar are bigger than 2TB. I'm not sure your sysadmin would recommend you walk around with your company's (or Empire's) most important IP in your pocket where it might get lost.
     
    I'm not trying to say 640KB is enough for anyone.... but is it? How much space do consumers really need for portable, temporary storage, vs enterprise use? And do you really want your enterprise data on a portable, corporate espionage-sized device?

    --
    moox. for a new generation.
    1. Re:What market does this target? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, especially the Chinese (but they are far from being alone) would pretty like your enterprise data on a portable, corporate espionage-sized device, thank you.

    2. Re:What market does this target? by manoweb · · Score: 1

      You are right, data storage is overrated. Things should be put in the "cloud"...

    3. Re:What market does this target? by jittles · · Score: 2

      What do you think Princess Leia was sticking in to R2-D2 man? That was a thumb drive w/ those Death Star plans...

    4. Re:What market does this target? by m50d · · Score: 1

      When we can store more full-quality (we're talking 2880p and probably 120fps) video on a single drive than you could ever want, then it's enough. But you yourself say there are databases bigger than 2TB out there; of course people are going to want to transport them. Honestly 8GB is plenty for most espionage purposes already.

      --
      I am trolling
    5. Re:What market does this target? by vlm · · Score: 1

      People are still leery about keeping important data on a thumb drive for long periods of time, either due to ease of loss or possible read/write problems down the road (cue the know-it-all slashdotter telling me that they've solved all those problems despite continued miniaturization throughout the last half-decade.)

      More like, for the last decade (not half decade), on roughly 3 month intervals, alternate between stories about how they fail at the drop of a hat, and stories about how they've fixed all the problems and they'll never fail again in the future nope never again.

      So who are these for? Eventually the 2TB thumb drives are going to ... be mass produced for $99 or less

      Sneaker-net once again becomes faster and more convenient than trading online. Imagine every star trek episode and movie from any series and all 12 hours of LotR and the Matrix movie (2+3 never happened, right?) and all the SW, indiana jones, and james bond movies all on a tiny keyring...

      --
      "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
    6. Re:What market does this target? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      60gb for wikipedia??? LOL maybe if you ONLY backed up one language. Most estimates are closer to 100TB

    7. Re:What market does this target? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm not trying to say 640KB is enough for anyone.... but is it? How much space do consumers really need for portable, temporary storage, vs enterprise use? And do you really want your enterprise data on a portable, corporate espionage-sized device?

      Look at this from another point of view. With a 2 TB USB memory stick, I could easily put a backup of my home system in a safe deposit box.

    8. Re:What market does this target? by Hatta · · Score: 1

      Why would you ever want to leave anything at home if you could take it all with you? Dump your entire music collection on one of these and you never have to worry about which 64GB subset you want to bring with you.

      --
      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
    9. Re:What market does this target? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What if it is not intended for business customers (who probably can't carry company files around in portable drives anyway), but for home users who download tons of movies, porn, software and games. One of my close has already maxed out his 1 TB portable hard drive, and is looking to get another one. This sort of thing is quite common in many Asian countries.What if it is not intended for business customers (who probably can't carry company files around in portable drives anyway), but for home users who download tons of movies, porn and games. One of my close has already maxed out his 1 TB portable hard drive, and is looking to get another one.

    10. Re:What market does this target? by Smallpond · · Score: 1

      Video is the most likely consumer target for that much flash. As you point out, a whole wedding in hi-def will fit on 16 or 32GB so not much reason to spend an exorbitant amount to get more than that.

      Back when DRAM was driving technology there were companies doing exotic stuff like putting multiple dies in a package or stacking packages to get double density. Could do something like that with flash -- put 32 64GB flash chips on a substrate and get 2 TB. It would be fantastically expensive, tho. For the consumer flash market it doesn't make sense to sell above the commodity price level.

    11. Re:What market does this target? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So who are these for? Eventually the 2TB thumb drives are going to drop below $500, then below $150, and be mass produced for $99 or less during a Thanksgiving Black Friday Sale in our near future.

      I work at a medical research facility where we sequence DNA of various genes. We have researchers doing HPC generating 12 TB in one file for every run of their R statistical computational job.

      2 TB would be very handy to ship data to remote collaborators instead of running an S/FTP transfer for a few days/weeks. Sometimes we currently use hard drives (using True Crypt where necessary), but flash has fewer/no moving parts that can break during shipment, which is useful for piece of mind. It's also usually smaller, so it's cheaper to ship (or, for the same price, you can ship it quicker).

    12. Re:What market does this target? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How many CD's do you own? 50 gig is nearly 800 CD's worth of mp3s ripped at a high rate... I know Ive done it...

      Also if you can tell the difference between flac and high ripped mp3s on headphones without listening to them back to back I will eat my headphones.

      Also the target market is people with video. I have 10TB of video in DVDs (yes I own that many).

    13. Re:What market does this target? by choongiri · · Score: 5, Funny

      What do you think Princess Leia was sticking in to R2-D2 man?

      I think that what a galactic princess sticks into her droid in private is none of your business.

    14. Re:What market does this target? by realityimpaired · · Score: 1

      When we can store more full-quality (we're talking 2880p and probably 120fps) video

      Why on earth would you want to store video at a resolution greater than the number of photoreceptors in the human eye? You've only got 6 or 7 million cones combined between the 3 colours in your eye, and even (good) 1080p is indistinguishable from reality at a distance of 10 feet. 2160p would be 4x the number of pixels of a 1080p screen, and more than a million pixels more than you have cones. And that's assuming you're able to use all 7 million cones at the same time, which you can't because of the chemical reactions that need to take place in the eye before a cone is refreshed.

