A Tale of Two Hard Disks

Comparison of disk holders

by Garf Lucas

Follows on from Tale of Two Hard Disks

Amacom FlipDisk

SSI removable hard disk bay

Origin

UK - using components from around the globe.

Taiwan.

Hot swappable?

Yes - can be connected and disconnected while Windows is running.

No - computer must be rebooted in order to recognise disk, and switched of at time of insertion and removal.

Fits in one’s jacket pocket?

Yes

No

Connectivity options

Can be connected via… · PCMCIA (personal computer minicard association international association) Or with an extra lead via… · USB (universal serial bus) · Printer port · FireWire

Will only fit in a standard 130mm (5.25”) bay. Cannot be connected to laptop.

Hard drive type

70mm (2.5”) laptop sized

100mm (3.5”) desktop size

Largest capacity disk currently available, 2001-08-07

32GB

76GB

Reliability

Poor especially using USB lead

No problems so far

Cost of shell

£79.50 + VAT

£45.00 + VAT

Cost of largest available hard disk to fit shell

£299.00 +VAT (IBM TravelStar)

£209.00 VAT (IBM DeskStar)

Overall cost of storage per gigabyte, including shell and hard disk

£11.83 + VAT (excludes cost of USB Lead)

£3.34 + VAT