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The End of the Optical Drive (Page 3)
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Oisín
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Oct 21, 2010, 09:02 PM
 
It’s partly—but really to any great degree—about the weight. But it’s more about the size. The expandability and more power would mean exactly squat-zilch to her. Even just the MBA will be aeons faster than her current machine, and she’s not complaining (much) about the speed of that.

But the extra inches from 11” to 13” means it won’t fit in her bag, which means she’ll need a bigger bag … which is a hassle. The extra kilo is of course still a factor, too, since she does have a long way to and from work (living in Sweden, working a good three hours away in Denmark).

If she had the choice between an 11” MBA and a 13” MB for exactly the same price, I have no doubt whatsoever she’d choose the MBA. She’d probably not even use the MB if she got it, ’cause she’d find it too big to bring along. The MBA would be a much better fit for her. And even though her circumstances are very specific and not too common, I think there are a lot of people who consider half the weight and a few extra inches off the size a much stronger selling point for than the difference in specs between the MBA and the MB. Thinking in specs is the mark of a geek; thinking in purely practical, everyday practicalities is the sign of a non-geek.
     
Laminar
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Oct 21, 2010, 09:04 PM
 
Originally Posted by voodoo View Post
A 1.4 or even 1.6 GHz 800MHz bus machine has no future outside 2011. That's it. A MacBook is still useful in 2013 or 2014 even.
Remind us why this in objectively unequivocally true? Will the requirements for web browsing, email, and word processing suddenly change? Is this what the Mayans were predicting?
     
voodoo
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Oct 21, 2010, 09:27 PM
 
Originally Posted by Oisín View Post
Thinking in specs is the mark of a geek; thinking in purely practical, everyday practicalities is the sign of a non-geek.
That's true! And let me be the first one to tell you that I'm a geek and so are you.

Now that means, obviously, that we both think in specs. Unlike you though, I don't find it appealing or in any way easy to condone when I see tech companies, such as our beloved Apple, abuse this feature of the non-geek.

I realize that most people are computer tech illiterate. That doesn't mean I'm going to be cheerleading for companies that abuse said illiteracy by making a pretty box. The MBA and the 'optical free' fantasy of Steve is abusing technical illiteracy IMO.

The value of the machine is far far less, yet it is sold for extra premium. Now as you say, perhaps people don't care about that, but even so - they should be aware of it.

Originally Posted by Laminar

Remind us why this in objectively unequivocally true? Will the requirements for web browsing, email, and word processing suddenly change? Is this what the Mayans were predicting?
Experience. I got my first iBook in 2002 and it was too slow to use in 2005. Got another iBook in 2005 and it couldn't handle Flash video of 2008. Got an iMac in 2007 and it could barely handle the iTunes store in 2010. My father's Powerbook of 2004 (a high level portable of the time) could not handle iLife of 2008 and has serious problems with Flash video and isn't all that good with H.264 either. Browsing the web is a slow affair on the 2004 PB, and limited only to low graphic websites.

Point is, that it takes about 3 years for the average Mac to become too slow in keeping up with the demands of the day. Sure the machine runs all the original apps at original speed, but the world changes around it and the internet becomes way more demanding even than that machine was ever designed for.

Why am I explaining this to you? What geek doesn't know this? Laminar??
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Oisín
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Oct 21, 2010, 09:34 PM
 
I realize that most people are computer tech illiterate. That doesn't mean I'm going to be cheerleading for companies that abuse said illiteracy by making a pretty box. The MBA and the 'optical free' fantasy of Steve is abusing technical illiteracy IMO.

The value of the machine is far far less, yet it is sold for extra premium. Now as you say, perhaps people don't care about that, but even so - they should be aware of it.
I don’t think the MBA in itself is any kind of abuse of technical illiteracy—it fulfils the needs of most people adequately, and it caters to certain needs that neither smaller nor bigger machines do.

The price might be, of course. I honestly have no idea how much extra premium is in the MBA as opposed to, say, the MB (I’m not that much of a geek). But that’s the way corporations work. They know they can’t pull too much over on the geeks who know their shit (the exception here being of course the Mac Pro, which is [or used to be, at least] way overpriced, ’cause its main target group was enterprises and professionals who have no choice but to buy top of the line, pricebedamned); but the non-techies are willing to pay a higher premium, so they end up doing so. It sucks, and of course I don’t agree with it either (I don’t think anyone here does), but it’s reality, and the only thing we can do to change it is … well, not buy the overpriced products. Which I rather gather is exactly what at least you plan on doing.
     
imitchellg5
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Oct 21, 2010, 09:49 PM
 
Originally Posted by voodoo View Post
So setting aside music you have on CDs, movies and giving you a resasonable 30 GB photo collection, I'm confident we can have you all backed up and good to go on one or two Blu-ray discs.
Why would you back up over a disc and have to make whole new backup frequently when you could just get any dime-a-dozen external HDD (or better yet, an NAS) and do that?
     
voodoo
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Oct 21, 2010, 11:41 PM
 
Originally Posted by Oisín View Post
It sucks, and of course I don’t agree with it either (I don’t think anyone here does), but it’s reality, and the only thing we can do to change it is … well, not buy the overpriced products. Which I rather gather is exactly what at least you plan on doing.
Got me there. Though I've always been admonished by my Peezoid using friends that I've been advocating exactly that the last two decades!! But I've always counted in the intangibles of having a Mac, such as the way superior OS and user experience.

It's just that it's not that superior any more and this latest stunt by Steve to iOS-ify the Mac OS and advocate optical-free (expensive) computers puts me in a corner in that regard. I can still recommend the MBP and the iMac, but none of the rest really. And it is hard to recommend the MBP and the iMac when I really don't believe in the optical-free future as a 'value-adding' thing. Quite the opposite and the lack of a BD drive on those HD capable machines is not helping either.

Oh I want to like the Mac and to a certain extent I'll probably always like the Mac, but the only time I ever considered the alternative as a viable option was in 1994 and that was a real low point in the Mac world. Much like now, except then it was the hardware that was lagging so much behind, while the software and OS was second to none. Now it's sort of the other way around :S
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voodoo
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Oct 21, 2010, 11:43 PM
 
Originally Posted by imitchellg5 View Post
Why would you back up over a disc and have to make whole new backup frequently when you could just get any dime-a-dozen external HDD (or better yet, an NAS) and do that?
Cuz that didn't pan that great out for me, now did it? BDs don't fail just by sitting on a shelf. HDs do. And I don't need a frequent backup, just twice a year or so. That's where cheap, disposable media such as BD is a godsend.
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Person Man
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Oct 22, 2010, 12:53 AM
 
Originally Posted by voodoo View Post
Cuz that didn't pan that great out for me, now did it? BDs don't fail just by sitting on a shelf. HDs do. And I don't need a frequent backup, just twice a year or so. That's where cheap, disposable media such as BD is a godsend.
Ah, but optical media can and does fail sitting on a shelf. I know someone whose backup CDs were unreadable the day his hard drive died (granted, he bought the cheapest CD-R's he could find and when he needed them he found the reflective layer flaking off of all of the CDs).