      I could see wanting to increase the framerate to reduce motion blur and avoid jitter (though most people can't see jitter at rates higher than 60Hz on an LCD), but the pixel density you're talking about is basically pointless, at least for consumer applications. We don't really need to increase the pixel density... if you want to improve the quality of the image at this point, you need to increase the amount of information that's stored in each pixel... things like luma, hue, contrast, and spin in addition to the traditional RGB values, but commercially available displays that can reproduce that kind of information are a decade off at best.

    15. Re:What market does this target? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      possible read/write problems down the road (cue the know-it-all slashdotter telling me that they've solved all those problems despite continued miniaturization throughout the last half-decade.)

      It's more like they've never had any of these problems. Ok, they can develop write problems, because there's a limited number of rewrites. They fail safe though, you can never be left unable to read something off a flash drive short of physically damaging it (or if by 'down the road' you mean 30-something years without use). This includes the very first flash-based technologies and whatever else they do in the future as they miniaturize it. It's related to the physics of how they work.

    16. Re:What market does this target? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A device with larger space, if used for backups and what-not, lends to "putting all your eggs in one basket". I had a 500gb drive a while back I used mostly for back-ups. Good thing, too, because the internal drives with the original data all eventually failed - unrecoverable by me. Accidents happen, though, and the 500gb got damaged. It's one thing to lose music, another thing to lose important school work - all the disparate kinds of data I was storing, should have been stored on separate media. I now backup to DVD for archive (and re-burn these every so often, I find DVD-Rs even if unused don't consistently last long enough to rely on.), an internal hdd, and an external hdd for the backed up DVD ISO's as well as individual files. I use a high capacity flash drive for transporting "backed up" files.

    17. Re:What market does this target? by rickb928 · · Score: 1

      4320p/120fps is the grail, equivalent to Red Digital. After that, we're facing more-than-film quality, which some will buy, just not me. And already,there are prototypes beyond that.

      I know, IMAX in the home is the ultimate, until something else comes along. Sharp is already hitting that.

      --
      deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
    18. Re:What market does this target? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That makes no sense. All of those are tied to pixel size, not absolute resolution. On a 100' screen at 10 feet 1080p would look terrible. The ideal would be a display that does exceed human vision, we are no were near that today, if you are at the correct distance from the display.

    19. Re:What market does this target? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why on earth would you want to store video at a resolution greater than the number of photoreceptors in the human eye? You've only got 6 or 7 million cones combined between the 3 colours in your eye, and even (good) 1080p is indistinguishable from reality at a distance of 10 feet.

      I've never understood this argument, because eyes don't hold still - they move in saccades, allowing us to perceive more detail than a single "snapshot" image on the retina can absorb.

      I can't find the article right now, but some researchers a while back did the same thing with a CCD, capturing a high-resolution image with a low-resolution sensor by vibrating it and interpolating the differences between frames.

    20. Re:What market does this target? by Megane · · Score: 1

      Why on earth would you want to store video at a resolution greater than the number of photoreceptors in the human eye?

      So that CSI can zoom and enhance to read the license plates of that car that happened to drive by at the right moment.

      --
      #naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
    21. Re:What market does this target? by neokushan · · Score: 1

      To be fair, I think you could fit all that into 64GB, providing you're not talking about HD quality.

      --
      +1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
    22. Re:What market does this target? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      pegging?

    23. Re:What market does this target? by Stray7Xi · · Score: 1

      One use would be to store media libraries. It could eliminate the need to decide which dvd's to bring because it could bring them all. Could bundle with a media player and even put an autorun frontend to select show. The kids go to grandmothers and have every movie/tv show they want.

      How often do you end up somewhere and decide to watch a movie where it turns into find something on netflix.

    24. Re:What market does this target? by geekoid · · Score: 1

      Smart phones, lap tops, tablets. Possible ever home computers. Nice and quite, and at USB 3 data transfer rates.

      The next HD format is twice Blu-ray size, and will probably be closer to 2.5 times.

      Yeah, what corporation would want their data on a HD that use a lot less energy, would require smaller server room, cheap to replace and could be easily locked up~

      DVR tech would certainly improve. Every cable box and TV would have on. Console device would get smaller and use less energy.

      I mean, even if you never use more the 500GB, the energy saving alone would make it worth it, eventually.

      Of course, this doesn't actually exist, so none of that will happen.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    25. Re:What market does this target? by ArsenneLupin · · Score: 1

      Hopefully you still keep a backup at home, or there goes your lifetime data collection if ever you get mugged...

    26. Re:What market does this target? by neokushan · · Score: 1

      Wikipedia currently has 3,711,110 articles in total in the English version alone.

      Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:FAQ/Overview#How_big_is_Wikipedia.3F

      Better Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Size_comparisons#Wikipedia

      Since neither article gives a true size of Wikipedia (all languages), we need to do some estimates -

      Only in June 2011, there have been more than 11 million edits in all Wikipedias and 3.6 million in the English version

      If we extrapolate this, we could say that the English version accounts for about 1/4 of the entire Wiki database, so if there's 4million English Articles, there must be about 12million articles in total. This corroborates with the following statement:

      [Wikipeida in total has] 8 billion words in 19 million articles in approximately 270 languages.[2] The English Wikipedia alone has over 2 billion words

      Once again, English wiki is about 1/4 the size of the entire wiki, so anyone wanting to back just that up has a considerable task if it really is 100TB+.

      Anyway, the same article has a table which lists that the English Wikipedia is made up of roughly 13,900,000 characters, if you presume that each of the 8billion words has an average length of 5 + 1 space. Using our estimate ratio of 1:4 for the total size, then that means all languages added together must be about 56,000,000 characters. Hell, let's call it 60,000,000. Anyhoo, we may as well also presume that Wiki is saving each character as a double-byte unicode character and give us a total of about 120,000,000 bytes. Of course, that's just the guts of each article, there's a lot of metadata to go with it. What the hell, let's double that number again and add some more rounding to get us 240,000,000 bytes. That's still not exactly a massive amount.

