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Memory stick Death Star

 All together now.
  (+30, -2)(+30, -2)(+30, -2)
(+30, -2) 		  [vote for,
against]

Those little memory sticks are everywhere. They are given away as promotional items. They turn up in the sock drawer. They have flashy lanyards.

I propose a large spherical device covered with USB ports. All of the drives you could acquire would be stuck on here and the thing would function as a backup drive. You would save hundreds, even millions of dollars in backup drive putchasing costs. The internal doodads would keep track of which of the various sticks stuff was on.

—bungston, Oct 20 2005

this is not the hub you're looking for... http://www.thinkgee...g/usb-gadgets/ab85/
[jaksplat, Mar 28 2009]

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       I thought this was going to be some project to arrange a bunch of the soon-to-be-defunct Memory Stick® format cards made by Sony into a cute Xmas ornament or something.
—Cedar Park, Oct 20 2005
   

       where do you get the free memory sticks :-) I want some. If I had hundreds of them I'd want this death star for sure. [+]
—ixnaum, Oct 20 2005
   

       Some client turned up with some powerpoint files on one recently. I plugged it in to our main graphics pc which went "BZZZZ!" and promptly died. Fool that I am, I assumed I had just knocked the power lead out and decided to use the backup graphics pc.... which went "BZZZZ!" and died. I no longer trust those sticks like I once did.   

       Have a bun, foolish [bung].
—wagster, Oct 20 2005
   

       I have 3 of these devices that I use regularly (1 for personal, 1 for work, 1 for music) and my computer recognizes each one individually (drives H, I, and J), probably because they are each a different brand and capacity. Now, I understand USB technology originally allowed for up to 127 devices to be connected, so that raises some questions: What letter designation is assigned to drives that number above 20? Does XP use "drive AA, AB, AC" etc.?   

       [Ian], I strongly suggest you do NOT try dipping it in custard.
—Canuck, Oct 20 2005
   

       May I supply the obligatory paraphrase...   

       'They will soon discover that this is a fully operational memory stick adaptor'   

       I thank you
—rambling_sid, Oct 20 2005
   

       //USB technology originally allowed for up to 127 devices to be connected//   

       But data rates restrict the practical limit to a mere handful.
—Ling, Oct 20 2005
   

       + for "lanyards"
—calum, Oct 20 2005
   

       Ha. I thank you, [rambling_sid].
—Zimmy, Oct 20 2005
   

       Or a USB charm bracelet?   

       [wagster]: Maybe there is a market for a USB device tester? A small stand-alone box that you can plug a USB drive or device into and it will check whether or not the device being tested presents any risk to a live computer or drive controller circuitry.   

       The stakes are potentially even higher with 1394 or FC devices. Maybe a tester for them, too.
—bristolz, Oct 20 2005
   

       //What letter designation is assigned to drives that number above 20? Does XP use "drive AA, AB, AC" //   

       Yes that is a problem. But if you use Linux you could do this for example ... death star of: 45 x 128 MB + 20 x 256 MB + 4 x 512 MB = 13 GB drive appearing as one huge drive (not 69 separate ones which would be useless) ... the mechanism in which to do this in linux is called logical volumes (maybe XP has something similar??) ... Now if you are concerned about failure ... what if one of my 128 MB sticks fails .. will it corrupt my files? Not if you do this: 13 GB / 2 = 6.5 GB RAID-1 death star ! :-) ... hehe ... where can I get those free sticks? ... the only thing I don't know if linux can do LVM and RAID1 on USB memory sticks ... but I'm guessing that yes.
—ixnaum, Oct 20 2005
   

       To be honest [bris], I was thinking more along the lines of a USB bus that could cope with faulty devices. The memory stick is essentially a fairly simple passive device, it isn't that hard to build a USB bus that protects itself against shorts and the like - instead I fried two (new) motherboards. I will be decent enough not to reveal the pc manufacturers name (think FilmLawsuitSailors).
—wagster, Oct 20 2005
   

       I have too many of those...that I never use now that I have an mp3 player that I can use for that. So I totally support this.
—Weirdo55, Oct 20 2005
   

       Celluloid Case Tars?
—bristolz, Oct 20 2005
   

       Hmmm... how big of a Death Star could be made out of AOL CD's?
—RayfordSteele, Oct 20 2005
   

       "Hmmm... how big of a Death Star could be made out of AOL CD's?"   

       HAH! That's a brilliant idea!....and much cheaper. Back to topic, i think it's an excellent device, i would definetely buy one, considering i have at LEAST 15 of these sitting in various places in the house and office.
—half-n-half, Oct 20 2005
   

       It wouldn't look like a Death Star. It'd look more like one of those rubber band spiky toys for pets, with multicolors, eh? And it wouldn't be a sphere until you filled it up ~70%+.   

       Spherical is just about the least efficient way to store these. Space, mounting, reliability (fallout at the bottom), access (how do you pull one out without pulling the others out too...), etc...   

       This would work better as an array in a grid, with one end accessible. If you could imagine this idea looking like a Death Star, you could imagine the array is a lightsaber just as difficultly.   

       I guess I just expect better from BUNGCO
—sophocles, Oct 21 2005
   

       <Ackbar> We can't save data of that magnitude!
—zen_tom, Mar 27 2009
   


 

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