It sucks that your backup hard drive failed at the same time your main hard drive failed, but using hard drives as exclusive backup can still be viable. One should always periodically test their backups so they don't find out during a catastrophe that their backups are useless. Also, multiple redundant backups are a good thing, too.

I have Time Machine running on an external hard drive connected to my desktop computer. In addition I have another external hard drive I connect every three months and do a carbon copy clone to. All downloaded software installers are backed up on yet another hard drive and periodically backed up to DVD and to another portable hard drive I take with my laptop. All my user data (including my personal photos, home movies, ripped and purchased music and data files) are on both my laptop and desktop machines and I synchronize that data between the two machines regularly. All my iTunes media is also copied (though far less regularly) to my HP Media Center PC (which runs Vista and works just fine, thank you) connected to my TV. I test my external hard drives in between backups regularly. I should mention that all external and internal hard drives are different sizes and manufacturers as well and purchased at different times.

It is highly unlikely that all the above will fail all at once. Individual pieces have failed at various times, but even if more than one of the above fails at the same time I still have my data backed up elsewhere. If the main hard drive dies on any of my machines I can be back up and running pretty quickly, with only a minimum of data lost. Granted, I don't really need to back up the OS or my applications, but my time is valuable to me so the clones are a godsend in that regard. Clone the clone copy back to the internal hard drive, copy any personal data not on the clone from my other machine or from the Time Machine backup and I'm back in business in an hour.

The last time I had to rebuild my machine from scratch took me five days with two or three hours per session. Never again will I suffer that.
     
voodoo
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Oct 22, 2010, 01:20 AM
 
Originally Posted by Person Man View Post
Ah, but optical media can and does fail sitting on a shelf. I know someone whose backup CDs were unreadable the day his hard drive died (granted, he bought the cheapest CD-R's he could find and when he needed them he found the reflective layer flaking off of all of the CDs).
Yes everything can fail and will fail, but as you say the quality of the media is an important factor. For backup purposes I'd probably invest in the higher quality optical media discs.

But the fact is that the failure rate of HDs is atrocious, and after about 3-4 years of usage, the failure rate becomes quite high. While backing up perhaps once or twice a year on optical media you'd be certain of having at any given time 90-95% of all your personal data in the shelf. Taking minimal space and costing little money.

Granted it's more boring to make these backups, but they are better.

Originally Posted by Person Man View Post
The last time I had to rebuild my machine from scratch took me five days with two or three hours per session. Never again will I suffer that.
I don't mind that nearly as much as losing almost a decade of personal data, mail, photos etc. It's like the house burned down and yes I just relied on hard drives - two of them in fact. Would I have backed up on optical media as well had that been a viable option? Oh yes.

So yeah I think it is a bit presumptious to declare optical media dead when it can serve a very important part in the Mac ecosystem - not just for backing up, but also for the sharing, transporting and using various data.

People scoff at the 'mere' 50-100 GBs BD offers, saying that 'in the future' this and that will be so cheap and nice, great internet for all and flash drives aplenty - and be that as it may, but BD is available *today*. It's not the 'future' it's the present. And it would be a damn nice thing if Apple could see itself fit to offer at least *current* tech such as BD on their computers.

Regardless, while the future offers all these wonderful toys and chepness, we mere mortals in the now have to deal with the now. And in the now and actually the foreseeable future, there will be optical drives simply because they are useful and make sense.

They don't fit in the MBA though - but I'll be surprised if the optical drives won't outlive the MBA. It's an expensive toy.
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Person Man
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Oct 22, 2010, 02:14 AM
 
Originally Posted by voodoo View Post
But the fact is that the failure rate of HDs is atrocious, and after about 3-4 years of usage, the failure rate becomes quite high. While backing up perhaps once or twice a year on optical media you'd be certain of having at any given time 90-95% of all your personal data in the shelf. Taking minimal space and costing little money.

Granted it's more boring to make these backups, but they are better.
I was responding to your declaration that, based on your personal experience, backing up only to hard drives was not a viable solution. Yes, on average hard drives don't last as long, but if you have several and rotate and test and replace as necessary you can still do just fine with using them exclusively.

I don't mind that nearly as much as losing almost a decade of personal data, mail, photos etc. It's like the house burned down and yes I just relied on hard drives - two of them in fact. Would I have backed up on optical media as well had that been a viable option? Oh yes.
I don't mean to say that my system works for everyone. I'm just challenging the notion that a backup strategy relying just on hard drives is not viable. Yes, hard drives fail more often. I have my working personal data duplicated on both my desktop and laptop (and my pictures are also on my computer at work). That data is also on a Time Machine backup and at least one separate clone hard drive. Four different places, again on different disks with different sizes and different purchase times and from different manufacturers so the likelihood of all of it failing at once is much less.

If I were to use optical media as a backup I would still test the media as often as I test my hard drives and replace any failing media before I needed it in an emergency. There is no foolproof "set it and forget it" backup media, be it hard drives, SSDs, optical media, magnetic tape, "the Cloud," or whatever future storage media gets invented. In fact, I will go so far as to say that in my opinion, no backup media is superior to any other. Even better than using all optical or all hard drive backups would be to use both simultaneously. I personally don't have the time to use optical media to that extent any more, so I compensate for the shortcomings of hard drives by using more of them.

In the future I expect my data will be backed up not just on hard drives but on solid state storage as well (SSDs, flash drives, etc). It's not cost effective for me to use solid state media like that yet, but I predict it will be within the next five years.

So yeah I think it is a bit presumptious to declare optical media dead when it can serve a very important part in the Mac ecosystem - not just for backing up, but also for the sharing, transporting and using various data.
As I said earlier, I'm not challenging your statement on whether or not optical media is dead. I still use it quite frequently myself and I find that having an optical drive in a computer is still a necessity for me even if I don't use it as often as I used to. For both of us, it would seem, optical media is far from dead.

People scoff at the 'mere' 50-100 GBs BD offers, saying that 'in the future' this and that will be so cheap and nice, great internet for all and flash drives aplenty - and be that as it may, but BD is available *today*. It's not the 'future' it's the present. And it would be a damn nice thing if Apple could see itself fit to offer at least *current* tech such as BD on their computers.
While it would be nice to have BD on Apple's machines, one can buy an aftermarket one if they need it now. I realize that Steve Jobs has an ulterior motive (having been CEO of Pixar and currently being Disney's largest shareholder in addition to having the iTunes store) when he claims Blu-Ray is "a bag of hurt," but you also can't ignore the fact that if Apple were to add BD drives to their machines people would also expect the Mac OS to support playing Blu-Ray movies as well, and in order to do that the Mac OS would have to implement all that "protected video path" and "protected audio path" DRM crap throughout (bye, bye Wiretap Pro and Audio Hijack, for instance). And doing that would not advance the Mac OS any more than what Apple has shown us so far with Lion. In fact, it would not advance it at all, only serve to cripple it more in the name of "preventing piracy."

Regardless, while the future offers all these wonderful toys and chepness, we mere mortals in the now have to deal with the now. And in the now and actually the foreseeable future, there will be optical drives simply because they are useful and make sense.

They don't fit in the MBA though - but I'll be surprised if the optical drives won't outlive the MBA. It's an expensive toy.
Yes, but it is nice to have the option of not having an optical drive if you don't need it. As Oisín says, it sounds like his stepmother doesn't need one. You and I do. If I were to buy a MacBook Air as my only laptop I would also buy the external SuperDrive. In the future I bet there will be an option to purchase a MacBook Pro (or plastic MacBook) without an optical drive as well. Even if Apple were to stop making an external optical drive that can be connected to their computers there will be third parties to offer them, just as third parties offered external floppy drives (for those that still needed them) when Apple eliminated those from their lineup.
     
Spheric Harlot  (op)
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Oct 22, 2010, 02:21 AM
 
Originally Posted by voodoo View Post
Experience. I got my first iBook in 2002 and it was too slow to use in 2005. Got another iBook in 2005 and it couldn't handle Flash video of 2008. Got an iMac in 2007 and it could barely handle the iTunes store in 2010.
That was iTunes 9, not your machine.

I have a 2006 MacBook, which is very happily dealing with all the web stuff I bother to throw at it (including, to my amazement, butter-smooth performance in that Google Street View-enhanced HTML5 video generator that hit the web a few months back).

I did install Click2Flash, which much improved the experience, but BY FAR the biggest improvement was Safari 5.

It's my production machine, doing fine with the latest Logic Pro, as well.

3GB RAM, 10.6.4 - and I upgraded the HD for space reasons last autumn.

What are you doing that I'm not?

Originally Posted by voodoo View Post
Point is, that it takes about 3 years for the average Mac to become too slow in keeping up with the demands of the day. Sure the machine runs all the original apps at original speed, but the world changes around it and the internet becomes way more demanding even than that machine was ever designed for.
This is simply no longer true, especially not for consumers.

Heck, it's not even true for me, and I throw some heavy shit at my machine, what with Logic plug-ins and whatnot.
     
Spheric Harlot  (op)
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Oct 22, 2010, 02:36 AM
 
Originally Posted by voodoo View Post
However, $1000 gets your step-mom the MBA 11" or a full fledged MacBook! Expandability and way more power (MBA 1.4 GHz/800MHz bus while MacBook is 2.4 GHz at 1066 MHz bus both at $999, 60 GB storage on the MBA and 250 GB on the MB at the same price)
The test will be the next few months.

Given the choice (and the now nearly-identical resolution), I know I'd jump at the 11.6" MBA over the MacBook.

Unfortunately, my dependence upon Firewire and my (increasingly rare) need for reading the occasional CD on the road mean it has to be the MacBook Pro.

Originally Posted by voodoo View Post
The MBA is 1 Kg and the MB is 2 Kg.

Basically that's the only - ONLY advantage. One thousand grams.

Honestly, I don't think I could ever recomend anyone that over a better machine. 2 Kgs is still way within what a healthy person can carry and the added power does justify the weight…
You OBVIOUSLY don't commute or travel with your computer regularly.

The difference between a 2.5 kg 15 Powerbook and a 2 kg MacBook, for me, was the difference between giving it a long hard look every morning, trying to decide whether I needed it that day, and just having it along, anyway.

An extra kilo on your shoulder for a day is a HUGE, HUGE, HUGE deal if you're out and about.

The size makes a difference, too, in terms of budgeting space in your bag.



A couple disparate musings:

Does the MacBook Air offer enough over the iPad? Because once the iPad gains printing and iTunes-main-computer-independent backup and updating, THAT will quite suffice as the main machine for a good many home users.

The moment you need it for research/collecting/archiving (say, as a student, or a teacher), you need a laptop with the data management capabilities of the abstracted file viewer a.k.a. Finder. The MacBook Air is going to supplant a good part of the MacBook share for that market, for sheer portability.

But how many people really need this capability - that aren't going to shift to the MacBook Pro anyway?

My guess is that the white MacBook will be struck from the line in a year or two.

We'll see.
( Last edited by Spheric Harlot; Oct 22, 2010 at 02:43 AM. )
     
AKcrab
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Oct 22, 2010, 03:10 AM
 
Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot View Post
... Because once the iPad gains ... iTunes-main-computer-independent backup and updating, THAT will quite suffice as the main machine for a good many home users.
Have you seen anything to make you think this is coming? I ask, because the hardest part of the iPad "sell" is explaining that you still need a "computer" to go with the device.

I shudder at the thought of what the buyers of the iPad at Target are being told; i.e. not a damn thing.
     
Spheric Harlot  (op)
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Oct 22, 2010, 04:57 AM
 
Originally Posted by AKcrab View Post
Have you seen anything to make you think this is coming? I ask, because the hardest part of the iPad "sell" is explaining that you still need a "computer" to go with the device.
I haven't seen any indication that it's coming, BUT:

Given that these three things - printing, backup, and updating - are the biggest problem with the platform as the future of home computing, they HAVE to be fixed.

Printing is getting done.

Backup is probably "fairly easily" implemented with a Time Capsule.

Over-the-air updates and activation. Hmm. No idea. But it needs to get done. It's obvious to you and to me; I'm sure it's obvious to Apple.
     
OreoCookie
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Oct 22, 2010, 05:05 AM
 
Originally Posted by voodoo View Post
(super-niche actually, since even the geekiest among us consider it a nice 'second' computer) and the Apple TV is a flop - yet again.
Actually to some it's the primary machine -- especially to those who don't need more performance. I think there is a tendency among geeks for it to be a secondary machine, but it doesn't mean the Air is just a niche product for geeks.