      Of course, Wiki does contain lots of nice images, sounds and video, but do you really think that it has terabytes and terabytes of Video/images?

      --
      +1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
    27. Re:What market does this target? by geekoid · · Score: 2

      It's pointless only to people who have no imagination.

      What about zoom? What about distance greater the 10 feet? They are already increasing information on the screen,, and why you think the technology is 10 years off is a clear indicator you have no clue what's going on in the industry

      There are security cameras that do 2880 right now.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    28. Re:What market does this target? by geekoid · · Score: 1

      of course you will. When it's cheap enough and the only format widely available.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    29. Re:What market does this target? by Joce640k · · Score: 1

      I have 10TB of video in DVDs (yes I own that many).

      Do try to keep up. You don't "own" a damn thing...

      --
      No sig today...
    30. Re:What market does this target? by jivika · · Score: 1

      is it just me, or is it creepy that it's "finger length"?

    31. Re:What market does this target? by m50d · · Score: 1

      even (good) 1080p is indistinguishable from reality at a distance of 10 feet

      Depends on the screen size. 2880p is the point where pixels become invisible across the THX recommended viewing angles for cinemas (up to ~1/3 of your field of vision IIRC).

      --
      I am trolling
    32. Re:What market does this target? by SuricouRaven · · Score: 1

      Only pirates could possibly fill so much space. Well, maybe once movies go holographic.

    33. Re:What market does this target? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My personal hard drive storage usage has just recently topped out at 1TB. That includes about an even split of ~500GBs work stuff (CAD, 3ds MAX, PSD, etc..) and ~500GBs of personal stuff (music, pictures, videos, etc..). As a result I just bought 2x 2TB drives (Raid 1) so that I won't run out of storage. I would be very helpful, simple, and add a layer of safety, if I could carry a password protected copy of that entire array with me when I travel. I don't like online storage or backups, and remote desktop connections are not always convenient for may reasons. I would buy, and use a 2TB thumb drive in a heartbeat. As long as it's real that is.

    34. Re:What market does this target? by FrankSchwab · · Score: 1

      Common in today's cards:
      http://www.electroiq.com/blogs/chipworks_real_chips_blog/2010/09.html

      The concept of stacking 9 die in a micro-SD card still blows my mind...

      --
      And the worms ate into his brain.
    35. Re:What market does this target? by perryizgr8 · · Score: 1

      i downloaded the entire text of the english wikipedia. 6gb compressed, 10gb uncompressed. if it really is a 1:4 ratio then the total size of wiki text is ~40gb.

      --
      Wealth is the gift that keeps on giving.
    36. Re:What market does this target? by Coren22 · · Score: 1

      He owns some nice plastic Frisbees...that's something at least...

      --
      APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
    37. Re:What market does this target? by TangoMargarine · · Score: 1

      And why the hell would anybody watch a 100' screen at 10'? Don't drag out stupid use cases.

      --
      Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
    38. Re:What market does this target? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh boy here we go again! In 5 years 2TB (or something approaching that) will be the standard and in 10 years everyone will laugh that you ever thought 2-8GB was enough. These devices will be replacing HD since in the next 5 years Tablets will replace PCs as our computing platform. 2TB will be considered just average amount of storage. There is however, one caveat, cloud computing could and probably will make this type of storage unnecessary. If we all have all our data in the cloud, what is the point of storing it on your device.

    39. Re:What market does this target? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My movie collection is several TB already, and they're compressed to the max. If I had kept them in wasteful DVD or Bluray format it would maybe even come close to 100 teras. To share some movies with your (meatspace) friends this would be awesome. Much faster than over the net, Big Brother proof, more reliable than optical media and you don't have to physically connect the computers. Also, backups. If you don't read/write often they could be more longevous than magnetic hard drives.

    40. Re:What market does this target? by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 1

      What's this, a bit of imagination instead of knee-jerk "this is shit" talk? You must not be new here.

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    41. Re:What market does this target? by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 1

      Also if you can tell the difference between flac and high ripped mp3s on headphones without listening to them back to back I will eat my headphones.

      What flavor do you prefer, or are you just gonna chicken out with earbuds?

      We'll use In a Silent Way by Miles Davis, original 1969 LP mastering. I'll just need a minute of samples, but I'll accept 15 seconds if the section is heavy with cymbals.

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    42. Re:What market does this target? by Hadlock · · Score: 1

      Actually, that's a really interesting idea. Swing by the library and have them swap out 70gb of video and books for 70gb of newer content. You'd only have to visit the library every 2 years or so...

      --
      moox. for a new generation.
    43. Re:What market does this target? by rastoboy29 · · Score: 1

      At some point in the not too distant future, people will casually walk around with "all_human_recorded_music_ever.tar" on their thumb drives, as one file among many.

      That's what it's for.

    44. Re:What market does this target? by unixisc · · Score: 1

      What market does this target? In the past, removable solid state media like CF cards and SD cards (mostly CF cards) were well taken by professional photographers because it meant they could fit more pictures on a single memory card, which meant as long as their battery lasted, they could continue working uninterrupted. I'm not trying to say 640KB is enough for anyone.... but is it? How much space do consumers really need for portable, temporary storage, vs enterprise use? And do you really want your enterprise data on a portable, corporate espionage-sized device?

