Iomega DCT 1.5GB Cartridges for $15?

[Janak Parekh]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.dinside.no/php/art.php?id=93929' target='_blank'>http://www.dinside.no/php/art.php?id=93929</a><br /><br /></div>I reported on this new Iomega Clik/PocketZip-like design a <a href="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=15558">few months ago</a>. According to a Norwegian source, the DCT 1.5GB disks will be approximately $15 each! 8O<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/parekh-20030724-iomega.jpg" /><br /><br />That price point does make it attractive. If anyone knows Norwegian, please post a translation in this thread -- I couldn't find any web-based conversion tools from Norwegian to English.

[mr_Ray]

No, that price point doesn't make it attrative - it makes it crazily attractive!!

If the power consumption is low enough and they can be added to PPCs, cameras, etc in an easy enough way, I see no reason why they shouldn't be a big success.
$15 for a rewritable tiny 1.5GB disk... woah...

[rudolph]

I got my 600m notebook around the time when dell was offering free upgrade to DVD+RW. I got a few 4.7 gb cd's for ~$3.50 CND each. Much cheaper than $15 (US I assume) for 1.5gb. I'd rather have a DVD writer and CF/SD cards than these disks.

[edit]
ok, I didn't realize these are that small... in which case yea, $15/1.5 gb is really good for pocket pcs and cameras and such. But I still prefer dvdrw's and cdrw as floppy replacements for desktops. I'm always afraid of loosing my SD and CF cards. Of course, if they were $15/1.5gb I wouldn't worry that much.... hm.... ok, these do seem quite interesting.. I want one

[prismejon]

Ok, here's a translation. Sorry about the bad english, I'm in a hurry:

DinSide.no Computers has gotten a confirmation from Iomega that DCT (Digital Capture Technology) will be released next summer. Iomega are hoping that this very small and robust disc will be as successfull as their ZIP-drives. The first official showing of the small disc will be at this years Comdex show in Las Vegas in November.

Small and robust
According to Robert Hedman, DCT will be 10 times faster than a typical memory card. In addition the packing is made of robust metall and DCT requires much less power than memory cards.

DCT has been developed by DCT in cooperation with Fujifilm, Citizen and Texas Instruments. Iomega are currently negoatiating with several hardware manufacturers about integrating DCT in products like cell phones, PDAs and digital cameras.

Cheap
The best thing will probably be the price, which Hedman asseses to be approx. 100NOK (=$15) a piece. This would make it a very strong competitor compared to todays CF, SD and memory sticks.

Hedman says Iomega DCT is fully developed and will be in stores next summer.

[Jeff Song]

Thats great that you have a dvd burner. Lets see you put those dvds in your PDA. oh,and lets see how much it costs to have a 1.5gb flash card in your Pocket pc. Around 150-200? Yea, 15 is 1/10 of that, and it won't take up a slot. I think this price point is going to do something for handhelds cameras, and anything else that needs memory in a small form.

[griegomas]

the thing is, 15 bucks for 1.5 gig isnt very good. cdrw cost almost nothing per disk and it only takes about 2 of em to equal one of these iomega thingys. on the other hand, if, like the other poster said, these could be incorporated into ppc's along with the usual cf or sd slot for faster storage then these new disks would rock.

[Jeff Song]

I don't think that people get this-its great that you can get a cd-r for 10 cents now. However, can you put these in a pda and use them? The point is, there has never been an option as cheap as this for memory in this size that can be put in handhelds or cameras-which is why this is big news.

[GoldKey]

the thing is, 15 bucks for 1.5 gig isnt very good. cdrw cost almost nothing per disk and it only takes about 2 of em to equal one of these iomega thingys. on the other hand, if, like the other poster said, these could be incorporated into ppc's along with the usual cf or sd slot for faster storage then these new disks would rock.

They are not meant to compete with a CDRW. By your logic, those must be real rip-offs. They compete with CF and SD, the problem is are any manufacturers really ready for another standard. I like CF because it is relatively cheap and everywhere, my desktop, notebook, pda, camera, printer all have CF slots. This wins on the cheap side, but it would be doubtful that it could get the penetration of CF.

[Jason Dunn]

However, can you put these in a pda and use them? The point is, there has never been an option as cheap as this for memory in this size that can be put in handhelds or cameras-which is why this is big news.

