In the immortal words of Matthew Stier (Matthew.Stier@tddny.fujitsu.com):
Fujitsu makes Tamagotchi's, however I wouldn't recommend that Network Appliance incorporate them into the their filers.
i don't know, another LCD panel, some buttons, maybe make it a Pokemon character, you might be on to something ;)
NetApp use 1.44MB floppies because they are an industry standard. The LS120 is the best floppy replacement for the filer, because it supports the 1.44MB floppy format natively.
I'd still like to see NetApp add flash memory to store the boot images.
I guess my feeling is that the only thing as (or more) ubiquitous (and cheap) as the 1.4M floppy is the CD-ROM drive, and the burners at this point are a petty-cash requisition for most outfits. All Netapp would need to do would be to either offer complete cd images for download or (better yet for space/speed reasons) define a standard directory structure that you could put the files in for an iso9660 cd...
Your right on both counts. The 1.44MB floppy and the 650MB cdrom are ubiquitous, and cheap, but CD writing is not.
I own CD-R, and I'm aware of the headaches involved in creating CD images. CD-RW are great for personal use, but there are a multitude of CD / CD-RW interaction problems. And it is the "CD-RW" that is the most previlant in the industry; not the CD-R.
please define "industry". the last 6 NetApps I unpacked came with media on what would appear to be CD-R. i know of several single and at least 1 mass CD-R duplicator within my company. based on personal experience, CD-R would seem to be more prevalent in the commercial sector. and at ~1$ per disc the price is definately right. simple
Clarification: Replacing a 1.44MB floppy drive with a 650MB cdrom seems excessive, when all were really looking for is a 3MB floppy.
not really, it's cheap media. virtually any place large enough to have a NetApp is going to have a CD duplicator or CD-R kicking around.
and who knows, with the next generation of filers, and upgrades to the OS, maybe it'll take 3 floppies. it'd also be nice to try out a new OS on a toasters without necessarily having to upgrade. boot off cd, if it doesn't work out, simply reboot...
-s