      I'm guessing this would be handy for guys who download tons of movies and store them on their hard drives (I'm not saying the entire 2TB - even 512GB would be adequate), or guys who try different OSs on their computers and want to back up their settings and data before re-installing whats on it. Or it could even ultimately drive the external hard drives out of the market, assuming that the price is right. It may no longer be used for temporary storage, and if it has all of one's data, one would prefer to have multiple back-ups in different places, including the cloud.

    45. Re:What market does this target? by Hadlock · · Score: 1

      Somehow I doubt teenagers in highschool torrenting movies have the kind of budget to buy a $500 thumb drive. If they're lucky, they might be able to afford a couple of cheap hard drives instead. But really, if you've got 2TB of downloaded movies you can't delete after watching, you might have issues with hoarding or collecting that should be checked out.

      --
      moox. for a new generation.
  12. Don't get excited yet. by whitedsepdivine · · Score: 1

    First she shows a 16GB card, and only says that the technology supports 2TB. She never said they have one that exists or plans to release a 2TB version. Just that the technology supports it. It is like me saying a 64bit OS supports 8TB of RAM. It may happen in the future, but not any time soon.

    1. Re:Don't get excited yet. by beelsebob · · Score: 2

      A 64 bit OS supports 18 exa-bytes of RAM, it just happens most "64 bit OS"es, CPUs and chipsets we have today may use 64 bit pointers, but they tend to ignore the high 16 bits on them, resulting in support for up to a bit more than 200 terabytes in theory. Your point in general stands though.

  13. Sounds like vaporware to me... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    However, if it is or will be true in the near future, then that would be incredible. What would happen if you married this with the raspberry pi computer?

    1. Re:Sounds like vaporware to me... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You'd have a raspberry pi computer with 2TB of storage.

    2. Re:Sounds like vaporware to me... by Smallpond · · Score: 1

      However, if it is or will be true in the near future, then that would be incredible. What would happen if you married this with the raspberry pi computer?

      I think that's now legal in Iowa.

  14. Lzip rizes from the dead? by balbord · · Score: 1

    Hmmm. I thought Lzip was no more! Kudos for a unexpected development! Can't wait for hardware enabled >99.9% compression!

    Hope they've ironed out the decompression bugs, though.

    --
    "If I have been able to see so far, It is because I went out and bought a damn binoculars" - Ze da Esquina
  15. This makes me sick by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Do these technology companies have no shame? Don't they know that employees will put in some mission-critical and highly-sensitive documents and data files on these devices.
    This will increase the impact of data disclosure incidents. E.g. someone places all Macromedia Directory video files on this stick. Goes to a bar. Takes out his wallet and the stick falls on the floor. BOOOOOOMMMMM! Major incident! It's all over the news!!!11

    This concerns me greatly. Help me mitigate this risk by boycotting this vendor. They should at least make this device Open Source or make it available via the App Store where the developers are not constrained.

    I don't even know how many Libraries of Congress this device will store so that I quantify the risk to senior management.

    Thank you for your time.

    1. Re:This makes me sick by mlts · · Score: 1

      I'll bite. I can understand the cynicism, but this reminds me of one feature I really wish USB flash drive makers would actually consider putting in their devices:

      An onboard controller with AES-256 encryption, the keys stored on a dedicated chip (not with the rest of the flash drive contents), and everything encrypted.

      Couple this with a password mechanism that would zero out the keys if too many guesses are attempted, and loss of this flash drive can be mitigated.

      For blue-sky features, perhaps add a GSM transceiver so the drive can get a "kill" message, as well as a setting where if the drive doesn't see a GSM prompt in "x" amount of time, zero out the keys.

    2. Re:This makes me sick by Lieutenant_Dan · · Score: 1

      Those devices already exist; IronKey and MXI Security produce those.

      --
      Wearing pants should always be optional.
    3. Re:This makes me sick by mlts · · Score: 1

      Very true. However, it would be nice if newer USB flash drives supported encryption and secure erase as part of a standard, just like how hard disks have the ATA password protection on the controller.

    4. Re:This makes me sick by Lieutenant_Dan · · Score: 1

      It looks like the majority of the consumers don't share the same concerns that you and I do. A lot of gadgets don't have many security/privacy options, or if they have them they're more like tacked-on (e.g. iPhone). Ergo, what companies supply is the basic stuff, or crappy mock-ups (i.e. SW-based encryption options).

      I agree, even if the features aren't enabled, the chipset should have those pieces in place for future products. It is a missed opportunity.

      --
      Wearing pants should always be optional.
    5. Re:This makes me sick by SuricouRaven · · Score: 1

      Simpler improvement: Just make the key into a hash of the password. That way it's impossible to get the key out, even if you have the tools to take a chip apart atom by atom.

  16. Easy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Just increase the size of a finger to 4 in × 1 in × 5.75 in

  17. Toms Hardware sucks by Lunix+Nutcase · · Score: 1

    This article highlights exactly why Toms Hardware sucks so much for the better part of a decade. The video in no way says they have a 2TB thumb drive just that when the flash gets scaled down further it could support 2TB. And as always, the Slashtard "editors" make no effort to actually find any of this shit out before posting a misleading summary to a stupid and misleading article.

  18. A rather crappy sales pitch, really by damn_registrars · · Score: 4, Informative
    I actually bothered to watch the video. She said "imagine this as 2tb", amongst other things. She finished with "the usb association hasn't finished 3.0 so we haven't released this product yet".

    So really she was just selling what could happen, some day. She could have just as well promised 2pb or 2eb instead, and promised it inside a postage stamp.

    So in summary:
    • It isn't 2tb
    • It isn't usb 3.0
    • You can't buy it

    However

    • They managed to fool the slashdot editors and get on to the front page
    --
    Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
    1. Re:A rather crappy sales pitch, really by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I couldn't quite here on the video, but I think she said it supports Thunderbolt and Lightpeak as well with a 2.3 Gingerbread update coming after Toshiba and Verizon approve the firmware.

