Victorinox squeezes 1TB of high-speed storage into a Swiss Army Knife

http://www.bgr.com/2012/01/10/victorinox-squeezes-1tb-of-high-speed-storage-into-a-swiss-army-knife/

by Feanim • 15 years ago

85 53 15 years ago

ot• 15 years ago

Looks like it is the smallest 1TB drive in the market, and I can't bring it on an airplane. Sweet.

ctdonath2• 15 years ago

From first paragraph: "The device will come equipped with two knife bodies, between which the drive can easily be interchanged with one that is flight-friendly"

robterrell• 15 years ago

I have an older 1 GB model -- the thumbdrive part can be removed from the knife body (or you'd have this whole knife sticking out of your USB port).

ctdonath2• 15 years ago

Won't (I hope) be long 'til someone offers the 1TB "thumbdrive"* without the baggage (already carry a Benchmade, don't need another in-pocket toybox). Esp. nice having the writable display.

* - am amazed that nobody has yet come up with a suitable, consistent, catchy, universally-accepted name for "tiny solid-state data storage device with ubiquitous interface". Anything with "drive" in the name is an anachronism.

user24• 15 years ago

a lot of people use some variant of 'stick', eg 'thumbstick', 'usb stick'.

sp3322• 15 years ago

It says the drive can be "easily changed" between two bodies, which means it can also be removed and just stuck in your pocket without a "body".

agumonkey3• 15 years ago

I vote for `memorycard`

nodata2• 15 years ago

Memory card is trademarked by Sony.

I've heard the horrible "usb key" used a lot (even though it's not a key). I prefer usb stick.

teach• 15 years ago

In my school we call them 'flash drives', which I like.

squidfood• 15 years ago

Around here, we just call them "thingies".

m_for_monkey• 15 years ago

Wikipedia redirects to "USB Flash Drive", the article has a section about naming, too (with names I've never heard).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usb_stick#Naming

Aloisius• 15 years ago

I call anything that hangs out of a computer from a port a dongle, but I suppose that's too generic.

IgorPartola2• 15 years ago

The price tag is a bit prohibitive...

lylejohnson• 15 years ago

I did not see prices mentioned in the article. Are you just assuming that the prices will be prohibitively high?

Luc• 15 years ago

http://www.slashgear.com/victorinox-shows-off-3000-1-terabyt...

"The drive won’t be available until August, and a Victorinox associate said that they’re still considering the $3K price."

IgorPartola2• 15 years ago

Gizmodo mentions $3,000 as the price point, but re-reading the article, I cannot see where they got it.

http://gizmodo.com/5875033/hands-on-with-3000-worth-of-flash...

estel• 15 years ago

Even without the $3k quoted elsewhere, the existing prices of SSD harddrives in a much larger form factor should be a good indicator that $3K could easily be on the low-end of pricing.

sp3322• 15 years ago

I don't doubt that you're right, but where do you see a price?

dhx• 15 years ago

Which chip are they using? The highest capacity NAND memory on Samsung's website appears to be 256Gbit. Example part number: K9PFGD8U5M (most of the detail is hidden behind an NDA)

I doubt they can stack 32 of these chips into the same thumb drive, so what else is out there?

Tichy• 15 years ago

Maybe it just boots up a small script that books 1TB in cloud storage somewhere :-)

yatsyk• 15 years ago

or they licensed technology from this hd manufacturer: http://www.cracktwo.com/2011/04/chinese-fake-hard-drive.html :-)

pieter• 15 years ago

Physically it should be possible; you have 32GB micro SD-cards, 32 of which take up about 5.3cm^3. That would be about the same as 1.5x5.0x0.7cm, which seems like something that would fit that knife.

rorrr• 15 years ago

They are not using any chips. It's vaporware.

jsolson• 15 years ago

For the briefest of moments I wanted one of these, but then I remembered what happened to my last pocket knife.

