Ultimate Storage For The Pandora ?


marshal

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I think I found the holly grail for external storage on the Pandora !
I don't know if this really deserve it's own topic but well... everyone is F5'ing the forum for something new anyway.

I am talking about the Samsung S1 Mini 1.8inch external hard drive

-from 120GB to 250GB (1.8inch)
-USB controller is apparently integrated in the drive
-Power from USB obviously
-Weight: only 85g !

BTW I don't have any stake in Samsung... please tell me if another maker makes something similar ! I just
couldn't find one.

It seems that the 250GB is not really in stock yet at least in Switzerland. I guess it's because they just introduce it.

Some link:

http://www.samsung.com/global/business/hdd/productmodel.do?group=72&type=87&subtype=89&model_cd=481&ppmi=1176
http://www.gizmag.com/first-look-samsungs-tiny-18-inch-s1-mini-the-smallest-external-hard-dr/12733/
http://www.ocaholic.ch/xoops/html/modules/smartsection/item.php?itemid=299 (german)
 
Very tiny, I might actually consider such a thing. But I don't think I will be carrying my 30+ seasons of shows with my all the time.

Nice find though. 1.8 inches is small...
 
That's truly impressive! I don't think it'll be a problem for battery life, it doesn't have any moving parts, right?
 
I'll probably get a good SD card with my future birthday money. A mini hard drive seems a bit too extravagant.
 
Jourdy288 said:
That's truly impressive! I don't think it'll be a problem for battery life, it doesn't have any moving parts, right?

It's a hard drive, just a very small one. So yes it has moving part. (4200rpm)
1.8 inch is very small and is the kind used in some portable player (for exemple the archos media player)
So I believe it should be fairly energy efficient (definitely more than any 2.5inch hard drive)

SD card and other flash media are nice but if you really want to store a lot of data they just are too expensive for now. two 32GB SDHC card would already cost the same as a much bigger 1.8inch hard drive.

I believe most people won't need 250GB with their Pandora, still for people wanting to carry everything around it is a nice solution.
You probably don't want to have the HD connected to the Pandora all the time, but if you need a particular rom/game/video you can just copy it from the HD to the sdcard.

I am personally waiting for my pandora to arrive first and then I might get one of those...
 
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Jourdy288 said:
That's truly impressive! I don't think it'll be a problem for battery life, it doesn't have any moving parts, right?
Um, It's an HDD not SDD, so it has a rotating disk and swiveling read/write head... same as any Hard Drive.
 
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Would this be right for me? Also, would I require the SD reader, or would the Pandora be more than capable of file transfer by itself? (obviously online file sharing services would do the trick, but it's a matter of convinience. Would there be something more or as convenient as a USB reader?)
 
it isn't the biggest (the large HDD) out there, I have one myself, which I got for about $40 cheaper than the link you provided.
 
Oi, so there will be a bit more drain than on an SSD. Thanks, I was wondering. It can't be that big, but more than SSD.
 
Kloplop321 said:
it isn't the biggest (the large HDD) out there, I have one myself, which I got for about $40 cheaper than the link you provided.

Just updated the link... for some reason I missed the 250GB on amazon the first time.
EDIT: Oups it's a 2.5inch version. I can't find the 250GB 1.8inch one on Amazon...
 
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Gecko.jsc said:
Would this be right for me? Also, would I require the SD reader, or would the Pandora be more than capable of file transfer by itself? (obviously online file sharing services would do the trick, but it's a matter of convinience. Would there be something more or as convenient as a USB reader?)
Um... The Pandora has two SDHC card readers. Having another one would just be cumbersome, as it would stick out from the usb port. Not to mention, it would be a waste of the usb port.
 
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Toshiba announced .85" microdrives in 2004.
It appears this has been abandoned, too bad, by now there could have been some decent storage amounts (an article mentioned 8GB somewhere and was also mentioned to be SD compatible but neither mentioned in linked article.)
I assume flash was just too much more cost effective and as we know more durable, I cannot find evidence they ever manufactured them.

http://www.palminfocenter.com/news/7189/toshiba-begins-mass-production-of-85-inch-hard-drives/

Maybe they will be available in around 2 months? :D
 
Mr.Confuzed said:
Gecko.jsc said:
Would this be right for me? Also, would I require the SD reader, or would the Pandora be more than capable of file transfer by itself? (obviously online file sharing services would do the trick, but it's a matter of convinience. Would there be something more or as convenient as a USB reader?)
Um... The Pandora has two SDHC card readers. Having another one would just be cumbersome, as it would stick out from the usb port. Not to mention, it would be a waste of the usb port.
No, I meant transfer between the Pandora and a PC (sorry for not making that clear). There's probably some sort of file-sharing client that eliminated the need for a USB stick or cable, but I just wondered what information people have to give me...
 
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Poem58 said:
Toshiba announced .85" microdrives in 2004.
It appears this has been abandoned, too bad, by now there could have been some decent storage amounts (an article mentioned 8GB somewhere and was also mentioned to be SD compatible but neither mentioned in linked article.)
I assume flash was just too much more cost effective and as we know more durable, I cannot find evidence they ever manufactured them.

http://www.palminfocenter.com/news/7189/toshiba-begins-mass-production-of-85-inch-hard-drives/

Maybe they will be available in around 2 months? :D
You can always go with CompactFlash – or rather Microdrives, which are CF-sized HDDs. Microdrives are what's inside all those small HDD-driven MP3 players. I have no idea if there's a decent USB case for Microdrives but at 1" it would make for relatively tiny storage. I think they make Microdrives with sizes up to 16 GiB; I'm sure that there are 8 GiB versions around.