    2. Re:A rather crappy sales pitch, really by CannonballHead · · Score: 1

      I'm imagining. Where's my usb drive??? :( ;)

    3. Re:A rather crappy sales pitch, really by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      However, they didn't get me to RTFA :-)

  19. 2Tb Filesystem limit :p by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sure with a 2Tb FS limit it's a nice way to put how much data they can put on it.
    It's a pity they didn't use Ext4... with Ext4, I can put 1 Eib on a micro SD!

    1. Re:2Tb Filesystem limit :p by unixisc · · Score: 1

      Why would anything have a 2Tb file system limit? 4GB I can understand, since it's 2^32 addresses for each byte; the next limit for a file system should be 2^64, or 16,777,216TB. Yeah, different processors will cap off @ 64 address lines, but I don't get why a file system has to go by their limitations. What's the file system limit on Ext4?

  20. I have no doubts 2TB is real by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I am absolutely sure that they can make the 2TB drive. If you do some research, you can find the details on their proprietary write-only drive technology.

    1. Re:I have no doubts 2TB is real by rubycodez · · Score: 1

      they've advanced on the just the write-only part, now they can read endless zeroes too. Just think, an operating system and computer have been required to have a /dev/zero up to now, but now you can have a 1.936 T of /dev/zero plus 64GB of read/write in a miraculous little stick.

  21. Liars, damned liars and marketing folks... by gweihir · · Score: 3, Informative

    There is no 2TB drive. This is a 16GB with an _interface_ that could support 2TB. But wit present FLASH chips that cannot be fit into the case shown. May take another 5 years or more. Incidentally, old USB2.0 can already interface 2TB.

    So this is really a rather nomal-sized 16GB USB3.0 stick, or in other words nothing special a all.

    --
    Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    1. Re:Liars, damned liars and marketing folks... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "the usb association hasn't finished 3.0 so we haven't released this product yet".

      So it isn't USB 3 either.

      Here we have a plug for a 16GB USB drive. Way to go /.!

    2. Re:Liars, damned liars and marketing folks... by GreatBunzinni · · Score: 1

      Here's an odd coincidence: the Secure Digital High Capacity standard also has a theoretically support capacity of up to 2 TB (2048 GB). Sure, we can't get SD cards with more than 32GB capacity but... it theoretically supports up to 2 TB of data, just as this magic USB thumb drive.

      So, if we add a USB interface and a theoretical capacity of up to 2TB, what do we actually get? Well, a regular, plain old USB thumb drive, such as those which we've been purchasing for the past... decade? //capcha was subtle. what a coincidence.

      --
      Slashdot, fix your code or at least hire someone who is competent at it to do it for you.
  22. lol by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hahaha. That was really funny. Someone please moderate it as such. My sides are still hurting. Hahaha. Ha.

    I was expecting someone to comment how this fit his entire pron collection, all the MPAA movies for a year, or all the various Firefox release for this year, but I was not expecting a LoC storage capacity joke.

    You sir, are full of win. You have raised the standard by which future funny posts will be evaluated. If only CmdrTaco could see us now!

    1. Re:lol by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, it's waaay funnier the way you do it.

    2. Re:lol by Ralph+Spoilsport · · Score: 1

      it is also insightful. what happens when you can store perhaps not the LoC but the entire contents of a university library? And then students copy it. And copy it. And if it is all in PDF, suddenly you can search inside documents, making research trivial....

      --
      Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
    3. Re:lol by tompaulco · · Score: 1

      No, all of the world's porn is larger than the contents of the LoC.

      --
      If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
  23. BACKUP! by DarthVain · · Score: 1

    Well I know I plan on backing up all my future data on easily portable and concealable high capacity thumb drives! I'll just have a drawer full of them!

  24. Consider the data transfer times... by Tsar · · Score: 3, Interesting

    USB 3.0 supports a MAXIMUM throughput of 5.0Gbit/sec, and even at that insane rate it would take one hour (with 10% protocol overhead) to read or write two terabytes. We're lucky though; at USB 2.0's best rate it would take over 10 hours, with Full Speed USB 1.0 it would take 2½ weeks, and good old Original USB would literally take from now until late evening of January 14, 2012. Nostalgic for floppies? Using a fast backup program, you could do the job in 3½ years with 1.39 million 1.44MB coasters. Watch out for fridge magnets though!

    1. Re:Consider the data transfer times... by John+Napkintosh · · Score: 1

      Yeah, 2TB would take too long to read/write at even at USB 3.0 speeds, so we should even bother being excited about the idea of a high-capacity, fast, small form factor removable storage device. Because everyone who will use it will always read or write a full 2TB at a time.

      --

      Long signatures suck.
  25. Pan and zoom by tepples · · Score: 2

    Why on earth would you want to store video at a resolution greater than the number of photoreceptors in the human eye?

    Control of pan and zoom at playback time, perhaps?

    1. Re:Pan and zoom by uncledrax · · Score: 1

      It's true, How else do you think those CSI folks are able to zoom in so much all the time?

      --
      ----- The internet has given everyone the ability to have their voice heard equally as loud.. even if they shouldn't be
    2. Re:Pan and zoom by monkyyy · · Score: 0

      the usa government has access to sub-pixel technology, where they capable of pulling more data out of 1s and 0s then everyone else

      --
      warning pointless sig
  26. Copyright by tepples · · Score: 1

    Imagine every star trek episode and movie from any series and all 12 hours of LotR and the Matrix movie (2+3 never happened, right?) and all the SW, indiana jones, and james bond movies all on a tiny keyring

    It probably won't happen for another century because the copyright owners would object. Can you think of a scenario where data created by home users would top 2 TB?

    1. Re:Copyright by NatasRevol · · Score: 2

      A few weeks of HD video of your kids?

      I have 2 boys playing hockey. If I'm obsessed, I video every practice, 3-4x per week, every game, 1-3x per week.

      That's up to 14 hrs/week of HD video for 2 kids. At 11GB/hr, that's about 150GB per week.

      Hockey season is 5 months long, or 20 weeks.

      That's 3TB. Every season. For 10+ years.

      I'm not obsessed like this, but there are LOTS of parents who are.

      --
      There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
    2. Re:Copyright by tepples · · Score: 1

      I can.

      Please explain it.

      Can you think of a situation where you aren't an unmitigated jackass?

      I can: the situation in which you would have helped me stop acting like a donkey by giving advice in a polite manner.

    3. Re:Copyright by ArsenneLupin · · Score: 1

      because the copyright owners would object.

      And, so what? Copyright holders were probably not too happy either when we traded music cassettes in the schoolyard...

    4. Re:Copyright by tepples · · Score: 1

      Were publishers in the mainstream media as ready to sue their own customers in the Compact Cassette era as they appear to be now (Capitol v. Thomas)?

    5. Re:Copyright by ArsenneLupin · · Score: 1
      How would they know whom to sue...? Guess what would happen if MAFIAA goons in dark suits hang around schoolyards trying to observe whether kids are trading USB sticks...

      That's the advantage of sneakernet: it can't be tapped, it can only be observed directly, to great risk to the observer...

    6. Re:Copyright by Hadlock · · Score: 1

      That video is going to be stored internally in the camera though.which will later be offloaded to the pc for editing. I don't see why you would need to offload the entire seasons worth of video after you put it on the pc. Even if you were going to edit down last weeks games to a highlight video on your laptop, you should only need a16 gb thumb drive for that data.

      --
      moox. for a new generation.
    7. Re:Copyright by NatasRevol · · Score: 1

      You've never met a hockey parent then.

      Having reference to every practice, every shot, every move, every game is REQUIRED, at ALL times.
      Thus you would never remove anything. Perhaps add a weekly highlight reel, but nothing is going to be removed.

      --
      There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
    8. Re:Copyright by perryizgr8 · · Score: 1

      it can happen right now: www.thepiratebay.org

      --
      Wealth is the gift that keeps on giving.
    9. Re:Copyright by itsme1234 · · Score: 1

      Can you think of a scenario where data created by home users would top 2 TB?

      I'm close to that and I really, really don't try too hard. Half of it it's "legacy" data from the previous millennium. And I was quite late to the game and I'm talking only about what I personally produced, not all my close friends and relatives.

      So, what's all about?

      500 GB is less than 20 mini-DV tapes and no, I'm not going to convert it to anything else. I like originals and I don't want to deal with the whole deinterlacing mess. This is not some footage digitized at ridiculous resolution, this is digital data generated just like that around 10 years ago. I'm not going to mess up with it NIOW, when 2x2TB drives are less than one tank of gas.

      Then there are the random videos I took for the last 5-6 years. It's not much at all, I use the camera a couple of times per year. However, as I went from mini-DV to video taken with "photo" camera I have tons of video compressed with MJPEG or something similar, at about 12 min/4GB. You can imagine that's easily over 500GB as well.

      Then there are some (not many) hundreds GBs of (digital, recent) pictures and a couple more hundreds GB for the digitized negatives (not many but yes, this time I used the maximum resolution on the film scanner, I'm not going back scanning them). No documents, no image of the laptop drive, no backups of my parents' pictures, nothing else. Just my "legacy" and digital era pictures.

    10. Re:Copyright by tepples · · Score: 1

      So you have a point. If you have that much raw digital footage, you can keep it on platters, which are cheaper than flash drives.

    11. Re:Copyright by itsme1234 · · Score: 1

      It's not necessarily "raw", as in it's waiting for processing, it's just the way it is. If I want to refer to some old picture or to show somebody the pictures from some random event I'll just go to the folders and use what's there.
      Of course I keep it on platters, but not by choice. It's not that much if I want to take it with me but I would prefer to have 20-30g (one beefy stick) compared to 2x192g for two external 2.5 inch drives.

    12. Re:Copyright by PitaBred · · Score: 1

      Hockey parents sound like they're setting up some massive therapy bills for their children in the future...

    13. Re:Copyright by Rehnberg · · Score: 1

      For another century? Try not forever. Well, at least it'll never happen in the US while Disney is still profitable.

    14. Re:Copyright by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      At 11GB/hr, that's about 150GB per week.

      25 Mbits/s? What an insane bitrate. At a tenth of that you already have all the resolution you need for your video wall. If your video camera produces 25 Mbits/s that's just because better compression would need too much computing power. I'm sure that in a few years every GPU will be able to encode a video stream in realtime with a good compression rate.

    15. Re:Copyright by NatasRevol · · Score: 1

      That's the standard:

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDV#Specifications

      This is hockey. It doesn't look good at lower resolution/compression. Small disc moving very fast. Hell, it's hard to see in real life.

      --
      There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
    16. Re:Copyright by NatasRevol · · Score: 1

      Go to a hockey rink, watch the 11-12 and 13-14 age competitive level hockey. Watch the parents in the stands.

      The kids are a lot more sane than the parents. At least the kids are (mostly) having fun.

