Hi-MD - possible CD/DVD alternative for notebook setup?

[Guest Anonymous]

I might be getting a super-slim notebook, one of the ones without a built in

optical drive. If I understand correctly the Hi-MD units will be capable of

storing data in FAT file system. The appealing thing is that they

apparently will power themselves through the USB port, which may make them capable of serving as a storage device on the road (please correct me if that is wrong about self-powering via USB).

Any one have any thoughts as to how Hi-MD might compare performance wise to an external CD/DVD drive paired with a notebook PC? Right now I could see it being capable of storing CD images which I could move back and forth with a virtual CD tool as well as general data storage. Having such a smalldevice that is capable of being powered by the notebook would be a very good thing. I also like the idea of the durability of MDs while on the road being thrown into briefcases etc. I'm intrigued anyway....

[mAjEsTiC]

hey there...details thus far about exact transfer speeds are sketchy and we won't know exactly until the units are released...i'm also thinking of getting on for my notebook as it would be a lot better than having to use floppy discs or flash drives...

[highlandsun]

The raw data transfer rate for HiMD is just under 10Mbps, USB 1.1 has a bandwidth of 12Mbps. I suspect that HiMD will operate at about the same speed as any other USB 1.1 CD/DVD/HD drive. Not amazingly fast, but usable, and definitely better than floppies.

Of course, the notion of floppy disks themselves is pretty ridiculous today. My current laptop has a 40GB internal hard drive, and I'll be looking for a 60 or 80G drive soon. The idea of backing up my hard drive to floppy disks is ... ludicrous. Backing up to 1G HiMD isn't that much more appealing; backing up to 40 individual disks is about as bad as backing up to floppies in the late 1980s.

I think HiMD is useful on a laptop, the same way my Compact Flash/PCMCIA card is useful - for quickly moving files around from laptop to laptop - but not as a primary storage medium. Still too small and too slow for that.

[mar2k]

I think HiMD is useful on a laptop, the same way my Compact Flash/PCMCIA card is useful - for quickly moving files around from laptop to laptop - but not as a primary storage medium. Still too small and too slow for that.

Well, that's primarily what I had in mind, it might be very handy for those types of operations...I was the original poster BTW, for some reason the board did not take my log on and it showed up as "Guest"......

[Jimmix]

Certainly to make use of MD as a general-usage media will expand it to be used to other devices than music.(Like a photo camera, even a video camera using compression technology)

Imagine that just like CD you could take you MD's to wherever you wanted and everywhere you went there were MD eqquipmet to play music ,store files, watch videos etc. thanks to the fact that its a standard media.

But this media is much better than CD becuase of it's file-system filing properties...the possibilities of it use are huge!!!

This I wish to see!!! :smile: