This week's column is a little off the beaten track from my usual
topics, although it's definitely a storage issue. I thought I'd
share a unique solution that I recently found for what I'm sure is a
common storage problem.
I recently got myself volunteered to assist a nonprofit
organization in completing a rather large computer-based project.
The issue I had to deal with was that when the project materials
showed up at my office, I found myself with close to 30 CD-R discs
containing the 12GB of data that comprised the project's
deliverables.
After I finished my part of the project, I talked to the folks to
whom I'd be delivering it. They confirmed that they didn't have
access to DLT tape drives, which meant that I had to figure out some
way to deliver this 12GB project (which could no longer be broken up
into smaller pieces). I first tried backing up the project to DVD-
RW. I made sure that the clients had a copy of the backup software I
used, but after a couple of long phone conversations with them, I
gave up on trying to walk them through a successful restore of that
backup. They insisted that it would work if I used CD-R instead of
DVD-RW, so I went back to the drawing board and backed up the
project to CD-R media, which worked no better for them than the DVD-
R/W backup. (Actually, it was worse; the restore process reported
successful results, yet they couldn't make the project run correctly
and received reports of corrupted data when they attempted to
execute the final project.) In both cases, I had run restores
locally before shipping off the discs, and they worked correctly.
I considered uploading the project to one of my FTP sites, but I
wasn't too keen about trying to upload that much data on a 384Kbps
uplink and tying up my Internet connection for the hours that the
upload would take.
By this time, I realized that the final deliverable I was working
on wasn't going to fit very well on any of the removable media that
I commonly used except for an external hard disk (and I use both
IEEE 1394 and USB 2.0 external drives), so it looked as if I'd have
to buy another hard disk, which I didn't really want or need. It
wasn't so much the expense; I could have easily ordered a name-brand
60GB or 80GB USB 2.0 external drive online for just under $100
(although time constraints meant I'd actually have to buy one at a
local computer superstore for about $120 plus tax). Instead, it was
the fact that I'd be stuck with a useless drive; my current external
drives are all in the 200-plus-GB range, and I didn't really want to
add a small USB hard drive to any of my computers.
As I resigned myself to going out and buying an external hard
drive, I realized that the problem's solution had been sitting on my
desk all along: a small MP3 player I had bought for my daughter.
She's notorious for losing things, so putting a $300 iPod or a $250
Dell DJ into her hands wasn't something I really wanted to do. But
when I saw a listing for the Entempo Spirit 20GB MP3 player for $130
delivered, I thought it was worth a look. The Spirit is bigger than
its competitors, but it's also available for significantly less.
Most importantly for me, Windows XP recognizes the device as a
removal drive and didn't require me to install a driver. The high-
end music players require Windows drivers to be installed so that
the OS will recognize the device.
I plugged in the Spirit, copied the project to it, wrapped the
device in a sheet of bubble wrap along with a USB cable, stuck it in
a flat-rate USPS Express Mail envelope, and dropped it off at the
post office. I didn't need to include a power supply or any
software; the software was unnecessary, and the internal battery
would run the unit for about 10 hours. I had the MP3 player back in
my hands in two days, the nonprofit had its project intact and
installed on a server (and the organization's unpaid IT person was
happy with the solution's simplicity), and I didn't have to invest
in any unneeded hardware.
As hard-drive vendors continue to release more efficient small-
form-factor drives and the cost of portable media players drops
daily, it would seem that a market niche exists for information
delivery, especially mixed-media information. Using a similar
solution to deliver product databases, video presentations, and hard
data to a sales force would give content-creation people a lot more
flexibility in producing their deliverables because their content is
no longer limited to the size of a CD-ROM or DVD. Media players'
potential far exceeds the use that marketers and the public
currently envision for them.