      --
      There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
    17. Re:Copyright by Hadlock · · Score: 1

      Sure, but the camera either uses DV tape or internal storage of some sort. Unless you found a video camera worthy of a hockey parent that accepts thumb drives as recording media? Otherwise you still need to sync with a PC (laptop) as an intermediary process. I guess if you were hellbent on buying a 2tb thumb drive and using it for that purpose, you could, but my old camera took up to 256mb of video at a time before needing to sync up with my PC. I can't ever recall loading up my entire video archives on a 8gb thumb drive to go to a friend's house and review all 32 hours of raw video at once. My laptop, on the other hand..

      --
      moox. for a new generation.
    18. Re:Copyright by Hadlock · · Score: 1

      I think you missed my point. Yes, there are other storage media out there. I'm trying to figure out what sort of consumer scenario is common enough that you would need to be lugging about 2TB of data on your keychain to justify the initial $500+ price. I don't doubt the average consumer, given enough time and equipment can generate 2TB of video or still images. I'm dubious as to why you would need to transport over half of your lifetime video achievements in raw unedited format so far from your editing station in such a small form factor when, as you've pointed out, DV tapes and other media seem to do a great job of already for a much lower buy in cost.

      --
      moox. for a new generation.
    19. Re:Copyright by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How long since you checked the videocamera market? As of today, there are a lot of models supporting memory cards as recording media. Mostly use MPEG4 as codec. With 2 TB, there wouldn't be reason to avoid raw video.

    20. Re:Copyright by Hadlock · · Score: 1

      Memory cards, or thumb sticks? The grandparent post talks specifically about the difference between memory cards and thumb sticks.

      --
      moox. for a new generation.
    21. Re:Copyright by itsme1234 · · Score: 1

      As I said in the cousin post it's not a matter of "raw unedited format" and "editing station", we're talking "consumer scenario". It's just a bunch of folders and it'll be like that until the owner dies or until first disk failure if there are no backups. And if they are on a stick it's not "lugging" on your keychain.
      It's like mail since gmail: you don't need to file everything to some folder, you don't need to delete attachments, you don't need to decide what to take with you this week. Maybe you won't ever use 99.99% of what's there but you do need to have close to everything to find everything you search for. And if you can, why not? It might not be cost effective this week but there's no reason to be so next year, or the year after.

    22. Re:Copyright by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What difference does it make? If they can put 2 TB in a stick, they can do the same with a memory card. And they will.

  27. Compression? by bigredradio · · Score: 1

    I wonder if they intend to incorporate an on-chip compression mechanism. In that case, if I have 2TB of text files or sparse files, it might compress down to 16GB. Doubtful, but in theory it could "scale" to that.

  28. China Sticks - painfully slow by MindPrison · · Score: 2

    It's an old but clever China Hack.

    I worked for a merchandise company, I was the graphic artist, and had to design numerous USB-memory sticks in all shapes, beer bottles, dolls, ice-cream...you name it, fun stuff to... but there's where the fun ended:

    Most of the cheaper sticks we got from China was fakes all the way, but they where SMART fakes. Yes, they where re-programmed 1-8 gb sticks, sold as 16-32 gb sticks back then, but programmed in a way so you...the user...never would find out that they're fakes, how? you may ask... ...simple and smart - the more you load onto the stick, the slower it will operate, the nearer you come it's actual size limit, the slower it will add files, at first...most people don't suspect a thing, they just think...oh what a slow stick...bummer...but it works, and let's face it...the average user NEVER exceed 1-8 gb with their personal stuff, you think average joe runs around with a collection of DVDs on their sticks... NO! Take it from me...I've delivered THOUSANDS of these sticks in all varieties to all companies, big or small....we get VERY few returns despite this.

    I know...because I just took a look at the boss of our company, he uses those sticks at work too...of course...we use what we sell, but he didn't discover a single thing, but I could hear him swear and curse the memory stick or the computers for being too slow... ...and it took me AGES to explain to my non technical boss that this was a programming trick inside the memory stick, he just couldn't understand how that was done, he said...but it's 32GB LOOK...and then he'd take the time to show me the properties of the drive etc...specs...etc...oh dear...all over again.

    And he's an advanced user, what do you think the average joes out there figures out. Nothing!!! And the China factories gets away with it ALL THE TIME!

    --
    What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
    1. Re:China Sticks - painfully slow by bkmoore · · Score: 1

      An acquaintance imports and sells garlic and other spices. He tried importing from China a couple of times, but always got burned. Shipments came late or not at all and what did come he was not able to sell. He gave up on China. China is probably ok if you have deep pockets or have family connections in the right place. Otherwise it's buyer beware.

    2. Re:China Sticks - painfully slow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      This guy I was chatting on IRC sells t-shirts and stopped importing them from China due to the lack of quality control, especially typos in the graphics even when they supplied the graphics. He mentions that once he order 1,000 units with a dolphin splashing in the ocean that said "Venice Beach, FL". It came back with a picture of a sad kitten with the caption "Capitalism corrupts". He wasn't able to sell even half of them.

    3. Re:China Sticks - painfully slow by GlobalEcho · · Score: 1

      Do the name-brand drives do this as well? I have suspicions about my HP v165w "16GB"!

    4. Re:China Sticks - painfully slow by c6gunner · · Score: 1

      An acquaintance imports and sells garlic and other spices. He tried importing from China a couple of times, but always got burned. Shipments came late or not at all and what did come he was not able to sell. He gave up on China. China is probably ok if you have deep pockets or have family connections in the right place. Otherwise it's buyer beware.

      I think it depends what you're buying, and where you're getting it. Anything on eBay I'm very weary of. However, I've been shopping on sites like dinodirect, lightinthebox, dealextreme, etc for a couple years now, and never once gotten a defective product, let alone an outright scam. And shipping times? I've had order from California which took longer. Even using the free shipping option on DealExtreme, I've had shipping times under 2 weeks, and as quick as 4 days.

