Alex Hopmann’s Blog

Earlier I mentioned looking at the Zalman HD135 and HD160 cases for the new media computer I’m going to build this summer. I was at Frys earlier today and had a chance to check them both out in person. The HD135 looked much nicer than the HD160. The HD160 doesn’t use thumbscrews to get the case off- you have to remove 5 normal screws to open the case. Now, hopefully you aren’t doing that often, but it sounds like a major pain when you do. The HD135 seems to have plenty of room for everything, tons of drives, and its a bit smaller height (although slightly deeper but that should be ok).

Via Engadget Seagate has introduced a 2.5″ drive, the EE25.2 that packs 80GB and is good to 16,000 feet. This might be a solution for a drive to use in unpressurized aircraft, although frankly 16,000 feet is a bit low- 25,000 would cover the territory much better since I doubt there are many folks going above 25,000′ without pressuraization. Then again, they brag about the previous generation being used on Mt Everest where base-camp is 17,000 (and the peak is 29,000ft). so they are pretty much advocating using it beyond-spec.

I suspect a SSD will still be a better solution for us pilots although there is no word on the pricing yet.