Perhaps one of the reasons is that my hard drives are in service for 5~6 years until it's no longer viable to use them.
Originally Posted by voodoo View Post
There is an upper limit to the practical density of hard-drives, as you know - but setting that aside, 100 GB optical media disks may not be the 'perfect' backup device, I'll grant you that. However for personal data and photos/videos they're plenty and will be plenty.
I don't quite understand your point here: you're saying that optical media may not be the perfect backup medium. Why not take one that is better suited to my needs? And with the added redundancy (which you should have anyway), I also don't see the any cause for concern. Rather, I'm happy for the added flexibility and added security (since I back up more often).
Originally Posted by voodoo View Post
That is, movies by Hollywood, not my home movies - those can be put one by one (or many together) on a Blu-ray disk.
I find it quite convenient that I have all movies in one places rather than having to walk to my shelf and pick one. When I go abroad on conferences, I always have a large selection of TV series and movies to choose from. Going back to single disks per movie is like going back to CDs for music playback.
Originally Posted by voodoo View Post
So when you strip the contents of the hard-drive of the OS, all applications, all replacable media (physically bought music/movies) and leave only the strictly personal an irreplacable media - then 100 GB disks are going to be fine for the next five years at least.
I am not so sure about that: the biggest cause of growth among my data is my Aperture library. I shoot RAW and I easily add 1 GB (= 1 memory card worth of photos) per event. And my camera is `quite old' and its RAW files take up only ~10 MB a piece. If I upgrade to a more current dslr, it's realistic to expect that its RAW files weigh in at 25 MB a piece.

They sit in my Aperture library which means I would have to either back them up manually (yuck!) or back up my whole library -- which isn't possible since it is too large for a single BD.
Originally Posted by voodoo View Post
Of course music bought from the iTunes store has to be backed up, which is unfortunate and an annoying waste of space, but there you go. If that wasn't the case it would probably be practical to back up on a BD for the next decade.
Why is it a waste of space? After all, it's my taste in movies and stuff
Originally Posted by voodoo View Post
But the fact is that the failure rate of HDs is atrocious, and after about 3-4 years of usage, the failure rate becomes quite high. While backing up perhaps once or twice a year on optical media you'd be certain of having at any given time 90-95% of all your personal data in the shelf.
I wouldn't call the failure rate of hard drives atrocious. I think only on two occasions did a hard drive fail on me for no reason. Twice, I killed a hard drive by dropping my computer. Backups on optical drives once or twice a year would be inacceptable and useless to me. Perhaps in addition to backups on hard drives, this may make sense, but not as a replacement.
Originally Posted by voodoo View Post
I don't mind that nearly as much as losing almost a decade of personal data, mail, photos etc. It's like the house burned down and yes I just relied on hard drives - two of them in fact. Would I have backed up on optical media as well had that been a viable option? Oh yes.
With all due respect, but even if you had used optical media as your backup medium, you didn't have a second fallback option, be it a second off-site hard drive, an online backup or backups on optical media.
Originally Posted by voodoo View Post
So yeah I think it is a bit presumptious to declare optical media dead when it can serve a very important part in the Mac ecosystem - not just for backing up, but also for the sharing, transporting and using various data.
There is a difference between being phased out as a mass market product and being phased out as a product per se: streamers used to be the most important way to make backups roughly 15 years ago. Now only for special applications are streamers used for backups. The prices alone tell you they're no longer a mass market product. That doesn't make them less useful in certain situations.
Originally Posted by voodoo View Post
People scoff at the 'mere' 50-100 GBs BD offers, saying that 'in the future' this and that will be so cheap and nice, great internet for all and flash drives aplenty - and be that as it may, but BD is available *today*.
So are Dropbox, Mozy, MobileMe, SkyDrive and external hard drives.
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Spheric Harlot  (op)
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Oct 22, 2010, 06:56 AM
 
     
voodoo
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Oct 22, 2010, 09:08 AM
 
Originally Posted by OreoCookie View Post
Actually to some it's the primary machine -- especially to those who don't need more performance. I think there is a tendency among geeks for it to be a secondary machine, but it doesn't mean the Air is just a niche product for geeks.
No you're actually right there, it's a machine for those who actually have CDs and DVD/BD players and TVs and stuff. I just simply forgot about those. Naturally, if you're NOT using your Mac as any kind of 'media' anything, sure a machine like the MBA is probably adequate (though expensive, even for a Mac)

Originally Posted by OreoCookie View Post
I don't quite understand your point here: you're saying that optical media may not be the perfect backup medium. Why not take one that is better suited to my needs? And with the added redundancy (which you should have anyway), I also don't see the any cause for concern. Rather, I'm happy for the added flexibility and added security (since I back up more often).
Redundancy is important, yes - but I see redundancy as multiple copies from different moments in time - such as burned optical media. Redundancy as in having a backup harddrive, well that's worthless and quite a false sense of security. Though certainly better than flying solo. However making redundant copies that are immune to magnetic deterioration, well that's as good as it gets. I say it isn't perfect, because it isn't. It's more work to it that way. But I'm not allergic to that and I appreciate the worth of a solid optical media background.

Originally Posted by OreoCookie View Post
I find it quite convenient that I have all movies in one places rather than having to walk to my shelf and pick one. When I go abroad on conferences, I always have a large selection of TV series and movies to choose from. Going back to single disks per movie is like going back to CDs for music playback.
Mmm but you're applying your geekiness here, and as you pointed out to me, that's just silly. Normal people use CDs and DVDs/BDs. Besides, CDs have better sound and the video disks better visual quality! Convenience, I find, is overrated. But that's just me, I'm sure. And well, all the other people.

Originally Posted by OreoCookie View Post
I am not so sure about that: the biggest cause of growth among my data is my Aperture library. I shoot RAW and I easily add 1 GB (= 1 memory card worth of photos) per event. And my camera is `quite old' and its RAW files take up only ~10 MB a piece. If I upgrade to a more current dslr, it's realistic to expect that its RAW files weigh in at 25 MB a piece.
You clearly are an averege user, so because I was talking about the average user, I must go back and edit my post to accomodate this new information. My dad uses a modern SLR and takes family photos at every possible moment and has a collection of about 30 GBs for the last 5 years.

Originally Posted by OreoCookie View Post
They sit in my Aperture library which means I would have to either back them up manually (yuck!) or back up my whole library -- which isn't possible since it is too large for a single BD.
Yeah I realize that BD isn't for everyone, especially people who are photo enthusiasts and shoot everything in RAW format and just can't see themselves backing up manually. I'll grant you that, but I'm sure at the same time a hard-drive is an immense overkill for a person who can in fact fit his/her entire home folder on one BD? Which is quite a chunk of Mac users. Even with the iTunes library and iPhoto library.

