An MP3 player with 2,000 gigabytes capacity

[Exo]

It could be possible by 2005...

http://www2.cex.co.uk/cex_feature.asp?ct=1&id=7674

[turdburglar]

With storage capacity of that magnitude we will only need one memory card for all of our stuff (besides backup of course)

Imagine this: You get up in the morning, ang grab your MP3 player (which just so happens is also your PC's HDD..) so you take it out of its front-loading slot on your PC and head out.

Like anyone needs that kind of storage.. yet.

[CrisRose]

[Edit]
I thought a terrabyte was 1,000,000mb not 1,000,000,000,000mb

After all is 1gb not 1,000mb?
[/Edit]


sounds too good to be true to me...

After all:

SD is up to 1gb now
CF is up to 2gb? now
Microdrives are just over 5gb
1.8 HDD are up to 60gb

this new one is 2000gb and the same size as the SD card?

very questionable.

[Exo]

Actually, they've made a misprint & I simply cut & paste.
Of course, 2TB = approximately one trillion bytes (2,000,000,000,000 b, NOT MB!)
Or 2,048 gigabytes.

Who knows if this is still true, we can dream

I like the idea of a postage stamp drive that you plug into your Home PC, MP3 player, Car Stereo or Phone - the way of the future perhaps.
Or perhaps all just wireless in the end.

[CrisRose]

i was gonna say, i did think that was a typo - what a typo though!!!!

i have enough trouble trying not to lose or swallow my SD cards, let alone all my HDD

i also had my 200gb HDD die on me the other week, and as i found out, it's hard to back that much up!

[Haku]

I think the only comment I can make on this is:

*bang* *bang* *bang*, *bang* *bang* *bang*, *bang* *bang* *bang*.

That's the sound of flash memory manufacturers nailing the coffin lid on harddrive manufacturers

[Exo]

Originally Posted by Haku

I think the only comment I can make on this is:

*bang* *bang* *bang*, *bang* *bang* *bang*, *bang* *bang* *bang*.

That's the sound of flash memory manufacturers nailing the coffin lid on harddrive manufacturers

LOL, that is so true !!!

BTW, the web site owners have now corrected the error of 2,000,000,000,000MB which was stated.

[y0da]

this is showing up all over the web ...saw it first on www.engadget.com

the point most pple bring up is that just cause it could in theory hold up to 2 TB doesn't mean there going to produce a card with that much storage...aparently the sony memory stick can in theory hold up to 2TB as well but that sure hasn't happened yet.....still it would be nice to dream ....and if i have a player with an SD slot on it by then or even better a PDA with an SD slot and they do make one i will be in heaven

[XavierGr]

It appears so. The new card will be called the 'µcard' (that's 'mu-card' for those not of a greek bent) and will be launched at the Taipei Electronics Show in October.

Mu-Card?? How do you say that? "Moo" like the cows sound, or "me" like meat.
Because in Greek this letter is the small for "M", called "me" like the "m" from "meat". So its "Me"-Card not Mu!

Anyway I think that they will call it micro-card because the same letter is used to represent 10^-6.

Incredible device though (if its a true story)!
I am very thrilled listening to such upcoming devices. Its like midnight camp stories....though I am very curious about its price, if you know what I mean

[NYC_Jeff]

Originally Posted by Haku

I think the only comment I can make on this is:

*bang* *bang* *bang*, *bang* *bang* *bang*, *bang* *bang* *bang*.

That's the sound of flash memory manufacturers nailing the coffin lid on harddrive manufacturers

Dead right. Why have a hard drive in your home computer with all those moving parts and prone to mechanical failure when you can have a small, portable card. Wowee wow this could be huge if the price is right.

[IwitFCC]

Quote:
It appears so. The new card will be called the 'µcard' (that's 'mu-card' for those not of a greek bent) and will be launched at the Taipei Electronics Show in October.

i think µ sounds more like "mue" - it doesn't have a hard sounding e like me has but not quite like moo

[meowsqueak]

The fundamental limitation of flash-based memory is the maximum number of block writes (typically around 100,000 - 1,000,000 writes per block). Modern CF controllers do wear levelling to try and maximise their lifetime, but the limitation means you cannot replace a frequently written harddisk in a modern PC with a flash card.

Modern operating systems with virtual memory require a read-write file for paging. This will *kill* flash memory very quickly.

Now if someone can develop flash with unlimited writes, that would be good, but there are other problems with flash (performance for one) that mean HDDs will be preferable for a long time.

And speaking of typos, what's so impressive about a 2GiB flash card (see thread title)?

[matt]

i think he means 2.000GB or 2TB

[danielo]

It's an error in the title, It's a 2000 Gb flash card, that's more impressive.