Addendum: Yes, there are 1" external HDDs. The LaCie "little disk" (yes, that's the product name) comes in 30G and 40G flavors for 40-65 Euros. At least that's what eBay Germany says. Note, however, that apparently LaCie uses that name for bigger hard drives, as well.
 
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they dropped it because of the arrival of SD amazing Capacity.
sd Keeps on all the good points,
less power consumption, better Mb/gram rate, Mb/cm3,etc.

why buy a extra expensive HD if it is still bulky, and expensive.

just stack a keyring of SD cards :p

the only benefit i could see on the mini HD is that data is more safe on these rather than flash based memory.
 
I would just go with a 2.5" HDD. The Western Digital ones are all smaller than the width and length of the Pandora. Only slightly larger than a classic iPod and so much cheaper per GB than a 1.8" drive. A 500GB is only $97.69.
 
Gecko.jsc said:
No, I meant transfer between the Pandora and a PC (sorry for not making that clear). There's probably some sort of file-sharing client that eliminated the need for a USB stick or cable, but I just wondered what information people have to give me...
Ah, that makes more sense now. If you happen to have a wireless router, I would use that to share files over the network. It's easy in windows, and I'm sure it's just as easy on Linux (wikipedia:Samba). No client required. A card reader would work too, but then you might have to turn off the Pandora.

P.S. Way to hijack the thread!
 
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j6cubic said:
Poem58 said:
Toshiba announced .85" microdrives in 2004.
It appears this has been abandoned, too bad, by now there could have been some decent storage amounts (an article mentioned 8GB somewhere and was also mentioned to be SD compatible but neither mentioned in linked article.)
I assume flash was just too much more cost effective and as we know more durable, I cannot find evidence they ever manufactured them.

http://www.palminfoc...ch-hard-drives/

Maybe they will be available in around 2 months? :D
You can always go with CompactFlash – or rather Microdrives, which are CF-sized HDDs. Microdrives are what's inside all those small HDD-driven MP3 players. I have no idea if there's a decent USB case for Microdrives but at 1" it would make for relatively tiny storage. I think they make Microdrives with sizes up to 16 GiB; I'm sure that there are 8 GiB versions around.

Addendum: Yes, there are 1" external HDDs. The LaCie "little disk" (yes, that's the product name) comes in 30G and 40G flavors for 40-65 Euros. At least that's what eBay Germany says. Note, however, that apparently LaCie uses that name for bigger hard drives, as well.

Yeah, I know about microdrives (last i knew they topped out at 12GB, but haven't looked in awhile) I have no use for a microdrive (had one once, it was slow and killed my battery life so I sold it while it had value, think I paid about $150 for a 320GB version now I have a 1GB CF card which costs what, maybe $20?)) and using compact flash would not be easier on the Pandora seeing as how it doesn't have a compact flash slot so it would require rather bulky excess, while if the .85" drive would have been produced it was supposedly supposed to essentially be an SD Microdrive, which we could have used, and if the one inch drive you mentioned has gotten to 40G, it's not entirely inconceivable that the .85" drive could have made it to 20 or 30 gigs by now had it been produced. Still though compared to SD cards it would be more expensive per gig and have a faster failure rate.

I would just buy a cheaper, faster, more reliable SDHC card at 16 gigs before having a 16Gig microdrive protruding from my Pandora. I only mentioned this as it could have provided another option. Afer all why not just write drivers and connect a Dataplay device? It's just not worth the effort. Which is why I assume they canceled the .85" drive.

I anxiously await the day I can upgrade the system and insert my 2TB SDXC card's, install my new Betavoltaic battery and fire up some retro game through the Archaicsignal to Fiber optic converter and show my grandson some glorious Atari 2600 on the OLED painted wall/Display. That is if I can get him to turn off the HD-Interactatron Implant long enough to see what whacky old grandpa is doing with his crazy gizmo you have to touch. I expect that most of these problems will be corrected by then. As the Pandora 5 will have a 16 core ARM Cerebrum A-25 8.3 Ghz SOC with an SGX 999 @3.3Ghz 256GB ram and use holographic 10TB storage cubes (2 slots). It will run continuously for 25 years on the before mentioned Betavoltaic battery. There will be no display or even buttons as the wireless Fiber-optic (Wi-Fibe) system will stream all necessary images and controls directly into the supplied implant chip (implantation not included).
But I like to do things the older, simpler way. So I plan to still be using my original Pandora. These guys better keep alot of parts on hand. I'm sure I'm not the only one. If and when I buy the Pandora 2 someday, I will have to make a glass case to store my original Pandora as-is so I can revisit it 15 years later. If I have to I will wire up potatoes and lemons for power, but it will boot again! (Who am I kidding, I'll be lucky if my 5 year old doesn't beg me for it so much that i won't even have it to play on in less than 2 months, just to get peace! At present he uses my PDA ,DS ,Laptop ,Desktop and would have my PSP if I hadn't sold it! He's had the DS since he was 2!)

When I was five we had 8 track tapes, rotary phones, bulky pocket radios, Jimmy Carter, Scooby-Doo etc. If there was no one to play with you had to play with yourself (figuratively or if you were strange literally) So as I grew up dreaming of things (came up with minidisc like idea about 1985 or so) I got to see technology advance fast enough to make these dreams reality, in a day and age where there's not much left to surprise us with, despite the fact that compared to other things invented in my lifetime, the Pandora may not be revolutionary or groundbreaking, the Pandora may be the last of the ultimate wish idea's to really come true.

/whatever that was, back to topic.
 
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