Originally Posted by OreoCookie View Post
Why is it a waste of space? After all, it's my taste in movies and stuff
Not your music The space you have to give it on your backup, because non-digi-downloaded music is sold on "backups" i.e. CDs. I'm not saying anyone's music is a waste of space, but I'm saying if it hadn't been 'purchased' on iTMS, then you wouldn't HAVE to back it up.

Originally Posted by OreoCookie View Post
I wouldn't call the failure rate of hard drives atrocious. I think only on two occasions did a hard drive fail on me for no reason. Twice, I killed a hard drive by dropping my computer. Backups on optical drives once or twice a year would be inacceptable and useless to me. Perhaps in addition to backups on hard drives, this may make sense, but not as a replacement.
Ah anecdotal time: I'd call the failure rate of hard-drives atrocious. Had two seperate drives fail within weeks, neither of them dropped, moved or touched. Just "clickclickclick". If I count the last 5 years and all the computers of my family, we've had five hard-drive failures in as many years. That's atrocious in my book, but you know, YMMV.

I'm actually saying "in addition" to backups on hard-drives, because I realize as well as you that it is damn much more convenient to back up on hard drives. No question, but I feel it is VERY important to have a certain "last line of defence" when it comes to backups. Optical media is perfect for that.

Originally Posted by OreoCookie View Post
With all due respect, but even if you had used optical media as your backup medium, you didn't have a second fallback option, be it a second off-site hard drive, an online backup or backups on optical media.
I had the hard-drive that failed as a fallback option, optical media would be the second fallback option. On-line backups are a joke, they are unreliable, slow and cost a lot. I tried to upload for my father to his me.com 'virtual' harddrive and I just gave up. It was a few hundred megabytes. And he pays for that service! Amazing really. Either way it's just a few GBs (10 GBs?)

Originally Posted by OreoCookie View Post
There is a difference between being phased out as a mass market product and being phased out as a product per se: streamers used to be the most important way to make backups roughly 15 years ago. Now only for special applications are streamers used for backups. The prices alone tell you they're no longer a mass market product. That doesn't make them less useful in certain situations.
True true. We'll see about this, I don't pretend to be some Nostralamus, and I'll be the first one to agree with you guys when I actually see a clear sign of the demise of optical media. That it isn't (and wasn't) on the niche MBA, is not a sign in my book. A successful iMac without an optical drive, now *that* is a sign!

Originally Posted by OreoCookie View Post
So are Dropbox, Mozy, MobileMe, SkyDrive and external hard drives.
For backing up 50-100 GBs of data, the above are useless. I'm a geek, who are you kidding here?

Why useless? oh I should say: they're far too small (offering only a few GBs) unless you pay considerably more than for actual media. You can't move this, store this, access this at any time, without internet even. Those sites are slow, especially when you're talking about dozens of GBs and to be honest: I distrust 'cloud' computing more than I distrust Bill Gates with new Mac OS blueprints and a photocopier.
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Oct 22, 2010, 09:21 AM
 
Originally Posted by voodoo View Post
For backing up 50-100 GBs of data, the above are useless. I'm a geek, who are you kidding here?
I disagree. Dropbox is fast and reliable.
     
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Oct 22, 2010, 09:21 AM
 
No you're actually right there, it's a machine for those who actually have CDs and DVD/BD players and TVs and stuff. I just simply forgot about those. Naturally, if you're NOT using your Mac as any kind of 'media' anything, sure a machine like the MBA is probably adequate (though expensive, even for a Mac)
True true. We'll see about this, I don't pretend to be some Nostralamus, and I'll be the first one to agree with you guys when I actually see a clear sign of the demise of optical media. That it isn't (and wasn't) on the niche MBA, is not a sign in my book. A successful iMac without an optical drive, now *that* is a sign!
These two bits put together very clearly illustrate one important aspect of this: optical drives will not be going anywhere for at least a few more years in computers that are meant to be media centres. On machines that are not intended to be media centres, however, we’ve now reached a point where optical drives are on the verge of being unnecessary for the average user of such a machine.

The MBA, in its capacity as a machine that is definitely not meant to be a media centre, fits the latter category perfectly, while the iMac fits the former.

The disappearance of optical drives from the MBA signals the first step in a process that’ll take years: that of phasing out the optical drives where they’re not needed. Naturally, since media centre machines will continue to be the stronghold and ‘last bastion’ of optical drives, they’ll be included in media centre machines a lot longer. But I still think they’ll end up disappearing from consumer computers eventually, though it won’t be for another two or three years, at the least.
( Last edited by Oisín; Oct 22, 2010 at 10:02 AM. Reason: Always check to see you haven’t any words out.)
     
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Oct 22, 2010, 09:39 AM
 
Originally Posted by voodoo View Post
Redundancy is important, yes - but I see redundancy as multiple copies from different moments in time - such as burned optical media. Redundancy as in having a backup harddrive, well that's worthless and quite a false sense of security.
I have 84 different time points in Time Machine to restore to, the last one being from January 2009 -- and that's after Time Machine's auto deletion of many more. Plus I have more backups at home. This is probably a lot more redundancy than I've ever had from backing up to CD-Rs or DVD-Rs. The other thing that is even more important: none of the non-tech people I know do backups. I've tried to convince my father for years to burn his stuff to CDs or DVDs regularly. He hasn't done it once. Only after setting up Time Machine on his computer do I know that he has backups. And it has saved his bacon once (a faulty USB hub killed the motherboard of my parents' Mac mini).
Originally Posted by voodoo View Post
Mmm but you're applying your geekiness here, and as you pointed out to me, that's just silly. Normal people use CDs and DVDs/BDs.
Outside of cars, even the non-geeky people of my generation use iPods and computers for their music. And I know of only one person with a BD player.
Originally Posted by voodoo View Post
Besides, CDs have better sound and the video disks better visual quality!
The HD content I've downloaded from the iTMS worlds better in quality than anything that I have on DVD at home.
Originally Posted by voodoo View Post
I'm not saying anyone's music is a waste of space, but I'm saying if it hadn't been 'purchased' on iTMS, then you wouldn't HAVE to back it up.
Why do you put purchase in quotation marks? I've paid for the content. If you put it in quotation marks, you make it seem as if something's iffy.
Originally Posted by voodoo View Post
Ah anecdotal time: I'd call the failure rate of hard-drives atrocious. Had two seperate drives fail within weeks, neither of them dropped, moved or touched. Just "clickclickclick". If I count the last 5 years and all the computers of my family, we've had five hard-drive failures in as many years. That's atrocious in my book, but you know, YMMV.
If the drives did not fail simultaneously, how come there was any data loss?
Originally Posted by voodoo View Post
On-line backups are a joke, they are unreliable, slow and cost a lot. I tried to upload for my father to his me.com 'virtual' harddrive and I just gave up. It was a few hundred megabytes. And he pays for that service! Amazing really. Either way it's just a few GBs (10 GBs?)
I use Dropbox and it works flawlessly. I don't back up all my data, I just use it for recent projects that I may share with others. Online backups are not the way to go for all the data, but for some, they are perfect. There is no one-size-fits-all solution, online backups are just part of my backup solution.
Originally Posted by voodoo View Post
A successful iMac without an optical drive, now *that* is a sign!
Most computers sold nowadays are mobile computers. Plus, SJ has said that `this is the future of notebooks' rather than the future of all computers. If optical drives disappear from the majority of notebooks, they have disappeared for the majority of people.
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Oct 22, 2010, 09:39 AM
 
Originally Posted by Phileas View Post
I disagree. Dropbox is fast and reliable.
Dropbox is no faster nor more reliable than my internet connection is at any given time, besides any other problems at their end.

