On Wed, 03 Dec 2003 17:52:00 GMT
John H. wrote:

On Tue, 2 Dec 2003 16:48:43 -0500, "J.Clarke"
wrote:

What would really help with HD noise is switching to 2.5" drives,
even 10,000 RPM models.

Why would that help? What leads you to believe that a 2.5" drive
with a given capacity and performance level will be quieter than a
3.5" drive with the same capacity and performance level?

Would you have said the same thing back when only 5.25" drives were
available and someone mentioned 3.5" drives?

Yes. But why do you feel that that is relevant?

Lower mass should help a
lot

Why would this be? Why do you believe that reducing mass will reduce
noise?

and also allow higher performance.

Why do you believe that reducing mass will allow higher performance?

The only drawback compared to
a 3.5" drive would be storage capacity. But at the rate capacity is
increasing, that would not be a problem for long.

3.5" drive storage capacity is actually getting
too big for most home systems unless used for video.

But many home systems _are_ used for video. And for that a 200 gig
drive is not all that large--I'm debating whether to upgrade my
server to a terabyte array or just wait for terabyte drives to drop
out of the bottom of the market at 50 bucks a pop.

In that case the 2nd drive in your system could be 3.5" until 2.5"
drives got large enough for you.

And what do you believe that I would gain by such a combination over two
3.5" drives?

Even a terabyte is good for only
about 100 hours of HDTV - way less if you need to store uncompressed
data.

True--perhaps I should wait for exabyte drives to become available.

I'm a little
surprised that somebody isn't making a high performance 2.5" drive
(better than any 3.5" drive) for desktops yet.

Where would be the market for it? What do you believe it would gain
and why?

If it's faster, quieter, and consumes less power than any 3.5" drive,
the market would include just about everybody.

Even if it cost $20,000 each? If it's faster, quieter, consumes less
power, provides the same amount of storage, and costs the same, then it
has a market. Until then it would be a low-volume niche product that
wouldn't repay the development cost.

But you have yet to provide a convincing argument that it would be
faster, quieter, or consume less power.

I know I'd buy one
tomorrow if I could.


--
--
--John
Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)