Ah, but let's not forget that Iomega isn't developing these to a CF formfactor - the PDAs will have to either include one on-board, or include a whole new type of slot for it. Same thing with the camera. Remember Dataplay? (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/articles.php?action=expand,913) Interesting technology, but there wasn't any real traction from the device side. Until you start to see devices offering this, it's not as exciting as you might think. That said, if they can come up with a small reader and perhaps a PCMCIA adaptor, I see some interesting possibilities.

[Janak Parekh]

Thanks prismejon!

As compared to DataPlay -- yes, you need the proprietary reader -- but on the other hand having a fast magnetic medium does have its applications. I don't think it'll establish dominance either, but it may have its useful niches. Besides, this is rewriteable, as opposed to Dataplay which I believe was only single-write (or CD-R, for that matter).

--janak

[humphrey22]

You could always have a CF adapter to use this in a PDA or Camera.

[GoldKey]

You could always have a CF adapter to use this in a PDA or Camera.

I believe this is too large to fit in a CF form factor. So no go.

[Ekkie Tepsupornchai]

Ah, but let's not forget that Iomega isn't developing these to a CF formfactor - the PDAs will have to either include one on-board, or include a whole new type of slot for it.
Which is too bad IMO. Their sizes don't seem to be too far off from a potential CF form factor and at $15 per 1.5GB, they'd put both solid-state CF cards as well as CF Microdrives on their heels. As someone else mentioned, if the battery-drain isn't too big a factor, then I would be getting dizzy at the possibilities of having a library of 1.5GB cards ready to insert into my PPC. Companies like Iomega don't make money on readers, they make money on their mediums...

[Sven Johannsen]

Here's a full english PR that seems to be the same stuff http://www.iomega.com/about/prreleases/2003/dct_platform.html

Picture looks a whole lot like the Pocket Click drives that never made it past 40M. The drive was a Type II PC card drive and even had drivers that would work on an iPAQ with some PCcard sleeves. Didn't quite fit in the Jornada PCCard sled, some mechanical rail alignment issue.

I still have some of these and they worked quite well. Even have a HipZip that is an MP3/WMA player that uses them. Problem was the 40M limitation. But you could get a CD on a disk easily and carry a few to swap. They announced 100M ones but they never got to market.

At 1.5G and a PCCard drive (I'm assuming) they would be real handy for big files and a laptop. Handheld PCs may be a market as well. I think it will be a tough sell to integrate them into PPCs or such though. There were some PocketClick cameras though.

[Bruno Figueiredo]

Maybe PPCTechs can put one of these babies inside our PocketPCs as they do with standard memory... That would be sweet...

Or imagine a CF card that holds on the back of your PPC one of these. Or a CF adpater. I already saw a CF to MS adaptor. Slick...

1.5GB on your Pocket PC... Add Firewire and I can ditch memory cards altogether... On the other hand, maybe not...

[nuopus]

How can you possibly say that a DVD-RAM drive is somehow a replacement for things like ZIP devices? That is crazy! Even if you can't put this in a PDA there is still an advantage over CD blanks.

Can you use your CD as work media? Here is a common scenario. You are a graphic designer who constantly works on large graphic images. You put your large files (500megs +) on one of these units to bring to work and back. With this type of media I can work on the image on the unit itself at work and bring it back home. How the heck are you going to do this on a CD?

I work at a local college. All of the exams, powerpoints, spreadsheets and other files take up aroung 90 something megs which are kept on ZIP disks. I take them from home to work ... modify the files, take them home .. modify more. How can you tell me that putting my files on a cheaper CD blank can make it easier? All of the computers where I work have ZIP drives because they are used. Can I work on one of my files and save directly to the CD? No?

I dont think you get the difference between active media like this and CD blanks because you do not work in a situation where you need it. I will GLADLY pay more money for a media that lets me actively WORK on my files instead of having to use special software to reburn them on a CDRW.

I have had this argument before at the school. Some students say tell me that I should use blank CDs to store all my stuff cuz they store more than ZIP. These students do not get the fact that lots of people actually need to actively MODIFY the data on that device. They don't understand this because they are students who do not NEED that kind of storage.

[IpaqMan2]

If Iomega can pull this off and keep the disk at the lowprice of $15 bucks, than I belive they just may have a winner ontheir hands...something Iomega hasn't beenable to do since the introduction of the 100 meg zip drive some many, many years ago. They will hold more than twice that of a CDR, they'll re-writeable...and heck, I wopuld love to see them make an MP3 player that will take these disks.