      Of course, I HAVE seen a few scams even on there. A magical doohickey which plugs into your car cigarette lighter and "improves mileage". Magical stones and crystals which "balance your energies" or "cauterize your chakras" or some such nonsense. I figure if you're the kind of idiot who believes those claims, that's your problem; there's plenty of people in North America who will be happy to sell you similar crap.

    5. Re:China Sticks - painfully slow by MindPrison · · Score: 1

      Deal Extreme is pretty darn cool :) I've been purchasing lots of stuff from them, IDE to CF-Card converter, 2.5" to 3.5" HDD, Usb to Serial, Usb Linux 3D soundcard for 2 dollars!, Strong lasers etc. fun stuff.

      But you DO get what you pay for, but at least they don't cheat on purpose, they just purchase cheap stuff...flimsy or not, and re-sell them super cheap to the rest of the planet.

      Example. the 1$ Micro-SD card reader broke apart on the first try, one of the IDE to CF converters had bad soldering (soldering shorting several pads on the PCB), Flimsy connection on the USB Linux 3D Soundcard...but it worked nicely, 200mw laser worked awesome, but the optics where nearly falling apart...etc...etc...etc...

      --
      What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
    6. Re:China Sticks - painfully slow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ancient Chinese secret huh.

    7. Re:China Sticks - painfully slow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've delivered THOUSANDS of these sticks in all varieties to all companies, big or small

      You've delivered thousands of 2TB USB3 sticks? I suppose faithful customers get a flask of oleum ophidium on top?

  29. Same as SDXC by JStyle · · Score: 2

    The latest version of SD cards (XC) also have the capacity to scale to 2TB.

    "SDXC, the latest SD memory card standard, dramatically improves consumers’ digital lifestyles by increasing storage capacity from more than 32 GB up to 2 TB." Source: https://www.sdcard.org/developers/tech/sdxc

    Move along, nothing to see here.

  30. Has:I think that word does not mean what you think by padplaygames · · Score: 1

    I think that word does not mean what you think it means The title "New USB 3.0 Flash Drive Has 2 TB of Storage" is blatantly wrong. Unless the word "Has" has suddenly changed meaning in the English language.

  31. Storage 'à la Gmail' by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Don't delete anything ever. There is one basic principle in domestic computers: you will never have enough disk space. Every fucking time I acquired a new hard disk several times bigger than the previous I thought it would enough... and it was. For a few months.

    I've worked with disks from 20 MB to 2 TB the last I acquired. There is always something that leads you to need to acquire something bigger. My multimedia HD (2 TB) is already at nearly 80% of capacity, which basically means I will have to start deleting files from it soon. It won't be a drama, there are lots of movies or series that I won't care deleting, but if I don't need to, why should I care?

    1. Re:Storage 'à la Gmail' by Belial6 · · Score: 1

      You sound like the guy that was behind me in line when I bought my first 2GB drive. He gasped "What are you going to use that for. You will NEVER fill that up!" I looked at him and told him that the first thing I was going to put on it was the 2 CD game I had at home that doesn't play great because of CD drive speeds. That would fill up 3/4 of the drive that day. In fact, I wasn't going to keep the game on the HD because the drive was too small for that and the rest of my data.

      The basic principle you quote is wrong. It is only said because people don't realize how far behind our needs we were with availability. They said the same thing about processor speed. Look at us now. The vast majority of people don't care how fast their processor is because they would have to go out of their way to find one that was too slow for them. That is if the could find one.

  32. I'd buy that for a dollar! by Thud457 · · Score: 1

    a picture of a sad kitten with the caption "Capitalism corrupts".

    Dude, hook me up!

    --

    the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

  33. This thing... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...is the same as the things we've already got, but bigger!

  34. Dunno by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'd fuck her.

  35. The cheaper technology usually wins by alexo · · Score: 1

    I remember spending close to $150 of a 16GB SLC thumb drive.

    Up until about a year ago, the market was flooded with MLC drives that could not offer comparable write speed or reliability but did cost 1/10th of that price.

    Now I see some USB 3.0 thumb drives posting impressive speeds. I wonder what NAND technology they use.

  36. I guess its time to replace my thumb drive by tompaulco · · Score: 1

    Well, I guess it is time to replace my old 128 MB thumb drive. On second thought, no, I'll hold onto it awhile longer. After all, it's not even full yet.

    --
    If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
  37. Price? by unixisc · · Score: 1

    Awesome!!! How much is it?

  38. You gotta be kidding by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Technology always drops prices after a couple of years. Don't think in the teenager of today paying $500 for a thumb drive, think in the teenager of two years later paying $150, or the teenager of four years later paying $50.

    How much did cost each MB twenty years ago? Do you really think that's a valid argument?

  39. Super-resolution by tepples · · Score: 1

    The U.S. government isn't the only entity with access to super-resolution methods. As long as there are enough camera shakes in the video to move the CCD sampling areas, fine details can be extracted from the aliasing left in the image.

    1. Re:Super-resolution by monkyyy · · Score: 0
      --
      warning pointless sig
  40. Prophecy by idlehanz · · Score: 1

    Who foretold the prophecy?

    Saltzman. He's in accounting.

    (South Path, World of Warcraft)

    seems to fit.

    --
    Changing the world... one research project at a time.
  41. Re:Copyright...WHAT by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Imagine every star trek episode and movie from any series and all 12 hours of LotR and the Matrix movie (2+3 never happened, right?) and all the SW, indiana jones, and james bond movies all on a tiny keyring

    It probably won't happen for another century because the copyright owners would object. Can you think of a scenario where data created by home users would top 2 TB?

    What about the Fair Use Act. I am allowed lawful backups, and to watch them anyway I choose, When did slashdot go RIAA/MPAA friendly, I wanna know