One of the drawbacks with PC removable storage solutions is that they typically have not been fast enough to be a primary storage device in any system. For the most part, removable storage has been used as a backup and restore type media.

Today Sharky Extreme takes a look at one of the new generation of removable storage devices, a product that offers both high capacity storage and near hard drive speeds for daily use. This new "ORB" drive threatens to break the monotony of removable storage with its blazing speeds and remarkable value.

Castlewood Systems, Inc. was started just two years ago by the founder of a previous removable media company, SyQuest, and definitely has some disbelievers. Using Magneto-Resistive drives (the same technology hard drives use), Castlewood is attempting to burst into a removable media market in which SyQuest so recently bombed out due to poor sales and high pricing. Why would Castlewood be able to succeed where SyQuest had failed with MR-based removable media? Castlewood's answer is one of the most exciting things about the ORB drive - convergence.

An overused buzzword, convergence in this context means the merging of computing and home entertainment. For the ORB drive, this means digital VCRs - a VCR that takes an ORB disk and records high quality MPEG video. At MPEG-1 quality, this could be as much as 3.5 hours. The convergence doesn't stop here however. While these new digital VCRs are already going into production in Japan, so too are the set-top MP3 players. These players will sit atop your CD carousel or your tape deck, and plug into your component stereo just like any other component. The only difference is that they will play MP3's saved on the ORB disks. At 2.2 gigs, one of these disks could conceivably hold about 20 hours worth of music.

While the digital VCR and set-top MP3 player are certainly interesting, it's the convergence potential that adds the excitement. Swapping the disks full of MP3s or recorded programs back and forth between the computer and the home entertainment system is what really makes this drive rock.

The ORB drive is beginning to show its usefulness and practicality, but how does it stack up in specifications and price? Let's take a look at the ORB drive's printed spec sheet.