[Bruno Figueiredo]

I think that those USB pen drives will get a hold of CDRW, diskettes, zips and the like. Just a few more years and every computer will be able to read them and usb ports on the front will be on every PC. But what I would really like would be to wirellessly transfer files to a PDA.

Or maybe in the future with all things broadband, maybe we could just save and retrieve files to our home server wirelessly. That would be fantastic.

[Bruno Figueiredo]

I would love to see them make an MP3 player that will take these disks.

Doesn't the new Creative Muvo2 use one of these yet? It's 1.5GB capacity and just as small...

[patwoods]

click.... whir..... click.... click.... click....&lt;CRUNCH>....click...click... whir...click...

Gotta love Iomega... :pukeface:

Sorry, I'll pass on these this time. Won't make the same mistake twice.

[slicksurf]

click.... whir..... click.... click.... click....&lt;CRUNCH>....click...click... whir...click...

Gotta love Iomega... :pukeface:

Sorry, I'll pass on these this time. Won't make the same mistake twice.

Just for clarification, are you on about the old Zip's click of death syndrome? I thought they fixed that for new drives.

[jlhorng]

My experience with Iomega product is always negative. 2 Jaz drivers (2 G) failed within 2 years. In order to retrive my data, I will have to purchase another Jaz driver again. :evil:

This time, I am going to burn the whole content from JAZ directly to CD.

[David C]

I bought some old pcmcia click drive for like $20 when it was closing out. it's nifty, but I don't see the benifit anymore. I rather use a memory card to store and transfer. Whith the 1.5g coming out, I think it is good, but I won't buy it. I do hope that this force competition into the field, and memory will get cheaper. Now, I wounder if the old drive can take the new disk. hmm...

[Jason Dunn]

click.... whir..... click.... click.... click....&lt;CRUNCH>....click...click... whir...click...

Heh. I remember that sound. I got hit with the "Click of Death" THREE times...so I'm still a little bitter against Iomega. Hopefully they've improved their technology since the late '90s. :worried:

[rudolph]

Can you use your CD as work media? Here is a common scenario. You are a graphic designer who constantly works on large graphic images. You put your large files (500megs +) on one of these units to bring to work and back. With this type of media I can work on the image on the unit itself at work and bring it back home. How the heck are you going to do this on a CD?


Well a CDRW/DVDRW with some UDF writing software (like DirectCD) can do that. You can copy, delete, move files on the rewritable cd/dvd. And you can open up a document in say word, edit it, then save it and it'll save on the rw media. I havn't tried opening any big (500mb big) files, editing, and saving directly on the cd, but I'm sure it'll work.

The disadvantage is that all the computers you want to use to write to the cd need UDF writing software on them. Even for reading the cds, you'll need UDF reader software on any computer without the software. For bringing files from work to home and back though, I'd say they work pretty good.

[Warwick]

I realy dont think people want a mobile memory form factor with moving parts, I know I dont. I am happy with the solid little CF, they will drop in price and soon we will all have a terabyte in our pocket :D

I dont want my Ipaq going click .. click .. click .. PFT!

[bjornkeizers]

If they make the reader in either a PCMCIA card format, or even better, USB 2.0 external reader [like a CF card reader] then heck yeah, I'll buy these.

1.5 gig is more then plenty to back up some files if I needed it. I could put all of my Futurama or South Park eps on one, plus I wouldn't have to carry around my big ass 60 gig Qdrive.

[jayman]

I may be missing the obvious - but how are these different from the microdrives? The price for a small HDD does look interesting though. It should bring down the cost of external small HDDs such as the AnyPak and the Archos miniHDD. I am happy with SD and CF within the PPC form factor - but my next PPC will have to have USB host abilities such as the Toshibas' so I can have a IPOD replacment in my pocket.

Jayman

[jlp]

The only market that could adopt it with some kind of success is movie cameras.

The IOmega disks are much smaller than Mini DV cassettes, the drives are probably dramatically much smalller than MiniDV drives.

Besides this market I don't see them apear is PDAs that are smaller and smaller and such a drive would make them much too big again.

And a CF or SD adapter would result in a bulky add-on and the price would make it close to the price of a 2-3 GB CF card, while occupying that slot. And I don't think most people would need more than 2-3 GB of portable data with them.

Movie camera are another story, this is why I think it could have a good success and at the same time make the camera much smaller than existing ones. Except for the Panasonic SV-AV100 wich is the size of a credit card and uses SD cards, but we all know that these are very expensive.