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by Laser Quasar Absolutely
 (That's
not really my real name ... but does it really matter?
I mean, really?)
THEY SAY THAT IN COMPUTER-LAND THERE ARE ONLY TWO
KINDS OF FOOLS: THOSE WHO have LOST DATA, AND THOSE
WHO will LOSE DATA.
Backup, backup, backup! Isn't that
the refrain we incessantly hear from all sides? But how many
of us do?
Tell the truth, even I lost data once. The hard disk in my Mac
failed after three months of use. Apple's servicemen replaced
it under warranty, of course, stalwart fellows that they are;
but my data was gone, gone, gone! I had to buy a large bucket
just to hold my tears. (I still have them bottled up in my basement,
as proof that it really did happen, and as a lesson to the foolish.)
I then splurged, and got myself a Jaz drive with two cartridges.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that one
way Apple could win over everyone, including large numbers
from the Wintel crowd, is to make sure Apple users will never,
ever, lose data.
And it could be done fairly cheaply, too! With
the iMac, Apple is already moving towards making all its machines
Internet savvy. What if Apple set up a whole basement full
of storage devices connected to the Internet, and as an integral
part of the price of a Mac -- or at most for a few dollars
per year -- allowed any Mac user to copy all their data to
the Storage Centre?
(Of course I use the term "whole basement full"
figuratively. These Storage Centres could be widely distributed
around the globe -- perhaps at every major Apple retailer's
stores. Or perhaps Apple could work out an agreement with
universities and public libraries to provide such a service,
something which might provide a few extra bucks to the latter
too. But these are just details.)
Let's take a look at the economics of the scheme. At today's
prices, large hard-disk-based storage devices cost around $25
per GB, retail. (Want proof? A 10.2 GB IDE Quantum Fireball
was advertised in a recent issue of eMedia Weekly for
$259.00 -- and though SCSI hard disks are considerably more
expensive, since you'd be backing up over the Internet anyway,
IDE will do just fine.) And tape backup devices -- also a distinct
possibility -- cost even less: as low as $13 per GB for the
really big ones. DVD-RAM is yet another possibility, with prices
not much higher than you'd pay at McDonald's for a couple of
Happy Meals.
Manufacturing prices being about half as much as
retail, it would cost Apple no more than $12.99, tops, to
back up a GB of your data, and keep it safe pretty much for
the rest of your life. (And in case you didn't notice, $12.99
is just 1 per cent the original retail price of an iMac!)
You could never compete with those prices. Twelve-ninety-nine
takes care of one whole gigabyte of data, mind you, and that
too without compression. (How much data do you generate in a
year, anyway?) With compression, the system could back up maybe
twice that much -- but at these prices, who needs compression?
And at the rate storage prices are falling -- which
happens to be even faster than CPU prices, and that's saying
a lot -- in ten year's time, hey, who knows? Maybe the cost
to Apple for storing your GB-worth of data may fall to just
a buck or two! At those prices they could even afford to give
away the service for free, just to generate good will.
And as my technical expert, John Christie -- who originally
gave me the idea -- puts it so very correctly,
"With centralized data you would never move very
large amounts more than once. I envision that you buy one
very large networked, secure, and redundant storage device.
You can access it from anywhere and you never need anything
like removable media. Even multimedia users with large files
(200 MB or so) could have small 'way station' storage devices
in their computers that synchronized in the background during
idle CPU time. The bandwidth for this is already available,
though not in common use. In almost every endeavour the time
spent by the user is mostly in manipulation. This means that
the actual data moving could be done at another time."
In other words, why bother backing up, when
it's all gonna be done for you, maybe every night when you're
sleeping? (The software for compressing files, connecting
to the Storage Centre, and regularly backing everything
up during off-hours could all be integrated into the MacOS,
of course.)
And it's not just backup you'd get. All your data would
be available to you from anywhere and everywhere; so if you
fly from New York to LA to give a presentation, you wouldn't
have to carry all your data with you. Forgot your laptop? Not
to worry! Just use a Mac -- any Mac -- when you get there! (Just
make sure your password is a real long and crazy one, with lots
of weird characters. Of course, if you're really paranoid, you
can even encrypt your data.)
Not only does the system take care of the backup,
it takes care of the missing floppy in the new Macs too! (Just
kidding.) (But then again, doesn't it?)
Come to that, Apple could agree to sell you even more storage
as and when you need it. So as Internet speeds get faster and
faster (I already have ADSL, and my wife has had ISDN for over
a year now), you need not buy that humongous multi-GB hard disk
with your PowerBook -- just buy one that's large enough to hold
your apps, plus maybe a little bit more for temporary storage
of data. The rest of your stuff can be safe and sound at Cupertino!
(Or wherever.)
Of course you eagle-eyed readers will have immediately
grasped the fact that Redmond could do the same thing for
its customers. And you would be entirely right.
(Well, not quite: it wouldn't work for programs, since Win
apps need to have files located just so on the hard drive,
and if their locations are messed up, the programs won't work!
But for pure data, Redmond could do it.)
So isn't that the very best reason of all for Apple to
be doing it first? We don't want people saying "Macs just
copy PCs", do we now.
... (not his real name -- but you figured that out already,
right?) ... calls himself a "Thinker", especially about the
future. He thinks that's where he'll be spending the rest
of his life (but who's he kidding, eh? Doesn't he realize
it's always going to be now?)
Most people say to him "You can't be serious" -- and they're
right, he can't. (But then, who can be serious about
the future, seeing as how anything can happen in it, and usually
does ... er, will?)
His best book -- indeed his only book -- is entitled The
Seventh Generation, and its shareware version in Adobe
Acrobat format is available for download from his alter-ego's
web site (under construction right now) at http://cpu2308.adsl.bellglobal.com.
It's all about the next 150 years or so, and where technology
might take us in that amount of time. (Just $5.00 -- cheap!
And well worth it, though he says so himself). Check it out.
And send
him e-mail: he loves feedback!
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