1.8" USB Portable Hard Drive

Jin-Wei Tioh writes "The folks at BlueSmoke take a look at Transcend's recently announced 1.8" USB 2.0 portable hard drive, the only one of its kind on the market. Roughly the size of a small stack of business cards, it is quite a bit smaller than existing 2.5" drives. It holds either 20GB or 40GB of data and is styled like an iPod."

Like the VST FireFly

[SiMac]

The VST FireFly was based on the 1.8" 5GB drive (the one that was in the original iPod). It was also extremely tiny; however, it was limited in capacity, and eventually discontinued.

Not exactly first to market...

[lemonylimey]

Freecom have had an external hard drive based on a 1.8" unit for a couple of months now.

Link [freecom.com]

Cache

[NEOtaku17]

1. http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:7qLgSWe6BYg J:www.bluesmoke.net/+&hl=en

from tonytalkstech.net

[loomis]

"Transcend Information, Inc. (Transcend) releases its 1.8 USB 2.0 portable hard drive this month, April 2004. Although roughly the size of a standard business card, it has more than enough capacity (20GB/40GB) for your data storage needs. No need to carry around another troublesome power brick either; it is powered directly from the USB port. This pocket drive is perfect for the person always on the go."

"Data transfer rate is up to 480 Mbps (USB2.0). This device is fully compatible with USB2.0 and backwards compatible with USB1.1 specifications. Unlike CD-RWs, which require special software, pocket drives will appear as just another hard drive. There isnt any extra driver software to worry about (except for Win98SE). Using the included ExBoot software, your entire computer can be backed-up and restored at a moments notice. Weighing only 4.2oz (118g) for the 20GB HDD and 4.6oz (130g) for the 40GB HDD. Transcends portable hard drive is as rugged as it is lightweight. Smaller and more convenient than a 1.44MB floppy diskette, this hard drive is ready to go wherever and whenever you need it."

Re:Good for DigVid cameras?

[josh3736]

You're saying that DV on tapes is somehow not "true" digital. It's still stored as 1s and 0s, just on a tape instead of on a disk.

I work with (large amounts of) DV daily. Recording directly to disk would be much more convenient than tape, but it would not somehow increase the quality. In the end, it's the same set of digits regardless of what medi[a/ums] its been on.

obvious question...

[selderrr]

why not use an iPod ?? It's Firewire+USB2, also has upto 40GB capacity and features a handy display for built-in calendar/notes/game/...


The article is slashdotted, so I don't know te price difference.

since blue smoke seems to be smoked

[atarione]

https://ec.transcendusa.com/product/memspitem.asp [transcendusa.com]

and

http://news.amdplanet.it/news.php?a=shownews&last= 1883 [amdplanet.it]

Re:External HDs for Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

Almost any USB storage unit should work, everything from those tiny pen/key things to hard drives. Anything I've plugged has always worked without drivers, not only on Linux but also on OSX and in Windows. Some new digital cameras, my Frontier mp3 player, and so on work like this. It's absolute heaven not having to install crappy software from the manufacturers like in the bad old days.

Re:obvious question...

[Turtlewind]

In addition to the price, there's also the size difference. The iPod is 4.1 inches long, which is over twice as big as this drive. The whole point about this story is the (physical) size of the drive.

Re:ipod

[Twirlip of the Mists]

The one annoying thing is that you can't access the music player functionality while it's mounted as a disk.

That must be a Windows thing. On a Mac, you can do both at the same time. In fact, that's the default behavior once you turn "mount as a hard drive" on. It never even occurred to me that there would be any other way.

Re:External HDs for Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

Huh? I don't know of any modern distro that doesn't support the most common External Hard Drives available, ie the USB type. Just buy it and plug it in. No hacks involved. I'm not trying to make fun of you, but are you using Debian stable or some other old distro perchance?

Re:External HDs for Linux?

[gotr00t]

Almost any external hard disk that is either USB or firewire works perfectly under linux. This is because for the most part, these drives follow open standards. I have never had a problem using external storage with my Linux box, and that includes FW drives like the iPod.

I don't know where you're reading that "all the common ones seem to require a slew of hacks to get working properly", but I, for one, have never had to use any hack to get an external drive to work. Just plug it in and mount it.

COMPusa Has 1GB and 1.5GB USB2.0 drives for $99 an

[Anonymous Coward]

COMPUSA has 1GB and 1.5GB USB2.0 drives for $99 and $129, they are smaller than the Creative Muvo2, it may contain the Hitachi micro dirves.

Re:quality?

[Fweeky]

Most magnetic fields aren't much of a danger to hard disks; they're so dense the magnetic material has to be quite resistant to all but the largest fields, because the heads can't focus the entire field on the exact area bits are stored on. Unless you're planning on being near an MRI machine or particle accelerator I wouldn't worry too much about it. Just don't store it near your rare earth magnet collection, ok? ;)

Shock's more a factor of aerodynamics than shielding; will just have to see what the specs are like :)

Re:ADS Pyro DV

[bprice20]

Your link isn't working but i found a site [dvxuser.com] with a review of a similar product. What do you think?

Not alone...

[aitsu]

the only one of its kind on the market.

There is one on the Japanese market [century.co.jp], however. (Sorry, Japanese only but w/ pics.)