The end of the iamaKey is shaped like your typical USB socket, sans the protective rectangular sheath that protects the golden-colored contacts. The iamaKey comes with a small plastic cover that plugs into this exposed end. This keeps the aesthetic theme intact, but I do worry about how easy it is to lose the cover, given its minuscule size. It also slips off quite easily, potentially exposing the iamaKey’s contacts to scratching inside a pocket full of coins and real keys.

While LaCie’s iamaKey is visually distinctive, performance-wise it’s not. You can expect the same speeds as any other USB 2.0 flash drive, in terms of writing and reading performance—and is backward-compatible with USB 1.0 as well. Other factors also determine the drive’s speed anyway, such as the speed of the source data, and the motherboard controlling the computer’s USB ports.

In any case, there’s nothing extraordinary about the specs of the LaCie iamaKey. Again, it’s like your average flash drive, but with a visual twist. That might be enough to justify its $18 average price, but not to those looking for a simple, no-frills USB key or thumb drive.

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The OCZ Colossus uses the standard 3.5″ SATA chassis, meaning it’s an easy plug-in for contemporary desktops. Unfortunately, that’s too big for most laptops, which usually accept only 2.5″ drive modules. The relative heftiness of the Colossus has something to do with its built-in RAID 0 architecture, implying that there are actually multiple SSDs working in tandem inside the unit to boost read and write speeds.

Unfortunately, you have to pay to play. Prices are $438, $820, and $1530 for the 128GB, 256GB, and 512GB variants respectively. The 1TB version retails for a whopping $3837, according to XBitLabs.

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Capacities are currently 32GB, 64GB, and 128GB. No word yet on pricing, but El Reg has shared a December debut date. The RAIDDRIVE is of course backward compatible with USB 2.0 ports, but will only achieve USB 2.0 speeds. The only motherboard I know right now that supports true USB 3.0 is the Asus P7P55D-E, available from NewEgg for a hefty $280(!)

ASUS P7P55D-E Premium LGA 1156 Intel P55 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Intel Motherboard

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Courtesy PowerLabs.org

In any case, a recent experiment theorizes that spinning a CD way faster than 56 times a second (or 56x, I assume) carries its own set of dangers. According to the experimenter, going above that speed magnifies the tiniest imperfection on a CD, potentially causing enough wobbling to damage the rotating mechanism. So of course he decided to test a CD with a Dremel, running it at over 35000 RPM. At those speeds, the edge of CD moves at nearly 800 kilometers per hour! (Or 792 kph, to be exact).

So what happened when a Dremel took a CD for a spin? Well, “the CD hummed and whined in a very menacing manner”. Scary, but it still took “quick jerk at the tool” to make the CD a projectile. Experimenting dude recounts what came next:

…the CD slid out of the holder and contacted the carpet whilst spinning at ungodly speeds. It peeled out a bit in front of me and proceeded to make its way to the door at a very high speed. On contacting the closed door, the CD did a most unexpected thing: it first bounced back a few inches, and then, when it hit the door again, it jumped straight up the door and struck the ceiling, exploding into thousands of fragments which rained down on the entire room. This first experiment was unfortunately not videoed, but it served to get everyone in the room to put glasses on and cower away behind pieces of furniture, whilst people in the hall corridor quickly made their way to my door to ask what was going on.

In other words, spin a CD-ROM really really quickly, launch into a hard surface, and you’ll get a pretty wicked disc that potentially creates deadly shrapnel. The experiment page (link below) contains multiple videos for download, if only to satisfy your visual curiosity and help you resist the temptation to try this at home.

PowerLabs High Speed CD-Rom Experiments

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Matt Komorowski was lucky enough to get his first computer during the early 1990s—which came with a 30GB hard disk—and he was ” wondering how I could possibly fill all 30 megabytes of hard drive space, even if I had a thousand years.” now we know how short-sighted that supposition was. Like Matt, I’m looking to buy a 1 terabyte hard disk soon, probably for or with my next computer, as it takes only months for me to cause low disk space warnings on a computer with a 500GB hard drive.

Fortunately, upgrading your hard drive storage capacity isn’t really an expensive proposition, as evidenced by the hard of work Komorowski. He simply plotted the prices of hard disks from 1980 to this year, creating a graph that tracked the downward progress of the dollar cost per gigabyte. The exercise revealed that “space per unit cost has doubled roughly every 14 months”, meaning Moore’s law is getting beat in the world of hard drive storage. Some highlights of Komorowski’s history:

Date	Drive info	Size	Cost	$/GB
January 1980	Morrow Systems	26MB	$5,000.00	$193,000.00
March 1989	Western Digital	40MB	$1,199.00	$36,000.00
February 12, 1999	Quantum	8GB	$299.99	$43.10
July 24, 2009	HITACHI 0A38016 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s	1TB	$74.99	$0.07

Somewhere in that timeline is no doubt the $3398 10M hard disk.

$193,000 per gigabyte to 7 cents represents a cost decrease of nearly three-million percent! Yes, I may feel old thanks to the analogy that started this article, but at least I don’t have to spend too much on a 1 terabyte hard disk nowadays—even if that HITACHI hard drive currently costs $80 on NewEgg.com, not $75. Personally though, I’ll think I’ll shell out for the Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB 3.5″ SATA 3.0Gb/s. Though it’s currently more expensive at $95, I pretty much find Western Digital Drives much more reliable.

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Personally, that seemed like a really low figure to me. “Only” 350GB to encompass the entire sum of our life experiences? Then again, if 3G users only consume around 211MB a month, and the average daily traffic of the internet is “mere” terrabytes (or thousands of gigabyes), then the figure makes sense. The amount of information we share on a daily basis won’t even threaten the capacity needed to “store” 50 individuals.

Maybe that’s because we humans excel at processing the information, locating useful relationships between specific ideas and perspectives, and turning them into more ideas that we can execute to achieve our objectives. Sure, we only need 350GB to store everything our brain will absorb during our lifetimes, and we’ve passed that threshold a couple of years ago: a half-terabyte hard drive is slowly becoming standard on today’s computers, and rarely costs more than $200.

But the technology needed to properly process stored information in the same way your typical human does? I’m betting we’re still a long way from achieving that kind of breakthrough.

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RAID—a Redundant Array of Independent Disks—is basically bunching a group of disks together, telling your computer to consider the group as one drive. There are numerous kinds of RAID setups, but the most popular ones either provide an instantaneous back-up for your data, storing the same information on two or more disks, or boost your computer’s ability to read and write data, by getting and saving information distributed among at least to disks at the same time. So, the primary benefits of RAID are having a back-up you can quickly switch to in case one of your disks fail (RAID 1), or the ability to quickly process information on your computer (RAID 0).

The problem is, with contemporary hard disks being as reliable as they are, the first setup is mostly unnecessary, especially since conscientious computer users should back-up their data regularly anyway. RAID 1 is typically crucial only for servers that need to continually provide the data on their disks, since it allows the replacement of failed disks without powering the computer down.

RAID 0, on the other hand, is maximized for applications where the fast reading and writing information actually contributes significantly to getting the job done. High-end video editing workstations usually feature RAID 0, since it allows the editor to quickly manage the gigabytes or even terrabytes of video and audio they usually work with. For everyday purposes however, the speed of hard disks operating independently is more than enough.

Even though it’s really cool to have RAID in your desktop (or even laptop), it’s not really a necessity—except in the situations cited above. The point is that RAID by it’s very nature adds a layer of complexity to your computer setup, a complication that may create distractions and keep you from meeting your deadlines. Enthusiasts will point out that there’s nothing wrong with trying to maximize your computer, pushing for faster performance in every aspect. I agree with that, but using RAID only to load games faster isn’t really pushing the limits of operating a computer.

What do you think? In any case, a great RAID FAQ is available on Tom’s.

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Courtesy Intel

You’re probably wondering why you should spend $485 on a drive that can only hold 160GB of data. Well, solid state disks are known more for their read and write speeds, rather than the affordability. And in terms of speed, it seems nothing matches Intel’s flagship SSD offering for now.

In any case, the Intel X25-M line represents significant improvements over the X25-E models. Simply put, the newer Intel solid state disks operate much faster, at literally half the price. The 160GB X25-E for instance retailed for over $900!

As mentioned above, NewEgg currently carries the X25-M, the 160GB version, for $485. If you’ve got a lower price, feel free to hit the comments below.

Buy 160GB Intel X25-M SSD (SSDSA2MH160G1)

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Courtesy Hitachi

The Hitachi Deskstar 7K2000 is the first of its capacity that runs at 7200 RPM. Other need-to-know specs are the 32MB cache and 3GB/s SATA interface, standard on current high-capacity high-end hard disks. The 7K2000 stands out with its five-platter construction, which has turned off at least one reliability-conscious reader at Tom’s Hardware (more platters means more moving parts, and thus more potential for data-destroying damage).

Hitachi also promises power savings and eco-friendliness, claiming that the 7K2000 saves 10 percent more power on idle than “previous generations”, and asserting a halogen-free construction.

No word yet on pricing and availability, so stay tuned! It’s clear though that laptop owners have to wait a bit more, given this hard drive’s 3.5″ desktop-friendly form factor. So, dear readers, how would you fill up 2 terabytes? And no, you can’t say “with porn”. I’m waiting for someone to build a RAID or JBOD array with a bunch of these.

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Courtesy Tom's Hardware

The financially frivolous exercise (see prices below) was Tom’s Hardware US’s response to an email by Samsung’s PR agency, which apparently showcased a RAID array of 24 Samsung PB22-J flash SSDs achieving 2.12GB/s. Looks like Samsung needs to come out with something new!

Despite the unofficial 2.23GB/s throughput (read/write performance) record, the tech-heads at TH weren’t completely satisfied. With an average claimed speed of 200MB/s per individual drive, hooking up 16 X25-Es should’ve produced a throughput of 3.2GB/s. Ah, but despite applying “all optimizations”—including the use of two drive controller cards to overcome PCIe x8’s limitation of 2GB/s—sometimes the rest of a computer simply can’t keep up with an awesome setup.

Product Links and Prices:

• Adaptec 2244300-R PCI Express SATA / SAS 5805 Controller Card – $519.99
• Intel X25-E 64GB 2.5″ SSD – $669

Yes, ladies and gentlmen, Tom’s setup was worth $9,000!

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