Quote Originally Posted by conrad10781

But to just come out and bash us with a non impressive for no real technical issues, really isn't all that great either.
I think I have outlined why it is not impressive.

1. full size CD is cumbersome. If you really want to make it, I would suggest mini-CD + keychain flash. There may be machines that cannot boot from USB, but there are that many machines that doesn't have USB.

2. Even I don't care about GMAIL, why would I want a network based FS when I can save everything in a keychain flash ? A network baseed file system requires a very fast network with low latency. That is not a situation we have now. The current state of broadband give us pretty fast upload/download speed for things like zip file but not for remote fs. Therefore, gmail/yahoo as a backup storage for zipped file is the best compromise, at the moment.

3. The remote desktop/VNC approach is better where I just need a minimal PC running its client and the network requirement is not that large comparing with remote FS. I have the benefit of a much faster machine on the server side too, if I want.

I have been toying with this computer/data with me all the time idea for over two years because I have a real need of it(always on the move) and have tried/thought about a lot of ways to do it.

A mini-notebook under 2lbs. This is the easiest but the bulkiest comparing with other methods I have tried. But I relies on no one.

A 2.5" IDE USB 2.0 DISK enclosure. less bulky than the above and similar to your idea. This means I need to borrow machines. The advantage(comparing with yours) is that I have all my stuff with me(20G is quite some space, much larger than a CD, even DVD) and don't need a network.

USB keychain and/or mini-cd, even smaller and easier than 2.5" USB enclosure. With the price drop of microdrive/flash, this idea is getting better if I don't 20G+ storage all the time.

A VNC server at home. This means I carry nothing and just run a VNC client on whatever machine I can get hold of. I have a wake-on-lan capable machine at home with a broadband connection(which I have to pay anyway as family members still need it when I am away). I don't even need to worry if the machine can boot CD or read USB. So long it can browse the net, I can use it.

As for gmail, storage is cheap, processing power is too so I believe they will continue to provide it. Beside, I believe google/yahoo would have a better backup strategy than what you are going to provide. One needs to look at this for third party remote storage. I recalled a very nice photo sharing site which went belly up leaving its users in the dark and charged them to get their stuff back(if it can finally do it is another issue).

Now you may understand why I said your idea is not impressive, because I have thought through a lot of the alternatives, their pros and cons and cost as well.

Just for discussion, in what way do you think your idea is better than what I have outlined above ? I am not here to bash you, just trying to have a constructive discussion. may be it is expressed in the wrong way.