"So, should we look at this as a zip or jaz competitor? At 1 gig, and
at Zip's new price point (okay I'm getting ahead of myself) of $99, I
think it's better to compare it to Jaz. Unconfirmed rumors have Jaz
priced now at $399int/$499 ext. I would suspect that Western Digital
will be closer to $300 than $200 for one gig. So, that gives them a
better cost of entry but a much higher cost for adding additional gigs
compared to Jaz disks at $99, and possibly lower once volume ramps."
Trakker, I did some quick research this AM on this. Computerworld 's
"removable" hard drive reference for the Nordic is misleading (WDC
intentionally did this?). It is basically a portable hard disk which can be
plugged in and out of an external or internal drive bay. Otherwise, it is
no difference from existing harddisks. I think WDC and others are taking
a lesson from the new removable drive bay in notebooks.
I think the portable harddisks will replace the internal harddisk in the future,
if price can be kept competitive with harddisks (should be easy to do
since all it takes is a drive bay slot with an IDE or SCSI connectors). It
surprises me that it takes the harddrive makers this long to figure out
the usefulness of this portable drive bay arrangement for harddisks. I used to
have IDE cables hanging out of my PC just to be able to switch harddrive
quickly - a cheap version of the portable harddisks. There are at least one
portable drive on the market now, made from harddisk from WDC and sell
for around $400 per Gig.
The advantages I see of portable HDD over internal HDDare ease of
installation, upgrade, ability to switch harddrives if one owns several,
and ability to remove and carry the portable HDD from one PC to another.
The portable HDD will not be competition to Zip, nor Jaz. It certainly
can not compete with Jaz price/performance even if it was in the same
end-use. But it has a good chance to replace the internal HDD, in my
opinion. Good for PC users, no change in net margin for WDC.
I am quite surprised at the comment "It solves the performance issue
and the protability issue" by John Reeder of Rocker Partner as he refers
to the portable HDD as if it is something new and revolutionary. And the
Computerworld article compares the portable HDD to Zip and LS-120.
Talk about being ignorant of technology application and consumer needs!!
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