Already, in 2003 disk drive manufacturer Maxtor says some "early adopter" homes had as much as 700GB of total storage capacity under their roof, distributed across PCs, PDAs and personal video recorders (PVRs) such as TiVo. By 2006--a mere two years from now--that same home may have as much as 3.6TB, Maxtor enthusiastically predicts.
Browsing the Consumer Electronics Show floor in Las Vegas last month, what struck Paul Streit, Maxtor senior product manager for solutions marketing, was "the blurring of the line between computers and entertainment." As an example, he cites the new Linksys Wireless-B Media Link for music (WML11B), which allows users to listen to digital music stored on PCs or other storage devices on a home stereo, without running cables through the house.
Or how about NetGear's WGT634U Super Wireless Media Router? The unit includes a USB port that you can use to attach, say, Maxtor's OneTouch drive. Suddenly, Streit says, the idea of "true wireless networked storage for the home" is a reality.
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This was first published in February 2004