2006 May 05

Confirmed Gnomedex Discussion Leader:

[Dave Dederer]

Well, our new Gateway computer is coming with a couple of Hitachi Deskstar 7K500 drives. Reviews have been overwhelmingly positive for single user environments:
Storage Review: Hitachi has made the transition to a native SATA design and a 16-megabyte buffer with aplomb. Though the Deskstar 7K500 lags a bit in the density department and as a result must assemble five platters to hit the half-terabyte mark, the ultimate proof is in the pudding. When it comes to single-user applications, whether productivity, video- and sound-editing, or games, the 7K500 is easily the fastest 7200 RPM SATA drive one can buy. In all five of our non-server tests, the Deskstar bests the Western Digital Caviar RE2, a drive that just a few weeks ago enjoyed its own run at blowing away the opposition.
BigBruin: The Hitachi Deskstar 7K500 500GB SATA-II hard drive raises the bar for those who subscribe to the theory that bigger is better. When it comes to hard drives; more speed, more capacity, and more cache memory is always a good thing. This is the first drive to come across our test bench with SATA300 speed, and it provides the largest capacity (500GB) and most cache memory (16MB) that we have seen to date. Browse around… 500GB and 16MB are currently the best you will find in an internal hard drive, in these respective categories.
TechReport: And remember, the Deskstar 7K500 is more than just 500GB of storage capacity. It also has everything one should expect from a high-end drive, including support for 300MB/s Serial ATA transfer rates and Native Command Queuing, a hefty 16MB cache, and a three-year warranty. None of those features go above and beyond the call of duty, but they don't disappoint, either. Neither does the 7K500's performance, for the most part. The Deskstar scores well in desktop application benchmarks and file copy tests, but slow boot times and a poor showing in three of four IOMeter test patterns make it difficult to recommend the drive across the board. Poor performance with IOMeter's file server, workstation, and database access patterns suggests that the Deskstar is inappropriate for multi-user environments with heavy read and write demands.
Tom's Hardware: When it comes to maximum drive capacity, the DeskStar 7K500 can help to reduce the number of drives you have to install, such as when using compact RAID array storage with a capacity in the teraByte range. It's thus clear that storage densities in rack-mounted servers will start hitting new records almost immediately. For desktop use, the massive 500 GB of capacity will be a Godsend for many users.

Read more on Hitachi Deskstar…

An iPod case. I asked for recommendations a while ago, but suddenly became motivated to buy one today when I received a press release from a popular iPod accessories company. Normally, I dismiss their announcements without blinking – but this one reminded me that I still needed a nice iPod case. But not just any ol' iPod case! I've been looking for something that was form-fitting and completely protective. There's only one name that fit the bill: iSkin's eVo3 for G5 iPods. Here's what won me over:

Read more on My iPod Case…

What a long two months this has been. You might remember that back in the beginning of March, I weighed in at 175 pounds at 5'5″ – only I reported in as Captain 173 after a few days of initial progress. Who really wants to admit they're short and overweight? In order for me to progress, I had to come out and embarass myself. I provided progress at the one-month mark as Captain 160. Today, two full months from the start, I've lost a total of 25 pounds of fat. I still have a few extra pounds to go (with my final goal being between 140 – 145). My Tanita scale measures my BMI between 22 and 23, which is completely normal – unlike the generalized Internet BMI calculators which would have me at 25 (overweight). My numbers are good, all around – and I've created some Excel charts to illustrate the decline:


The discrepancies may not seem dramatic – but I've lost a full inch from my neck, three inches from my chest, five and a half inches from my waist, two inches from my hip, and two and a half inches from my thigh. Those are huge differences! The secret, as I've revealed several times over, has been watching my caloric intake and expending energy (exercising) at least 3x a week. I'm almost in maintenance mode, and I'm making habits out of my activities. Keeping myself in check at least once a week is the only way I'll be able to stay this way forever. I need to thank all of you for helping, too – especially Ponzi. I'm officially between 149.8 and 150.0, so… that's enough for me to claim I'm in the 140s again. :)

Read more on Captain 149…