Being the capacity monger I am, it didn't take much for Toshiba Storage pique my interest beyond telling me it was announcing a 200GB external hard drive. The company was first to market last year with a two-platter, 2.5-inch 200GB hard drive for notebook computers. Now, it is taking that same drive and putting the drive into its custom-designed external enclosure to bring the first 200GB external portable hard drive to market. Currently, the industry max is 160GB.
The $229 200GB Toshiba USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive drive joins Toshiba's line of external hard drives introduced in January at CES. Those drives--ranging in capacity from 100GB to 160GB--shipped at the end of March. If you're in a hurry for the additional capacity, you won't have to wait long: According to Toshiba's Maciek Brzeski, the 200GB drive will ship at retail and at online sellers (such as Buy.com and Amazon) by the end of this month.
As with the other drives in Toshiba's line, the 200GB drive is housed in a black aluminum chassis. The aluminum helps dissipate heat, as do the ventilation slots at the rear of the drive. The drive itself is mounted inside the chassis using Toshiba's patent-pending six-point suspension system that's designed to dampen an impact, says Brzeski.
The drive is rated to withstand a drop from a desk-height surface. However, it lacks the g-force sensors found in many notebook PCs. "We are currently looking into adding this feature into subsequent products," says Brzeski. "The trick with G-sensors is attuning it for use in external drive, as opposed to inside a notebook."
I own a 320GB USB 2.0 external drive, which I bought last year for ?70. That's twice the capacity for half the money. I don't see how this can be exciting news to me, nor how 160GB can possibly be the "industry max".
This article is talking about 2.5" inch harddrive, not 3.5.
They are talking about 2.5 inch portable drives that require only usb power to function (thus the "portable" key word) vs. your 3.5 inch drive that requires an external power source (making it much less portable) also the overall size and weight of the 2.5 inch drives is much less. Know what you are talking about before you post.
Mayhem, there is no need to be an arse. Clearly bugdc was confused about why this article said what it did, so he posted. He was indirectly asking to have it explained. Subsequent posts should have cleared up his confusion, but your comment of 'Know what you are talking about before you post' has no value. Get some manners before you post.
Hey Coruscant, take it easy on Mayhem. His problem stems not from bad manners, but from an uncontrollable urge to talk DOWN to people who seem to be more ignorant than he is.
By the way, I was initially confused about the article, until I thought about it for a minute,
CIAO
thartley, No need to pick on Coruscant. He was only trying to teach some etiquette to Mayhem, who obviously needs it. But if he had considered Mayhem's name, he may have been able to save himself the effort; because anyone with a name like Mayhem is clearly not interested in learning etiquette. But I'm sure that Coruscant appreciates your taking your time and making the effort to help him to improve HIS etiquette. BTW, what does any of this have to do with a 200GB HD?
jmgainor, I wasn't "picking on Coruscant". Just saying it's a waste of time to try to get anywhere with Mayhem. Like you said "to save himself the effort.
I didn't mean anything by it against Coruscant.
And you're right--none of this has anything to do with a 200GB HD!
It's almost funny how these things can balloon all out of proportion.
Thanks for the comment.
It's all good. I don't feel picked on. With regard to the article, Nicedog said it best, simple and to the point. On the point of being "portable," I understand why being able to draw power solely from USB is sort of cool, but the only context that I have for the use of such a drive would be with my laptop. If I have to plug in my laptop, I probably don't have a problem with plugging in my USB drive either, so it's not a huge selling point for me. And if I am going to be running off battery power, which rarely happens, I probably won't be using my external HDD anyway. But the reduced size of the 2.5" externals is pretty cool by itself, they are just easier to handle I think. Besides all that, it also means higher capacity drives INSIDE laptops too, which is always cool. Now if I could just get a 200GB USB flash drive, I'd be all set.
I Have been working on Computers 27 years and was half way through the article still thinking "Whats the news here especially for that price". Then it went click and I said "Duh, its a cable powered drive". I have a 3,5 inch cable powered and yeah its tiny and cool so yeah this would be a handy product for me. The point is that this is not mentioned anywhere in the article (cable powered), and a small graphic showing the proportion difference between the two sizes would have helped allot. This piece is poorly done
Ronbo
thartley, It's all in good fun. Of course I wasn't serious. It only seemed an apropos humorous comment added to the thread was fitting at the time. I'm sure Mayhem's a good fellow too. As for the external HD, I don't need it yet, but it looks like it would fill the need if one were to run out of HD space. Compact and simple?just plug it in a UBS port.
jmgainor, ditto.
Cool.