[GRLUG] Pre-installed Linux on laptops

[Michael Mol]

On 1/26/2010 3:09 PM, Bob Kline wrote:
>
> What I find strange is that most of
> them come with 160GB drives now.
> I'd thought the trend would be to
> a few GB of RAM, and maybe 16GB
> of flash.  All for fast bootup, and
> ruggedness.  For portable use one
> doesn't need a hard drive IMHO.  And
> I'm sure they eat up a lot of the cost
> of the devices now.
>
>      -- Bob

160GB 2.5" magnetic drives are the sweet spot right now.

At this point, I expect increasing demand on on flash media will 
actually cause a shortage, rather than drive down manufacturing costs as 
part of economies of scale. IIRC, silicon memory manufactures were 
convicted of antitrust and/or price fixing activities *twice* in the 
last two decades.

Of course, if China follows through on its promise to stop shipping the 
rare earth metals that go into the supermagnets used in magnetic 
spinning disk drives, then the price equation will change dramatically.