No thanks. That's not even close to being of 'acceptable' quality or reliability.
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Spheric Harlot  (op)
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Oct 22, 2010, 09:41 AM
 
Originally Posted by Phileas View Post
I disagree. Dropbox is fast and reliable.
That really depends entirely upon your ISP.

I'm a MobileMe customer with few complaints. But its usefulness increased exponentially once I got 10 Mbps upstream.

Throwing 300 MB files online is a matter of a few minutes now, but it used to be an annoying and weird experience, with odd timeouts and syncing errors.

Very few people have 10 Mbit pipelines upstream, though.
     
turtle777
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Oct 22, 2010, 09:44 AM
 
Originally Posted by voodoo View Post
For backing up 50-100 GBs of data, the above are useless. I'm a geek, who are you kidding here?

Why useless? oh I should say: they're far too small (offering only a few GBs) unless you pay considerably more than for actual media. You can't move this, store this, access this at any time, without internet even. Those sites are slow, especially when you're talking about dozens of GBs and to be honest: I distrust 'cloud' computing more than I distrust Bill Gates with new Mac OS blueprints and a photocopier.
A blanket statement (""useless") doesn't do justice.

For a backup, I don't need it to be available offline, anywhere, and fast.

I complement my Timemachine backup (on external, local HD) with online backups.
To me, this makes most sense.

A secondary backup on a disk media has numerous disadvantages.
E.g. storage - where do your store your secondary backup ? Offsite ? Then the handling and daily backups mecome a nightmare. At home ? All your backups are nothing in case of a disaster like flood, fire etc...

Re: distrust 'cloud' computing
I encrypt all my online backups, so I have no worries there.

-t
     
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Oct 22, 2010, 09:45 AM
 
Originally Posted by Oisín View Post
These two bits put together very clearly illustrate one important aspect of this: optical drives will not be going anywhere for at least a few more years in computers that are meant to be media centres. On machines that are not intended to be media centres, however, we’ve now reached a point where optical drives are on the verge of being unnecessary for the average of such a machine.

The MBA, in its capacity as a machine that is definitely not meant to be a media centre, fits the latter category perfectly, while the iMac fits the former.

The disappearance of optical drives from the MBA signals the first step in a process that’ll take years: that of phasing out the optical drives where they’re not needed. Naturally, since media centre machines will continue to be the stronghold and ‘last bastion’ of optical drives, they’ll be included in media centre machines a lot longer. But I still think they’ll end up disappearing from consumer computers eventually, though it won’t be for another two or three years, at the least.
Agreed 100% Dane. Given the above that makes perfect sense. I do contest the 2-3 years, there are far too many variables, such as a sudden resuergence of multimedia computers and 'the digitial hub' and whatnot the marketing people can come up with to make $$s

But as it is, given that the 'digital' lifestyle prophesized by the Steve in the mid 2000s wanes out to obscurity, then perhaps in 5-6 years optical drives won't be a common sight in personal computers. Makes sense to me!
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voodoo
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Oct 22, 2010, 09:50 AM
 
Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot View Post
That really depends entirely upon your ISP.

I'm a MobileMe customer with few complaints. But its usefulness increased exponentially once I got 10 Mbps upstream.

Throwing 300 MB files online is a matter of a few minutes now, but it used to be an annoying and weird experience, with odd timeouts and syncing errors.

Very few people have 10 Mbit pipelines upstream, though.
Very true, and as you've pointed out on more than one occation, the ISP thing isn't all that great in my neck of the woods and I'd be lucky to get a 500kbit upstream.

Now that applies not just to me but every person with a lame ISP (which would include 99% of the US for instance) and many many other parts of the world. France, Germany, S-Korea and Japan excluded, I suppose. But I'm can confidently claim that for the majority of the world these online storage offers limited and rather expensive space for 100GBs and is way too slow and unreliable (due to ISPs) to be a viable option. Thus an alternative would be nice. Such as .. Blu-ray?
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Laminar
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Oct 22, 2010, 09:53 AM
 
Spheric has said this before, but voodoo is the new Rob. Is there any point in arguing with him?
     
turtle777
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Oct 22, 2010, 09:53 AM
 
Originally Posted by voodoo View Post
Very true, and as you've pointed out on more than one occation, the ISP thing isn't all that great in my neck of the woods and I'd be lucky to get a 500kbit upstream.

Now that applies not just to me but every person with a lame ISP (which would include 99% of the US for instance) and many many other parts of the world. France, Germany, S-Korea and Japan excluded, I suppose. But I'm can confidently claim that for the majority of the world these online storage offers limited and rather expensive space for 100GBs and is way too slow and unreliable (due to ISPs) to be a viable option. Thus an alternative would be nice. Such as .. Blu-ray?
So we agree that for the backwaters of this world, BR is an ok backup medium, but for more advanced places with sufficient bandwidth, online is the way to go ?

-t
     
voodoo
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Oct 22, 2010, 09:57 AM
 
Originally Posted by turtle777 View Post
A blanket statement (""useless") doesn't do justice.
Oh COME on! I qualified that 'blanket' statement. So I agree, that didn't do justice.

Originally Posted by turtle777 View Post
For a backup, I don't need it to be available offline, anywhere, and fast.
For me all those things are quite necessary, but granted YMMV.

Originally Posted by turtle777 View Post
I complement my Timemachine backup (on external, local HD) with online backups.
To me, this makes most sense.
If nothing else, due to my ISP that makes no sense. Besides, I don't like to pay rent.

