You could always get one of these I got one and for the price it works pretty well.

Does it work with an old-fashioned, laptop-style USB 1.1 port? I wonder how long 20-30GB would take to transfer....

edit: And yes, I can multiply, just too lazy on Friday afternoon.

edit2: Too lazy to spell-check, plus I now can see peter's post with transfer speeds.

There is also this 80GB external USB 2.0 / ethernet hard drive for $99 after rebate. Looks like a good deal. Apparently you can buy many and use them as one large volume if you wanted.

Yes, USB 2.0 devices should work on USB 1.1 hosts but obviously their speed suffers.

Excellent! One ultra-large volume spanning them in the future, or for $100 smackers right now I could have four 20GB, ready-for-Karma -over-Ethernet partitions full of FLAC files!

They also had the 160GB drive for $200 after rebate on that site..

Speaking of "raid thingy", I've been impressed by what I've seen/read of the Accusys ACS-7630 kit. It's basically a box with an inline raid-5 controller. You put 3 large IDE hard drives in it, connect it to an IDE controller that can recognize > 137GB drives, and it appears to your machine as a single large IDE drive with space equivalent to 2 of the 3 drives. You can hot-replace a bad drive and will auto-rebuild the replacement drive, all in hardware.

It seems that the box itself, which takes up two half-height 5.25 slots (er, or one full height...) in a desktop or server machine has another potential: put it in a firewire box and now you've got up to 600-640GB of PORTABLE RAID-5 FIREWIRE storage, all at a pre-drive cost of ~$600-650 if you shop well. I've seen the unit for $499, but today's search resulted in a low of $528ish.

Obviously, I've been lusting after this for a bit.

-brendan

got a link ?

Product page:
http://www.accusys.com.tw/7630.htm

Cheapest links found via froogle.google.com:

black:
http://www.pcnation.com/web/details.asp?item=C46158
or
http://www.sparco.com/cgi-bin/wfind2?spn=A64C851


white:
http://www.pcnation.com/web/details.asp?item=C46159
or
http://www.sparco.com/cgi-bin/wfind2?spn=A64C951

-brendan

Gawd! I really dislike Bust Buy.

After reading about the Ximeta Network Drive. I stopped by the local Best Buy. They had the 160G drives in stock. I hustled one up to the checkout, presented my credit card, and the Idiots insisted that I must sign sign for the purchase on a digitizing pad. I don't do that! I explained that if they continued to insist there would be no sale. They continued, and there wasn't.

Guess I'm going to have to limit my future bestbuys to pocket change.

I wouldn't buy any electronics at Best Buy under any condition. If I had to, I would only use a credit card. Just an extra level of protection.

Can I ask why you refuse to sign on a digitizing pad ?

Although I do it anyway under protest, it creeps me out too. I always get the feeling that digital images of my signature are being captured, saved, and transferred unencrypted in ways that cannot be good for my privacy and security. Paranoia?

digital images of my signature are being captured, saved, and transferred unencrypted

Your point being?

How many checks have you ever signed? How many forms have you ever put a signature on? How many times have you used a pen to sign for a credit card purchase? How many letters have you ever written? Give me any one of the thousands of those, and in 30 seconds with my scanner I will have your digitized signature.

Now, what will I do with it? Perhaps I'm just unimaginative, or not criminally enough inclined, but I can't think of anything I could do that would be to my advantage or your detriment.

Maybe I'm just naive, but I think you are being needlessly cautious, to the point where the actual inconveniences far outweigh any potential harm.

tanstaafl.

Paranoia?

I think you should start going by "Rusty Shackleford"

in 30 seconds with my scanner I will have your digitized signature.

My only point being, we've eliminated the scanning step by incorporating it at PoP for no legitimate reason I am able to discern. (It's not like, e.g., they're actually matching my sig against a database to see if it's "really me.")

the actual inconveniences

The inconvenience of the old way: I sign an original paper copy and rip up my carbon? Seemed to work just fine....

But point taken....

I love that guy! Boomhower, too.

we've eliminated the scanning step by incorporating it at PoP for no legitimate reason

No, actually, there is a very good reason, the same reason you sign the paper receipt at less "electronicized" places. That signature is stored with the record of your purchase, so that when you come back to them and say, "Hey -- I never bought that! You must have the wrong credit card number here." they can then say to you, "Sir, is this your signature?")

The inconvenience of the old way: I sign an original paper copy and rip up my carbon? Seemed to work just fine....

I'm sorry, I should have been more clear. I meant inconveniences like not having that 160 GB drive you went to all the trouble of shopping for and trying to purchase, but now don't have because you didn't want to digitize your signature.



tanstaafl.