Smash Drive!
Just a little more than a year ago I found myself in a computer crisis. I was in the middle of an urgent project and my desktop froze up. So in a panic I headed down to one of the town’s few computer repair shops. The store owner said he could salvage my hard drive and set me up with a new “used” computer for $250. In hindsight, it was a naive move in my part but I wasn’t able to make a decision on a bigger ticket purchase ($250 is pushing it for me to pull the trigger without spending weeks obsessing about “is this the right thing to do?”) in such a pressure situation. Well, the newer yet used desktop indeed got me out of a jam but I soon replaced it with the Compaq laptop I purchased at Best Buy in January of 2007. As I’m not one to leave things around if they’re not providing function or form, I packed ‘er away in our storage room. However, (late) Spring cleaning inspired yet another move of the desktop, this time to the dumpster.
Sure I should have shipped the ol’ thing off to someone or somewhere in need of a new (used) computer, but I’m a freak when it comes to security and I’m still not certain how much information you can truly erase on your “personal” computer. I was especially concerned about the Hard Drive. So I pulled that out of the computer and, as it really didn’t offer me much promise in the future for even a back up HDD (only 80GB…and internal at that)…I decided the safest way to dispose of it was to let my son and one of his friends smash it to pieces!
I took the protective metal plate off and gave it a few twists and hits of my own first. But most of the damaging blows came from the “boys”. It was indeed interesting to take a gander at the guts of a hard disk drive. Lots of moving parts, most of which are foreign to me as far as how they function or “drive” the hard disk. That’s the downside to a HDD - lots of parts and most of them moving. That means more room for failure.
As the HDD was nearing closer to bits and pieces, it occurred to me that one day most all HDD will be in the scrap pile. The flash drive technology will inevitably overpower the personal computing world as it offers faster operating speeds with a longer lifespan. Of course, the major barrier to this happening sooner than later is the current price of flash drive vs. hard drive technology. Even more, the largest flash drive manufactured to date only offers 32GB of storage capacity. Less than half of the one that’s now scattered across my landfill.
Macintosh lovers, especially those owning the new Mac Air, are most likely going to be the “early adopters” of flash drive technology used in larger capacities. This is because Mac Air users are looking to 16 and 32GB flash drives to help expand the storage capacity.
CFgear thought about gettin’ Steve Jobs on the horn and offer Macintosh branded flash drives, perhaps specifically customized for Mac Air users. We’re kind of realists around here though…not sure how likely it is we’d ever get a chance to even bounce the idea off someone even a few arm lengths away. The sweet news is we know we’re blessed with clients that find us refreshingly accessible and able to bring their bulk flash drive project alive promptly and precisely.
So here’s to a smashing great journey thus far!