<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Jan 26, 2010 at 3:16 PM, Michael Mol <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:mikemol@gmail.com">mikemol@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
<div class="im">On 1/26/2010 3:09 PM, Bob Kline wrote:<br>
><br>
> What I find strange is that most of<br>
> them come with 160GB drives now.<br>
> I'd thought the trend would be to<br>
> a few GB of RAM, and maybe 16GB<br>
> of flash. All for fast bootup, and<br>
> ruggedness. For portable use one<br>
> doesn't need a hard drive IMHO. And<br>
> I'm sure they eat up a lot of the cost<br>
> of the devices now.<br>
><br>
> -- Bob<br>
<br>
</div>160GB 2.5" magnetic drives are the sweet spot right now.<br>
<br>
At this point, I expect increasing demand on on flash media will<br>
actually cause a shortage, rather than drive down manufacturing costs as<br>
part of economies of scale. IIRC, silicon memory manufactures were<br>
convicted of antitrust and/or price fixing activities *twice* in the<br>
last two decades.<br>
<br>
Of course, if China follows through on its promise to stop shipping the<br>
rare earth metals that go into the supermagnets used in magnetic<br>
spinning disk drives, then the price equation will change dramatically.<br>
<div><div></div><div class="h5"> </div></div></blockquote><div>If I look at Amazon, or <a href="http://newegg.com">newegg.com</a>,</div><div>flash drives are coming down fast.</div><div>Don't know about big SSDs, but I</div>
<div>wouldn't need 256GB anyway.</div><div><br></div><div>Re rare earths, good point. Oddly,</div><div>China apparently has the bulk of the</div><div>known sources right now. The US has</div><div>some, owned by a small oil </div>
<div>company, and China tried to buy that</div><div>a year or two ago, no doubt to seal its</div><div>near monopoly. Congress stopped the</div><div>sale at the last minute.</div><div><br></div><div>I suspect these are not the only </div>
<div>sources, and if the prices go up </div><div>enough, someone will start looking.</div><div>Lithium and uranium are two other</div><div>metals that seem to be concentrated.</div><div>Australia produces a lot of the world's</div>
<div>output of uranium just now. Bolivia, </div><div>or some country nearby, has vast </div><div>amounts of lithium salts. Think </div><div>electric car batteries, at least some day.</div><div><br></div><div> -- Bob</div>
<div> </div></div><br>