Originally Posted by turtle777 View Post
A secondary backup on a disk media has numerous disadvantages.
E.g. storage - where do your store your secondary backup ? Offsite ? Then the handling and daily backups mecome a nightmare. At home ? All your backups are nothing in case of a disaster like flood, fire etc...
NOTHING is perfect, I concede that, but I think it is fair to offer alternatives to acommodate as many options as is practically feasable. For me storing secondary disk backups would be adequately safe at home. I can accept that in case of fire, I'd lose them, but then again I'd lose everything. That's what happens in case of fire many times (and I do try to avoid burning down the place!) ... but to lose everything because of multiple random hard-drive failures, that's not acceptable to me. That's just unnecessary.

Originally Posted by turtle777 View Post
Re: distrust 'cloud' computing
I encrypt all my online backups, so I have no worries there.

-t
Well, that's a smart move there.
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voodoo
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Oct 22, 2010, 10:00 AM
 
Originally Posted by turtle777 View Post
So we agree that for the backwaters of this world, BR is an ok backup medium, but for more advanced places with sufficient bandwidth, online is the way to go ?

-t
Fine. It's just that 90% of the world is just in such backwaters.
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voodoo
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Oct 22, 2010, 10:14 AM
 
Originally Posted by OreoCookie View Post
I have 84 different time points in Time Machine to restore to, the last one being from January 2009 -- and that's after Time Machine's auto deletion of many more. Plus I have more backups at home. This is probably a lot more redundancy than I've ever had from backing up to CD-Rs or DVD-Rs.
84 different time points on one hard-drive isn't redundancy. At least the way I see it. When each backup is completely detached from another, that's actual redundancy.

Originally Posted by OreoCookie View Post
Outside of cars, even the non-geeky people of my generation use iPods and computers for their music. And I know of only one person with a BD player.
No doubt, but CDs are still sold and given as presents and whatnot. Would suck not to be able to play a CD - despite everything, CDs exist and people have a collection since before they started their geekdom.

Originally Posted by OreoCookie View Post
The HD content I've downloaded from the iTMS worlds better in quality than anything that I have on DVD at home.
DVD is quite obsolete. And the "HD" content on iTMS is way worse than real HD BD video.

Originally Posted by OreoCookie View Post
Why do you put purchase in quotation marks? I've paid for the content. If you put it in quotation marks, you make it seem as if something's iffy.
Pardon the iffiness, I guess I wrote it within quotation marks because it's not a physical copy like a CD. In my mind there is a distinction, but of course you're right it's a paid purchase. Just not a physical one (which is more valuable).

I
Originally Posted by OreoCookie View Post
f the drives did not fail simultaneously, how come there was any data loss?
First the internal drive died and when that had been replaced the other hard-drive was dead.

Originally Posted by OreoCookie View Post
I use Dropbox and it works flawlessly. I don't back up all my data, I just use it for recent projects that I may share with others. Online backups are not the way to go for all the data, but for some, they are perfect. There is no one-size-fits-all solution, online backups are just part of my backup solution.
True, true, but you appreciate that by the same logic a BD backup solution (for a secondary "last resort" backup) would be perfect for people just the same.

Originally Posted by OreoCookie View Post
Most computers sold nowadays are mobile computers. Plus, SJ has said that `this is the future of notebooks' rather than the future of all computers. If optical drives disappear from the majority of notebooks, they have disappeared for the majority of people.
Yes the majority of computers sold today are laptops, but with optical drives. And with all due respect, I don't give the words of Steve Jobs any weight or value. He says a lot of things (in case you haven't noticed)

"Video iPod? Haha who would want to watch a video on such a tiny screen!? Next you'll be asking if Apple's going to make toasters in the future!" (reworded from memory)
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Oct 22, 2010, 10:15 AM
 
Originally Posted by voodoo View Post
Thus an alternative would be nice. Such as .. Blu-ray?
How does BlueRay make it easier for me to share files with colleagues in Trieste, Princeton, Bukarest or Fukuoka? (Which is what I also use Dropbox for.)
( Last edited by OreoCookie; Oct 22, 2010 at 10:26 AM. )
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voodoo
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Oct 22, 2010, 10:31 AM
 
Originally Posted by OreoCookie View Post
How does BlueRay make it easier for me to share files with colleagues Trieste, Princeton, Bukarest or Fukuoka? (Which is what I also use Dropbox for.)
I was referring to backups in that quote to Spheric, not sharing. But sending a 100GB BD with mail to your colleagues in those places takes about a week and provides them with a convenient copy that they can story in a shelf and not take up space on their hard drives. They can take that copy home with them on a disk if they want to use 100GBs on their laptop for something else.

Alternatively you could use Dropbox or the like, it costs what? 20 dollars per month, which isn't all that bad I suppose and with a damn fine (rare) ISP you'd be able to share a 100 GB file with your colleagues through that just fine - of course without the advantages above - but I'm sure this is just fine for you.

For other people, who like to share things with people closer to them, such as family and friends and back up and store it locally, a thing such as BD would be just perfect. One size does not fit all thus optical-free future doesn't either.

I'm sure you understand this, right? Put yourself in other people's shoes and consider their needs.
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Oct 22, 2010, 10:34 AM
 
Optical drives ain't going away until you can convince my mum (and zillions like her) that she actually needs a computer to listen to her Sinatra collection.
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Oct 22, 2010, 10:41 AM
 
Originally Posted by Doofy View Post
Optical drives ain't going away until you can convince my mum (and zillions like her) that she actually needs a computer to listen to her Sinatra collection.
I don’t think anyone was saying CD players and the likes are going away; we’ve only been talking about optical drives in consumer computers (particularly portables).
     
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Oct 22, 2010, 10:44 AM
 
Originally Posted by Oisín View Post
I don’t think anyone was saying CD players and the likes are going away; we’ve only been talking about optical drives in consumer computers (particularly portables).
Until CD and DVD players go away, optical drives in computers ain't going to go away. Who in their right mind would buy two formats for two different machines? (i.e. DVD for the lounge, USB thumb for the office/den)
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Oisín
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Oct 22, 2010, 10:47 AM
 
Originally Posted by Doofy View Post
Until CD and DVD players go away, optical drives in computers ain't going to go away. Who in their right mind would buy two formats for two different machines? (i.e. DVD for the lounge, USB thumb for the office/den)
Hence why the optical drives are started to be phased out on machines that aren’t media centres first.

The opposite is not unlikely, either: instead of people having to buy two different formats, lounge stereos will start—no, scratch that, have started—supporting USB drives, flash drives, iPods, etc.
     
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Oct 22, 2010, 10:58 AM
 
Originally Posted by Oisín View Post
Hence why the optical drives are started to be phased out on machines that aren’t media centres first.