Now just imagine You have 500 Gb of data and 1000 Gb of Mp3's on your flash card.... And for any reason, this one crashes .............. that would be real pleasant

[XavierGr]

Originally Posted by IwitFCC

Quote:
It appears so. The new card will be called the 'µcard' (that's 'mu-card' for those not of a greek bent) and will be launched at the Taipei Electronics Show in October.

i think µ sounds more like "mue" - it doesn't have a hard sounding e like me has but not quite like moo

Sorry to dissapoint you but when pronounced in the alphabet (because in vocabulary comes with more letters and not alone) we say it as "me".

But as I mentioned earlier they all say it micro as scientific way.

In a search that I did though, many say that we will not see such card, even if there is the possibility of 2TB. I hope that these guys keep their promise, but in the end we will never see this kind of Jump in data storage....IMHO!

[danielo]

The right way to pronounce it is "miou" (in french) so in english it should be "mue" or "me-u"

[Exo]

It's an error in the title, It's a 2000 Gb flash card, that's more impressive.

Oops, yes well spotted danielo & matt
I've changed the subject name to "2,000 gigabytes", I was confused by a typo earlier in the day on the news article itself which also had an error.

2TB is either 2000 or 2048 gigabytes,

Not megabytes (figure varies on how you measure it - most disc makers now measure 1MB as 1000K, not 1024 - this change has resulted in several lawsuits in America).

[turdburglar]

Originally Posted by rshea

most disc makers now measure 1MB as 1000K, not 1024 - this change has resulted in several lawsuits in America.

As well it should. It's frusterated me for a very long time, explaining to friends/family/customers why their 40GB HDD is only showing 37.

[Mobin]

Originally Posted by XavierGr

Sorry to dissapoint you but when pronounced in the alphabet (because in vocabulary comes with more letters and not alone) we say it as "me".

Yep, in Greek it's 'me', not 'myu'. In fact, most Greek letters are pronounced wrong. 'Beta' doesn't start with a 'b' sound, 'Gamma' doestn't start with a hard 'g' sound, etc... I live in Canada, and I'm not Greek, but once upon a time I learned how to speak it for some unknown reason

I'm not overly familiar with these types of memory cards, so I was wondering how the data access speed is. Is it pretty much instantaneous? 2 TB is a lot of data for a HD to search through, but I don't know whether it would be a problem for a flash card.

[Arm_The_Homeless]

rshea wrote:
most disc makers now measure 1MB as 1000K, not 1024 - this change has resulted in several lawsuits in America.

As well it should. It's frusterated me for a very long time, explaining to friends/family/customers why their 40GB HDD is only showing 37.

Sorry to frustrate you even more (and excuse my ignorance...) but if it was measured as 1000K, it should be 40GB total, and if measured as 1024K, it should be 40.96GB, should it not?

I thought the 3GB was used for internal files and the like that were required for the player to work. Never realized it had anything to do with how many KB are in a MB. If someone could just clarify I'd appreciate it.

[FlameGrilled]

All i know is, i'd be ferking paranoid if i carried that much data around in a compact form such as a slimelne 'card' stye drive or (god forbid) a mega-resolution CD/DVD disc type affair.

Think of the potential for an opps - and as anyone knows, recovering data from a physically wrecked electronic or mag storage aint easy. Think of a postage stamp sized memory card getting trodden on an wrecked.. of that kinda capacity.

I'll stick to low-tech thanks, at least low-tech gives you a second chance if you have an oops.

[denmad]

Sorry to break your bubbles guys, but the 'µcard' is only a memory access technology and not a storage technology. It is a memory access technology capable of addressing up to 2TB of memory, if flash memory achieve that kind of density, and that is a very, very big if. The 'µcard' is nothing but an alternative to memory card formats such as compact flash, SD and memory stick, which all uses flash memory as the storage media. Once again, they are not releasing a 2TB memory card.

[NYC_Jeff]

Originally Posted by denmad

Sorry to break your bubbles guys, but the 'µcard' is only a memory access technology and not a storage technology. It is a memory access technology capable of addressing up to 2TB of memory, if flash memory achieve that kind of density, and that is a very, very big if. The 'µcard' is nothing but an alternative to memory card formats such as compact flash, SD and memory stick, which all uses flash memory as the storage media. Once again, they are not releasing a 2TB memory card.

What's your source on this? I don't know the accuracy of the article, but it clearly refers to a 2 TB card.

Take the news that a Taiwanese technology firm will be unveiling a two terabyte memory card this autumn. You heard us right, that's around 2,000 gigabytes of storage on a card little bigger than a thick stamp. Can it be true?

It appears so. The new card will be called the 'µcard' (that's 'mu-card' for those not of a greek bent) and will be launched at the Taipei Electronics Show in October.

That doesn't sound like a memory access technology to me, that sounds like a card.