After seeing the iLink power port go lonely and unnoticed for so long, I decided to pick up some peripherals that made use of it. The first of these is the Sony PCGA-HDM06 portable hard drive, available only in Japan and purchased from icube.us (excellent price and service).

The design is in line with Sony’s VAIO peripherals, with a dark metallic silver case that matches almost all VAIO notebooks. You can attach the drive to your computer with either the short fold-out cable or with a longer separate 4 pin iLink cable that plugs into the back of the drive. The built-in cable is handy since it’s one less thing to carry and keep track of. The external cable jack is good in case you don’t have a computer with the DC power port, as the connector on the built-in cable will not fit.

The actual drive inside the case is a 2.5” 60GB Hitachi unit with a rotational speed of 4200 RPM. It has fluid dynamic bearings and operates very quietly as a result. The case gets a bit warm during usage since it’s made out of plastic and doesn’t conduct heat away as well as metal enclosures. Transfer speeds are on par with a 7200 RPM external drive I also use, though I suspect it’s partly due to the bottleneck of the TR’s slower internal drive. The FireWire chipset is made by Seiko Epson, though I would have liked to see an Oxford 911 chipset.

Although a 6 pin FireWire port would have been better, it’s nice that Sony at least provided the power jack to use peripherals without an external power brick. The catch is you have to buy Sony peripherals, but if they’re as well made and nice looking as the PCGA-HDM06, I don’t mind paying extra too much.

I’ll post some more photos as soon as I get my Memory Stick cleared off.

Excellent…I would get one of those but I already have an external drive that supports USB2/Firewire/iLink. I use the USB2 connection most of the time since it powers the drive just fine.

Ok cellery. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to figure out the pins for the DC out so that we can figure out how to make a iLink + (DC out) to 6-pin firewire cable. 

The DC out looks simple enough, there’s only 2 contacts inside the plug. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if the power characteristics were identical to the 2 power pins in a standard 6 pin FireWire connection. Having 60GB on the go is super-nice, and the battery drain is negligible, especially if I copy things over to a Memory Stick and run it from there.

Whats the damage?

500 bucks, I kept vacillating between this and getting two 3.5” 250GB drives. Mmm, half a terabyte…

So it doesn’t require being plugged into a power outlet?  Are there any 3.5in hard drive cases that are free of power outlet bondage? I have an external I carry with me sometimes but it is bound by its dependency on “wall” power.  In my googles I have had mixed results…  would a 3.5” hd be a huge battery drain if it were possible?

How do you think this HDD compares to the 40/80gig GIGA Vault?  I read that it (the gigavault) runs on batteries and USB/iL, which seems like a more usable thing (being able to connect to non VAIO machines) than this device.  Granted this one sure looks cooler (always a factor).  Plus the gigavault (80g) is $379 retail.

I am in the design buisness and have frequently found myself needing a small high capacity storage device, but havent found the right device.

I also read that the GigaVault is “scalable”. I know what scalable means, but i dont know how this works with this device.  Anyone know?

i am not sure how well the GigaVault compares to other hard drives, but it def.  matches the TR better than any other hard drive out there.

eMCDeMC: Yep, this drive is powered by the TR, you don’t need to bring anything else along. I haven’t seen any bus-powered 3.5” enclosures on the market, but that’s probably because 3.5” drives outstrip the power USB/FW can provide over the bus.

dharch: I also have a 40GB Giga Vault, so I can offer a few comparisons. I use the HDM06 with my work machine by leaving the AC adapter and a 4-pin cable at work, then I can just plug it in whenever necessary since I don’t need those plugs at home. The “scalability” of the GV is because the actual hard drive is in one piece and the battery/USB connector are in another piece, which you snap together to use. You can then purchase additional hard drive modules to use with the battery/USB piece. The battery doesn’t last very long on the GV, about 90 minutes tops, and I don’t know if it will be a problem, but the drive stops working after it runs out of juice. I lost some important data that was in the middle of transferring when it happened once, so that was a big no-no.

Another small thing that made the HDM06 better is that it weighs a little less and you don’t have to carry any cables or adapters with you if you’re going somewhere with your TR. I took a long flight recently and was happy that I didn’t have to charge up the hard drive and could just plug it in and use it. The Giga Vault is definitely a better value for your money, but I primarily use the HDM06 for the better design and small conveniences.

In a typical “ARRRRGH!” moment for me, Sony just posted this for sale on their U.S. site today for the low low price of $349. It took them about 18 months to bring it to market here, but oh well.  :ph34r:  :ph34r:  :ph34r:

Linkage

Doh, that sucks…well, as long as you get good usage out of it then it’s not too big of a deal. I’m surprised they also released it…they typically don’t release this stuff over here in the states.

The price is actually competitive…it’s more than others but not by much. I prefer the Mercury On-To-Go drives from OWC since they use faster drives and have dual connections (6 and 4-pin firewire and USB2). Still, the Sony price premium isn’t that bad at $349.

I’d like to be in on the meetings where they decide what is and isn’t released in the US…because i have no idea how they decide what criteria they use to release stuff.

The release of the drive was terrible timing for me, but oh well. At least Dynamism will have to lower their $600 price on the drive, I had been ogling it there for quite some time. In this case, it’s not really a problem with getting behind the technology curve as much as Sony’s unpredictable U.S. marketing.

Firewire Direct also has some nice enclosures, I have a portable Mach IV FW/USB2 enclosure on the way to throw an extra drive into. The design is pretty nice too.

I also wonder what the Sony corporate people are thinking sometimes, like pulling Bluetooth out of their products bound for the U.S. market. It’s not even a cost issue, as the European equivalents keep the BT. Out of their just-announced products, the TH55 PDA and TR3 are both losing BT.

My friend who works for Sony says he also never knows what they are thinking. And they do funny stuff…    :shock:  :?  :ph34r: And my friend has to do funny things too…