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Technology Stocks : Disk Drive Sector Discussion Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Stitch who wrote (3386)	5/25/1998 12:07:00 AM
From: Tom Simpson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9256

Stitch, >What is going to be the "sweet spot" in terms of capacities, >performance, heads, and media? I do think you are on to something, but I think its going to work out to a case of two sweet spots, one at or about 2GB, the other well north of 4GB. The interesting opportunity is the el cheapo PC down around 500 bucks. The question is who can put a 2GB drive in it for under 60-80 bucks (grey beards might remember that is what a floppy drive used to cost)? Cost factors lead you to a single platter. Seagate and WDC have made noises about targeting that. I haven't run across anything out of Quantum but you would expect something out of the creators of Bigfoot. I do think a whole lot of these kinds of units are going to ship in the future. Its what every high school and college kid needs, and its plenty for normal everyday business and web surfing, unless your into dirty pictures which eat gobs of space. Has anyone run across any specific product announcements aimed at that low end market? Best....Tom

To: Stitch who wrote (3386)	5/25/1998 1:25:00 AM
From: shane forbes	Respond to of 9256

Stitch: Guessing 1 year from today on capacities only these will be the hard drives offered: 4 G for a sub $500 PC, 16 Gig for a $2,000 PC and then some monster number for a typical Server - maybe 40-80 Gig. This does not answer your question about "sweet" spots because I really don't have the slightest clue how all of this is going to be played out! Somehow there has to be a purpose for all this client storage and somehow these companies have to make a profit. I am not sure about how they approach either today or even one year from today. But if history is any guide they'll find a way. The only one I feel comfortable over is high end storage - there will always be a very hihg need for this. [Better one year from today all the above will look laughably low.] Shane. (don't have a clue about the heads etc - too technical for me)

To: Stitch who wrote (3386)	5/25/1998 10:40:00 PM
From: Yogi - Paul	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 9256

Stitch, <What is going to be the "sweet spot" in terms of capacities, performance, heads, and media?> I approached this question from popular software angle some months ago. Updating here with some assumptions: Win 98---------------- 295 MB full (all bells and whistles) Office 97------------- 335 MB full w/Pub97 and clip art Quicken 6------------- 15 MB Duke Nukem------------ 45 MB Windows On Wall St---- 5 MB (or similar) Software for following Sound card Digital camera Scanner/fax TV tuner Palm Pilot interface total------ 30 MB (wild ass guess) Data in files which stays resident on HD for more than 30 days-250 MB (my average over 3 months) Total -------------------------------- 975 MB Now, I suppose AOL and kiddie games might add another 25% but you are still looking at 2.1 GB being adequate for the average small business or home user. Double that to give the consumer a feeling that their equipment won't be obsolete in less than a year. My conclusion Sweet spot= 4 GB Trend- fewer heads, fewer platters, huge competition, more emphasis on ruggedness, access speed, fault free operation. Disclaimer-- I hate to fly and have been doing it all afternoon. Fortified by bad airline food and worse airline scotch. Encourage all to point out glaring errors without prejudice. Yogi