Indestructible CD's (NOT)

[Cybr1d]

true...but they are getting cheaper by the day...I remember when a 32MB USB drive was $60-$100, but now I bought 3 128MB ones for $20 a piece...and they're tiny. 128MB will hold 36 mp3s (Avg 3.5mb/song). But as we continue making even more advanced chips...you'll be able to hold 1 gig of songs for an affordable price. Would you pay $100 for a re-writable media storage which would hold 285 songs with the option of storing other types of data in there for convenience?

[FlamingRain]

I'd rather buy a flash memory card reader/writer instead of USB tokens (sorry if that's not what you're talking about). I've found that SanDisk makes nicely priced chips compared to usb tokens.

BTW guys, I found a good deal on home MO drives, I'll link when I get home.

[RoadClosed]

Industructable memory.....

This conversation got me thinking of all the memory technologies I understand and the Space Shuttle came to mind. The older one's use a drum, like those older record players with tubes instead of flat records. Where memory is etched into it. Wouldn't want to be in space and have memory get erased, bad. No Dell's in space, too complicated. Those are located on the ground. Simplicity is bliss when riding atop a few giant rockets. The newer shuttles use something else. Space lab is a bit more advanced since it's not blasting off and burning back into the atmosphere. Check out Odetics, mass memory units make they, hmmm. They make all sorts of things that survive. Advanced war plane flight records for another example.

[FlamingRain]

Found the link again now that I'm at home. It's: http://buyfcpa.com/searchresults.asp?search_id=3

The more I read about MO drives, the more I like them. I mean, seriously, it's perfect for my stuff. The drive itself is $300 or so for the one I'd want and comes with a single disk that's got 2.3gb. A box of 5 disks costs $100. That's only $20 per disk. Let's see...I bought 10 floppies for about $8 at target recently. That's $8 for 14.4 mb of data. $20 for 2.3gb on a MO disk.

So, on floppies, we're paying:
$.55 per mb

On an MO disk, we're paying:
$8.70 per gb
$.01 per mb

Unfortunately, the drive cost desparity is pretty great. I can pick up a crappy floppy drive for $9 at a computer show. To get a MO drive, I'd need to put up about $300. But, considering MO disks are more rugged and reliable than either CD or magnetic media, I think it's worth the up-front cost of getting that drive. AND, since MO is grafted right into windows 95 and up, it acts just like a hard drive or floppy drive, it doesn't require some obscene amount of driver support. It's also grafted into Mac machines too, can't remember the OS versions though. Not sure about linux or using MO drives with it at all though.

The disks come in many different sizes too. I've seen the disks in 230mb, 540mb, 640mb, 1.3gb, and 2.3gb. So, looking at this, you've got some comparable sizes to CDs, Mini-CDs, DVDs, and Zip disks. What amazes me is that these disks are only 90mm (3.5") disks. Being able to store 2.3gb on a highly reliable medium that's the size of a floppy sounds like about the best thing you can do.

Looks promising, I might save some money and invest in one of these for backup stuff. I just got $50 coming off of a light job, so I've got some more to save up, but I think it'll be worth the investment. If I ever do buy and install one, I'll write a review of it up here somewhere.

[gore]

Hmm, so spilling Beer on CDs will mod the sound? I've never heard of that, which is odd because I make music, and I enjoy pitch bending a lot.

Heh, might have to try that. I'll use Bud Light, at least that piss would have a purpose then.

And, I remember buying these super disks about 2 or more years ago. They look exactly like a floppy disk, except a different design on the metal part. They also fit very easily into a floppy drive, and could hole 120 MBs. They also costed more than a ZIP disk.

I still use ZIP disks. I bought an external ZIP drive when I bought my first computer, and they still work very well. For back ups I use CD-Rs and CD-RW disks, and my network. I use ZIP disks mainly for homework, and quickly moving files from one place to another.

Other than that I use my LAN. If I am moving files between two Windows boxes, I use AIM, and send files with that. If I'm using BSD or Linux, I set up VSFTP or Apache, and download them that way.

Well, anyway, I went to bed at a little after 5 AM, and got up at 7:30 AM, and I'm now going to work, so I'll be back when I get home.