At this point, it looks like they will start integrating them into newly purchased laptops in early March. So, they should be more generally available in late March / early April. Something to look forward to.

Something to look forward to.

Yeah, for some of us, so the prices of 40s and 60s comes down.

Indeed. This would drive the prices down on the entire spectrum of drives.

This is great. I have about 60 rips sitting on my pc that I can't even listen to! It's not worth me swapping out my 48 for a 60 to only gain less than 12gb.. I'd rather wait for the 80gb. This is great news!

I'll just have to keep track of everyone replacing their 30 and 40 gig drives so I can pick a used one up!

What's the limit on total space? 137 gigs?

Greetings!

At the moment, the maximum is a nominal 120GB with 2 x 60GB drives. In practical terms, emplode registers that as about 111GB. With the 80s, you should be at around 160GB nominal with practical of around 152GB registered by emplode, if my rough guess is close.

That limit of 120GB can be overcome with an update of the player kernal I think. But didn't someone mention that there is a hardware limitation where we can't get over 25,000 tracks or something?

But didn't someone mention that there is a hardware limitation where we can't get over 25,000 tracks or something?

IIRC it's not a hardware limit, it's the player software, 2.0 to be specific. In version 3.0 this will be changed, I think.

That limit of 120GB can be overcome with an update of the player kernal I think. But didn't someone mention that there is a hardware limitation where we can't get over 25,000 tracks or something?

There's a software limitation whereby the player will forget where it is over reboot if playing a playlist of more than about 11,000 songs; and another one whereby writing dynamic data fails if there are more than 28,656 files (i.e. songs and playlists). Both of these will be overcome post-2.0.

I can't remember whether we've actually yet applied the LBA48 patch that mlord kindly sent us; if we haven't, there's also a kernel limit of 128GB, or about 137 billion bytes, per drive.

Peter

Thanks Peter. That explains why my empeg will start from "4 songs ago" when I am playing the root playlist shuffled (~18,000 tracks).

Long ago, I never thought there would even be talk of "post 2.0". Then I thought post 2.0 would only apply to other products. I know it's still a long way off, but it's great to hear that you're bringing us along.

I can't remember whether we've actually yet applied the LBA48 patch that mlord kindly sent us;

Important note: Remember that the first version of that patch he sent you was flawed. He later updated that area of the code with fixes. When the time comes that you want to update the stock kernel with this patch, you'll probably want to use the latest version of his code, not the first version he sent you.

Oh, and don't forget to update the kernel in the disk builder images with this code, too. No use running a big drive if you can't partition and format it properly to begin with.

Hijack already supports drives up to 2TB in size, which is fine until the next time the player needs an upgrade..

Cheers

Important note: Remember that the first version of that patch he sent you was flawed. He later updated that area of the code with fixes. When the time comes that you want to update the stock kernel with this patch, you'll probably want to use the latest version of his code, not the first version he sent you.

Are you dead sure about that? I remember that sequence of events for the jiffies patch, but can only find one version of the LBA48 patch in my alpha list archive.

I'll probably just grab the latest Hijack anyway.

Peter

but can only find one version of the LBA48 patch in my alpha list archive.

Right. Exactly. He only posted it to the alpha list once, when he'd first written it. He's made more fixes to it since then, and those fixes are in his published code at the Hijack site.

The fixed lba48 stuff by itself is attached.

Unfortunately, I cannot locate an empeg-specific version of this any more (other than what's hidden inside Hijack's massive patches..), but this one should backport without much trouble if need be.

Cheers

"IBM's 4,200rpm Travelstar 80GN will be its first 80GB notebook product and will be priced at $420 in the retail market."

Hmm... maybe I'll wait a bit.

wow.

Yeah, I'm thinkin 2 30's or 40's after the 80's come out.

I've already got a 48 and a 60 so I don't have many options.. (And I'm staring at 16GB of music that I can't load on yet.)

And I'm staring at 16GB of music that I can't load on yet

Is there any worse feeling than that ?

Exactly what are you loading into your Empeg?

I've managed to use roughly ~15gigs on my Empeg, that makes it about 3400 tracks (?).

One side effect of getting married is doubling your CD collection. I had 400 CD's prior to that too.

I DJ with the empeg and you have to have all sorts of music for the odd ball request. I even have a few sound effect libraries for when I run live sound for comedy shows.