- Sent from seat 26D

ohyes• 15 years ago

"The device will come equipped with two knife bodies, between which the drive can easily be interchanged with one that is flight-friendly and the other includes traditional Swiss Army Knife implements of a blade, scissors, and screw driver."

kcima• 15 years ago

Yes, and the flight-friendly knife body comes with ear plugs and special container for Xanax pills.

kabdib• 15 years ago

And TSA goons can be depended on to realize it's not an actual knife.

"But it says 'Swiss Army' on it."

"It's not a knife."

"Surrreee. Step this way, please."

wisty• 15 years ago

Yeah, but you could still have pirated movies, or unlocked software on the drive, which would make you a pirate and a thought-criminal.

And you wouldn't let a pirate on a plane, would you?

SageRaven• 15 years ago

Isn't it a shame?

I once regularly toted my Swiss Army knife on plane trips. I'd toss it into the basket with my keys and wallet and be waved through the metal detector (with shoes still on, mind you), and it was never given a second glance.

I've carried that same poor, battered knife daily for almost 25 years now. In fact, I was denied entrance to a New Year's venue this year because I admitted to having a pocket knife on my person and refused to part with it. $60 wasted. WTF?

Have we become a society of emasculated pansies that fears little pocket knives?

cglace• 15 years ago

And worse toenail clippers.

SkyMarshal• 15 years ago

>Have we become a society of emasculated pansies that fears little pocket knives?

I have a suspicion that we haven't, but the government keeps saying we have, and we all just assume they're talking about everyone else.

gaustin• 15 years ago

> Have we become a society of emasculated pansies that fears little pocket knives?

Some people are afraid of just about everything.

I make knives. (Some people immediately jump to the conclusion that I must be a nutty survivalist, when the reality is that I just like making things with my hands.) I almost always carry one, whether it's a small folding knife or fixed blade knife.

When I made the first knife, people at work were curious. They asked to see it in a meeting. My boss was very uncomfortable about it and asked me not to make it known I carry a knife to avoid problems with skittish folks.

This is in Montana, where a large number of people own at least one gun and it's incredibly easy to get a concealed weapon permit.

adrianwaj• 15 years ago

Perhaps you could've stashed it behind some plants and gone back without it?

sschueller• 15 years ago

Before 9/11 it was possible to purchase a swiss army knife from the duty free catalog on Swiss Flights. It would be given to you during the flight.

ja272• 15 years ago

Before 9/11 it was legal (per the FAA) to fly with a knife with up to a 4" blade. Some airlines limited blade length to 3". I regularly flew with a 3" folding knife. I could often walk through the metal detectors without even taking the knife out of my pocket if I just put my hand over it and walked slowly. Other times I'd drop it in the basket with my keys and wallet and half the time nobody would even look at it.

I used to regularly fly through Portland, Maine (where some of the 9/11 hijackers boarded) and the security screening staff there were some of the few that always looked at my knife. I felt really horrible to see them on the security videos as the hijackers passed through. It wasn't their failure because boxcutters were allowed at the time.

Hominem• 15 years ago

My reaction to this was. Oh, I've seen pocket knives with thumbdrives. Wait does that say 1TB? They can fit 1TB in a tumbdrive???

How long has this been possible?

rsobers2• 15 years ago

One thing that appears to be glossed over is how easy this device makes hijacking data from organizations. High-speed, tons of storage, and inconspicuous.

This underscores the importance of having proper access controls and alerts in place to identify anomalous data access.

josefresco• 15 years ago

A pocket knife to some security teams is hardly inconspicuous.

rsobers2• 15 years ago

Yeah, I meant from a data loss standpoint; not a stab-you-in-the-face standpoint. Lots of sysadmins carry around pocket knives for various things.

ErikRogneby• 15 years ago

Has anyone found who the OEM is for the flash drive? Who is their supplier?

Victorinox squeezes 1TB of high-speed storage into a Swiss Army Knife

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