SimpleTech Announces Highest Capacity External Hard Drive; 400GB SimpleDrive High-Speed USB 2.0/FireWire Combo

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.corporate-ir.net/ireye/ir_site.zhtml?ticker=STEC&script=412&layout=0&item_id=504709' target='_blank'>http://www.corporate-ir.net/ireye/ir_site.zhtml?ticker=STEC&script=412&layout=0&item_id=504709</a><br /><br /></div>"SimpleTech, Inc. (Nasdaq: STEC), a designer, manufacturer and marketer of custom and open-standard memory solutions based on Flash memory and DRAM technologies, today announced the industry's highest capacity external hard drive -- a 400GB SimpleDrive Deluxe with a USB 2.0 & FireWire combination. The company also extended its SimpleDrive Deluxe product line with the addition of 120, 160, and 250GB capacities. SimpleTech is exhibiting at CeBIT (Hall 20/Stand E18), in Hannover, Germany, March 18-24, 2004. <br /><br />SimpleDrive External Hard Drives are a cost-effective way to add storage to any Mac or PC desktop or notebook computer quickly and easily, and they are also ideal for backing up data. SimpleDrive External Hard Drives are also available with USB 2.0-only. 400GB SimpleDrive External Hard Drives provide enough capacity to store a combination of 6,500 hours of high quality digital music, 7,200 digital photos, 16 hours of digital video, 72 digital games and 120 software programs."<br /><br />Wow - 400 GB of external storage! 8O I've got an external USB 2.0 160 GB Maxtor drive right now, and while it works quite well, believe it or not I've managed to fill it up with video. I tend to capture video in spurts, then come back to edit it later. I could do a lot of video work with 400 GB of storage space. :lol:

[crstbo623]

I don't know why people don't use external HD's more often. They are probably one of the most versatile and cost effective storage mediums available. For me, it lets me download and store every episode of Star Trek DS9, Babylon 5, the West Wing, and a variety of films. :robot:

What are your favorite things to keep on your external HD?

[Crocuta]

You can just never have too much storage if you do digital video. When I got my 200GB external Maxtor, I could get every file from all three computers on it. (I bought it when we were moving and selling the computers and needed to preserve our data.) Now that I'm adding some more DV to it, and expanded the data on the new computers, there's no way it would all fit. I imagine by the end of the summer, it'll be crowded enough to make me consider another external drive. It's nice to see them continuing to increase so that my next purchase can last even longer.

[Jason Dunn]

What are your favorite things to keep on your external HD?

On my 160 GB USB 2.0 HD I keep video files, and only video files. Some raw DV-AVI footage ready for editing, some finished projects, though I try to wipe it out when I'm finished the project.

On my 120 GB Firewire HD I keep a 2nd level backup of all my primary data from my main computer (about 30 GB) plus all my audio + video from my server (about 80 GB)...and that's almost full. :-)

Long live external hard drives! Although I've read they don't live as long as internal drives (usually heat issues)...

[David Prahl]

Wait a minute - isn't one terbyte bigger than 400 GB?
http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=4631 :wink:

[Jason Dunn]

Wait a minute - isn't one terbyte bigger than 400 GB?
http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=4631 :wink:

Yes, but $1199 USD is a lot bigger than $499 USD. ;-)

[David Prahl]

Wait a minute - isn't one terbyte bigger than 400 GB?
http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=4631 :wink:

Yes, but $1199 USD is a lot bigger than $499 USD. ;-)

The press release clearly says that their 400 GB model is "the industry's highest capacity external hard drive".

[Jason Dunn]

The press release clearly says that their 400 GB model is "the industry's highest capacity external hard drive".

Oh, THAT'S what you mean. Yeah, they should have said "single" hard drive, because the LaCie one is multiple drives in an array.

[SassKwatch]

Wait a minute - isn't one terbyte bigger than 400 GB?
http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=4631 :wink:

Yes, but $1199 USD is a lot bigger than $499 USD. ;-)
But on a $$ per MB basis (I need to break things down in increments small enough for my feeble mind to deal with :)), the Lacie is actually a bit cheaper, no? Assuming I did the math right.

[Crocuta]

But on a $$ per MB basis (I need to break things down in increments small enough for my feeble mind to deal with :)), the Lacie is actually a bit cheaper, no? Assuming I did the math right.

Yes, you're right. We're pretty much past measuring in $/MB now since that has us working in increments of hundreths of cents and such, so let's move on to $/GB. The 400GB Simpletech costs $1.25/GB and the LaCie 1 Terrabyte costs $1.20/GB, so the LaCie is still marginally less expensive. Still, it may be important to an individual that the Simpletech is a single drive and the LaCie is an array of four drives. I'm not sure what the significance is from a user point of view. I guess four drives means 4X the chance that something will go wrong, but one drive means if something goes wrong, you've lost it all.

[bbarker]

As drive capacity increases, we can't forget the importance of backing up important data (or video files). With unedited digital video it isn't as critical because, presumably, you still have the DV tape. But once you invest your time in a project a backup becomes vital. I know from sad experience. The story is painful to even remember.

[David Prahl]

Anyone know if you can separate the 1 TB unit into its 4 drives? That would be one sweet RAID... :)

[Crocuta]

Anyone know if you can separate the 1 TB unit into its 4 drives? That would be one sweet RAID... :)

If it is four drives (something we've supposed, but really don't know for sure), then it's probably already in a RAID 0 configuration. It would be awsome to have something like it that could be set to run in either RAID 0 or 1 in hardware while the OS still just looks at it as a regular drive.

Of course, it could just be a single large drive, rendering all of this speculation meaningless. Nothing on their web site or in their data sheets actually says it's made of more than one drive. (But if I had to bet on it, I'd bet that it is multiple drives.)

[David Prahl]

If it was one, big, beautiful RAID then we could really use it at work. I work at a radio station and we're getting a new "automation system" soon. Storage is a big part of that system. RAID is good. TBs are good.