Greetings!

I am almost out of space. I am down to about 500MB free, and I have 5 new CDs to load. I hope those 80s become available soon!!! Do you have a link for that article you quoted with the price? So far, none of the resellers have them. Thanks!

I've been searching for 60 gb drives but nobody seems to list them. Anybody know a place which has 60gb's in stock?

I have not seen the IBM ones around for a while. There seem to be some clones available, though. I have been haunting harddrive.com lately, simply because they are on IBM / Hitachi's reseller list, so they seem to get the drives faster than many of the other online sellers. You might want to do a search through some of the pricing sites to get the most recent vendors.

Hi

This Place seem to have 60's from 3 different companies, you could give them a try.

(Not affiliated, just a happy customer)

i accually saw a company with them in there catalog that i got in the mail and i tried calling them but i was on hold for 45min and said forget it, i assume its for pre ordereds etc. Let me find the companys

Ok i found it, its a companys called Other World Computing. The advertisment is in the back of the febuary 2003 MacWorld. it list the 80gig drive and says to call listed under price. there number is 1-800-275-456

Paul, here's the link. It's from last November so it's not that up-to-date, but it's the only site I found with a price. I just did a search on "80GB notebook" through Google and it came right up.

Everyone else, give www.pricewatch.com a try for the 60's. They are going for $176 shipped, not bad.

Remember that IBM doesn't make notebook harddrives anymore. They sold the business and its technology. I wouldn't worry about quality (IBM Travelstars were regarded as being the best) because I think it's the same drive. Any IBM's you find have probably been sitting around for a while, which isn't really a bad thing I guess since 60GB drives are pretty new.

Ah, didn't think of using pricewatch. Thanks. I'll browse thru and see what's available.

(Their called Hitachi Travelstars now. Same exact drives.)

Well IBM has announced the 80GB laptop drive for their ThinkPad Range.
Click Here for the announcement details - this link has links to a PDF info file and pricing.

The drive costs $499 according to that announcement.
So, I'd expect them to start showing up pretty soon in regular outlets. Don't know if the price is good or not.

The availability date is given as May 9.

I also note this comment:


Limitations: Continuous use of the ThinkPad 80 GB HDD, as in reading long video files, will impact battery life.




Hopefully the 60's and below will start coming down in price as well now.

Maybe the empeg won't have enough power to run two of these?

We will certainly find out...

I think you meant to say that you will certainly find out. Unless, of course, you've taken up the royal "we"

No, he means that he'll try it and then tell the rest of us. So we will eventually find out.

Isn't it "we" as in "me & my empegs" (I know they're not alive but hey, they do have unique personalities)

I've decided that even if these things are $400 at launch (that's a pure guess on initial price), they will be cheaper per gig gained than a 60gb for $171 (going rate at pricewatch.com).

I have to replace my 48gb drive now. A 60gb drive will "just" barely get me going again, but will not really allow me any expansion past the amount of music sitting idle on my PC.

So..

60GB replacement for a 48GB yeilds 12GB additional storage for $171. 60GB = $14.25 per GB gained.

or...

80GB replacement for a 48GB yeilds 32GB additional storage for $400. 80GB = $12.50 per GB gained.

So I'll be getting a 80GB when they come out. The above math ONLY works if you can actually use the additional storage. Paying for any capacity that you will never need is a waste of money. I always say "buy it when you need it". Just look how cheap you can get a 60GB now! They used to be just under $400 and they will drop even more when the 80's come out.

Greetings!

True. I will try it, and let everyone know. Of course, I do not think I will be alone in testing this out. So, we will all know soon.

As to the use of "we", it was not intentional. But I have been told that I can be a royal nuisance sometimes...

Just look how cheap you can get a 60GB now!

Assuming that you can find the 5400rpm/7200rpm 9.5mm versions, that is...

I'm looking to replace the 20Gb disk in my Vaio, and it needs to be 9.5mm.

I thought the rotation speed wasn't that critical. Maybe in the Vaio, but not as much in the empeg.

Yeah, for the empeg, the rotation speed isn't critical. However, I'm looking for one for my Vaio.

I've still got about 20Gb to go before I fill up my 60Gb empeg. My laptop, on the other hand, is a different story.