Tuesday, June 1, 2004
New Standard 'iVDR' for Removable HDD Launched
Posted by James Fee in "HARDWARE" @ 11:00 AM
" I-O Data Device Inc recently released the "USB2-iVDR-20," a removable hard disk drive (HDD), the first product based on the Information Versatile Disk for Removable usage (iVDR) standard established in March 2002. The iVDR promoting consortium is formed by 40 firms, including HDD makers such as Hitachi Global Storage Technologies Ltd and Fujitsu Ltd, in addition to I-O Data, Sanyo Electric Co, Ltd, Sharp Corp and Toyota Motor Corp."
Another "standard". :roll: In my little brain, I always thought of a standard as something that everyone agreed on. Microsoft Word Document, Adobe Acrobat, MP3, JPEG, TCP/IP all are standards that people all agree upon. Well here comes iVDR (its actually been out for a couple years, but hey what hasn't). iVDR stands for "Information Versatile Disk for Removable usage" and looks like one of those old 8mm Exabyte tapes we all used to use years ago. The big question I have is WHY? "According to Sanyo Electric, it has a merit compared with other recording media in that it does not need to change the format even when its storage capacity is enlarged." Hmm, since when has this ever been trouble for consumers? Formats change all the time and none of us have been bitten (well other than Jason an his undying support of WMA9) by a format not being supported. Formats changing is what makes the IT economy work.
I guess the two questions we all need to ask ourselves is why do we need a 20 GB portable hard drive reader in our cars and what will Iomega do about this (OK, I know you weren't thinking about the second question)? The example given by the stakeholders in the "standard" is "users can download map information into the removable HDD via a PC, and then check the information by inserting the HDD into a car navigation system". That must be a big map to need such a large hard drive.
Just another "standard" looking for a problem that doesn't exist.
Another "standard". :roll: In my little brain, I always thought of a standard as something that everyone agreed on. Microsoft Word Document, Adobe Acrobat, MP3, JPEG, TCP/IP all are standards that people all agree upon. Well here comes iVDR (its actually been out for a couple years, but hey what hasn't). iVDR stands for "Information Versatile Disk for Removable usage" and looks like one of those old 8mm Exabyte tapes we all used to use years ago. The big question I have is WHY? "According to Sanyo Electric, it has a merit compared with other recording media in that it does not need to change the format even when its storage capacity is enlarged." Hmm, since when has this ever been trouble for consumers? Formats change all the time and none of us have been bitten (well other than Jason an his undying support of WMA9) by a format not being supported. Formats changing is what makes the IT economy work.
I guess the two questions we all need to ask ourselves is why do we need a 20 GB portable hard drive reader in our cars and what will Iomega do about this (OK, I know you weren't thinking about the second question)? The example given by the stakeholders in the "standard" is "users can download map information into the removable HDD via a PC, and then check the information by inserting the HDD into a car navigation system". That must be a big map to need such a large hard drive.
Just another "standard" looking for a problem that doesn't exist.