The opposite is not unlikely, either: instead of people having to buy two different formats, lounge stereos will start—no, scratch that, have started—supporting USB drives, flash drives, iPods, etc.
I'm not seeing it at all - I think it's just wishful thinking on the part of geeks.
Apple has a habit of making everything older than two years obsolete - the rest of society ain't going to fall for it. For example, PC owners know that they're going to be hit by a major virus every six months or so, and if their entertainment data is tied to that, they're going to have to re-acquire it constantly. Easier just to have stuff on a CD/DVD.
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ort888
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Oct 22, 2010, 11:10 AM
 
This conversation makes my brain hurt.

Need optical on your laptop? The Air isn't for you. Buy a MacBook or MacBook Pro.

Just need it every once in a while? Buy a damned external drive.

What are we talking about again? And why?

The Air is obviously not the computer for everyone. Someone on the internet somewhere described it as a two seater car. It is what it is. It's not for everyone. Don't like the trade-offs? Don't buy one.

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CreepDogg
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Oct 22, 2010, 12:37 PM
 
Gee, if only the Air had some sort of 'expansion port' that would allow someone to connect a device to read/write whatever type of media they have. Damn Apple - they never provide options!
     
turtle777
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Originally Posted by CreepDogg View Post
Gee, if only the Air had some sort of 'expansion port' that would allow someone to connect a device to read/write whatever type of media they have. Damn Apple - they never provide options!
Pfff, w/o FW, PCMCIA and eSATA, the MBA is as good as dead.
[/sarcasm]
-t
     
ort888
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Oct 22, 2010, 01:22 PM
 
I'm not buying one because it doesn't have a Zip Drive.

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Eug
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Oct 22, 2010, 01:33 PM
 
I use both HD and optical for backup. HD alone is far too unreliable to use as a permanent backup in my experience. So, what I do:

1) Time Machine - Automatic.
2) Manual HD backups - From time to time.
3) Optical - From time to time.

In my experience, optical (with good quality media) is far more reliable, and as voodoo said it provides backups at multiple points in time. Time Machine does do that to a certain extent, but not enough, unless you start buying multiple ginormous drives. Furthermore, optical provides the benefit of easier offsite backup. I sneakernet some of my optical discs from home and put them in my office cupboard for example. Unfortunately, a lot of optical backups out there are unreliable too. Cheap optical media is IMO a complete waste of money.

So, I just bought a Blu-ray burner for my iMac. Dual-layer DVD just wasn't cutting it anymore.

Some think this is extreme, but quite frankly if I were forced to choose, I'd rather invest in multiple good backup methods than in the latest iToy. Luckily, I don't have to choose.

P.S. I agree that Blu-ray looks way, way better than downloaded video. Downloaded video is tolerable, but I don't like being locked to iTunes for video, even though I'm more than happy to use iTunes for music. Quicktime is a very inefficient video player too.

To put it another way, if the iTunes cost for a movie is $15, I'd rather spend $22 for a Blu-ray disc. You get the physical disc, you get all the extras on disc too, and at least in 2010 it's much more portable. For me iTunes... or Netflix... is more suited to watch-once rentals. But even then, if the iTunes rental is $5, and the Blu-ray disc from the local shop is about the same, I'd go for the latter much of the time.
     
Phileas
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Oct 22, 2010, 02:20 PM
 
Originally Posted by voodoo View Post
Dropbox is no faster nor more reliable than my internet connection is at any given time, besides any other problems at their end.

No thanks. That's not even close to being of 'acceptable' quality or reliability.
You obviously don't know how Dropbox works. For starters, while it works best with a continuos connection, it doesn't rely on one. Problems at their end? Pray tell, because I've been using them since day one with...waitforit...not a single day of downtime.

My setup provides me with multiple backups in multiple geographic locations, including unlimited versioning. Whatever you're doing with optical media can't even begin to touch the level of security and flexibility I've got with dropbox.

Accidentally deleted a file, or overwitten a file? No problem.
My house burns down? No problem.
My office burns down? No problem.
My office and my house burn down? No problem.
Want to access a file I deleted a year ago? No problem.
Want to access the previous version of the previous version of a file I deleted a year ago? Guess what, no problem.
Want to share any file? No problem.
My laptop implodes? No problem, I'll be up and running within hours.
At a client with just my iPhone but need to show a file? No problem.
Internet connection down? No problem, because dropbox shares everything I create to a Mac Mini located at my home that's connected to a Drobo, where all data is saved across multiple, redundant, disks.

But yeah, optical media FTW. Sure.
( Last edited by Phileas; Oct 22, 2010 at 02:30 PM. )
     
osiris
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Oct 22, 2010, 02:28 PM
 
Another thumbs up for Dropbox, though I do have privacy concerns over my data (I no longer store my Swiss bank account numbers on it).

It's funny, I have no idea what this thread is about.
"Faster, faster! 'Till the thrill of speed overcomes the fear of death." - HST
     
The Final Dakar
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Oct 22, 2010, 02:31 PM
 
Originally Posted by osiris View Post
Another thumbs up for Dropbox, though I do have privacy concerns over my data (I no longer store my Swiss bank account numbers on it).
Yeah, thanks, I've had to lay-off a few squads of henchmen.
     
osiris
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Location: Isle of Manhattan
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Oct 22, 2010, 02:31 PM
 
Straight out of Goodfellas:

Accidentally deleted a file, or overwitten a file? F*ck you, pay me.
My house burns down? F*ck you, pay me.
My office burns down? F*ck you, pay me.
My office and my house burn down? F*ck you, pay me.
Want to access a file I deleted a year ago? F*ck you, pay me.
Want to share any file? F*ck you, pay me.
My laptop implodes? F*ck you, pay me.
At a client with just my iPhone but need to show a file? F*ck you, pay me.
"Faster, faster! 'Till the thrill of speed overcomes the fear of death." - HST
     
Phileas
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Location: Toronto, Canada
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Oct 22, 2010, 02:33 PM
 
Storing anything with a third party provider will bring up trust issues. I actually talked to the DB team about this and am satisfied, for myself, that my data is as safe as it gets.

Having said that, really sensitive stuff gets pre-encrypted at my end before it gets uploaded. But that's not a problem either.
     
osiris
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Oct 22, 2010, 02:41 PM
 
Originally Posted by The Final Dakar View Post
Yeah, thanks, I've had to lay-off a few squads of henchmen.
I should have known it was you. You poopyface, I trusted you. And I thought we were past all this, but I guessed wrong, didn't I? But I must say, those henchmen were quite a bargain for you.
"Faster, faster! 'Till the thrill of speed overcomes the fear of death." - HST
     
Phileas
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Oct 22, 2010, 02:42 PM
 
Just when you thought you were out...
     
ort888
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Oct 22, 2010, 02:54 PM
 
It feels like we are having one pointless and drawn out conversation spread out over 3 threads.

My sig is 1 pixel too big.
     
 
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