Tuesday, October 31, 2006

How big are the 2.5 IDE HDD Market?

ICY DOCK is ready to launch MB448UR that is perfect replacement for floppy drive and targeting 2.5 IDE HDD Market. The outlook of MB448UR looks similar to MB448AR (http://www.icydock.com/product/mb448ar.html)

In the beginning, my point of view on 2.5 HDD market was not great. Because most of 2.5 HDD are already build into laptop, but slowly I found out there is a lot of 2.5 HDD users such as doctors, lawyers and college students that need something that is portable, light weight and compact size.

Other then the Market that I mention above, who else you think needs a 2.5 HDD compact version of external enclosure with a internal housing that replace floppy drive?

ICY DOCK MB448UR is an internal device that replaces floppy drive, with a push of a bottom it will pop out a tray in which become a portable 2.5 HDD drive with USB 2.0 build-in interface connection.

What does the general consumer think about this new item that is ready to be launch by ICY DOCK?

8 comments:

  1. I'm sorry, but as cool as this sounds, and it does sound cool, in order to be like a floppy it would have to have widespread use. Now, doesn't the Shuttle do basically the same thing?
    I guess considering that no one uses floppys any more…
    Also, floppys were very inexpensive. Considering that 2.5" HDD are very, very expensive, it's not like your going to have 10 or so lying around.
    Just my take.

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  2. I think he's saying "like a floppy" because you sould copy files to and from it while it's on your desktop, and then when you need to go pop it out and take it with you for use with your notebook.

    Although, given that nearly all computers have USB ports it really is portable/usable on other computers too...

    Seems like a pretty nice idea to me.

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  3. it's nice tool for people who repair or retrive data from laptop. It is not that useful for most people who just use laptop but don't know much about techs. I like this idea, but I am not sure if ide laptop hd enclosure is a great idea as it seems like laptops are also moving toward sata

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  4. I work in a sector of the storage industry for a very large corporation, we are well underway converting every model in our server and blade range to common-caddied SAS/SATA 2.5" hotswap backplanes. The industry is very committed to moving all but the largest storage arrays to 2.5" SFF drives due to the higher physical densities that can be acheived and the lower power consumption.

    For the consumer this translates into larger volumes being manufactured which will bring more drives at lower prices to the low-end as well (this is already happening in the SFF PC market). 2.5" is definitely the future.

    How about a dual or quad 2.5" array unit that fits into a single 5.25" bay in an ordinary PC? Certainly I'd love caddied 2.5" drives in the (unused) external 3.5" slots in my PC. Add USB too and I can take it anywhere - truly portable data!

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  5. This is a great device and I look forward to placing one in each of my systems, I know quite a few people who would endear it, enthusiast and otherwise. A couple of groups that would endear this prod are Web developers, coders, graphics designers, and photographers. And those are just to name a few...

    This is definitely a stepping place for more though I agree, lets touch sata with it too. I think there should be trays for BOTH...

    AB

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  6. first of all, forget about floppies. the people that need them have already purchased USB floppy.

    secondly, make a 2.5" external version of your 3.5" version, but focus on SATA, no more ATA-6. make it hotswappable and make it compatible with one of your desktop lines. some of the mini-sas models on server-end do like having hotswappable capability. you guys are cool in that you're bringing server-level products to consumers =^).

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  7. Another perspective... I'm building a Lian Li PC-300VA microATX case with your MB453SPF multi-bay and one of these MB448AR units. I'll run 3 raptors in the multi-bay, one OS, one Apps, one data (I'm a photographer). I'll use Windows Image to make backups of the OS and Apps drives onto a removable bootable 2.5" 7200RPM 100GB IDE drive. If the OS or App drives crash I can insert the 2.5" in the MB448AR and I'll have "fast laptop" HD performance I can run "as is" or I can restore either Raptor image. Also, I can then make another removable, perhaps with a slower but larger drive as my data/backup drive. As laptop hard drives get larger, this will be very attractive possibility.

    I have found a few places that are selling the MB448AR but I don't see where one can buy additional drive carriers. ???

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  8. 2.5" hd's are just getting started!

    although SAS and not SATA, the newly released Savvio 15k 2.5" drive is a harbringer for thigns to come. SATA will start seeing exposure because of AMD's mini-DTX platform, which will be used in a coming breed of new small workstations. fujitsu is releasing 300GB drives "real soon now" (q1 2007), and 500GB is around the corner. with that kind of storage density, having three drives inside a very small slim computer would make for some truly outstanding performance.

    i think the size would make it ideal for your drive bay products (the current 3x5.25 slot 5-drive bay). a slotted 2.5" bay could fit probably one or two more drives while taking up considerably less vertical.

    its amazing seeing this community blog: i aplaud your open customer interaction. it is seriously strengthening my consideration of your products. my main reservation as i'm placing this order is that the current 5-drive 3x3.5" bay unit only has one SATA connector for the five drives -- a potentially serious bandwidth choke! the WD5000YS2 will quite probably saturate that.

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