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Storage Bits

Robin Harris writes about storage and other tech with a focus on the SOHO/SMB market. And fun stuff, too, like PS3 supercomputers and Google's technology.

Robin Harris

Robin Harris is Chief Analyst at TechnoQWAN LLC, a storage research and consulting firm he founded in 2005. Based in Sedona, Arizona, TechnoQWAN focuses on emerging technologies, products, companies and markets. Robin has over 35 years experience in the IT industry and earned degrees from Yale and the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School.

Latest Posts

The Mac price crash of 2021

Macs hold their value. Where I live it’s not uncommon to see 10-, 12-, even 20-year-old Macs for sale. But the new M1 Macs have cratered MacBook resale values. The carnage is just beginning.

February 25, 2021 by Robin Harris in Apple

Private firms can't protect us from digital attacks. Government must step in.

For the last 30 years various forms of criminality and nation state aggression against Americans and America has been a staple of daily life. Despite the efforts of a number of multibillion dollar companies to protect us, they've failed to do so. The government must act.

February 18, 2021 by Robin Harris in Security

iPad Pro: Outclassed by the M1 MacBook Air, where does Apple's tablet go from here?

Apple's premium tablet is costlier, heavier and delivers less battery life than a similarly configured M1 MacBook Air. It's loaded with features most people never use. Who and what is the iPad Pro for? Apple needs to define what a "Pro" iPad is. Here's why.

January 19, 2021 by Robin Harris in Hardware

Rediscovering RISC-V: Apple M1 sparks renewed interest in non-x86 architectures

With the runaway success of the new ARM-based M1 Macs, non-x86 architectures are getting their closeup. RISC-V is getting the most attention from system designers looking to horn-in on Apple's recipe for high performance. Here's why.

January 8, 2021 by Robin Harris in Processors

Facebook's foolish attack on Apple

If you've ever wondered whether Harvard dropout Mark Zuckerberg is smarter than you, now you know: nope. Facebook's brain dead plea in full-page ads is all you need to know. Here's why.

January 5, 2021 by Robin Harris in Apple

Who's winning the race to replace NAND flash?

Despite its success, NAND flash wins only because there's nothing better. That may soon change. For now the landscape remains DRAM for memory and flash-based SSDs for storage. But underneath the surface calm, the technology trends are churning.

December 7, 2020 by Robin Harris in Storage

Social media's problem isn't bias, it's advertising. And that we can fix.

The ad-driven dynamic of commercial social media makes it profitable to drive outrage. Thoughtful and fact-based dialog is the first casualty. Let's look to Mr. Rogers for a solution.

November 30, 2020 by Robin Harris in Tech Industry

Compare: Apple's M1 MacBook Air kills the iPad Pro for the rest of us

The M1-powered MacBook Air sports all the power of the 12.9-inch iPad Pro and Magic Keyboard, for hundreds of dollars less. If you aren't using the iPad's camera or the Apple Pencil, is there any reason to get the big iPad?

November 25, 2020 by Robin Harris in Hardware

Apple M1: Will storage and memory limits be a problem for pros?

Apple's new M1-based systems have been announced, and Apple avoided touting their memory and storage - for good reason.

November 11, 2020 by Robin Harris in Apple

Here's how PC vendors can compete with Apple Silicon

PC makers face their biggest competitive threat ever in Apple Silicon Macs. The ARM/Android model hasn't worked for phone makers. Will the Wintel model work any better against a respected global brand with high-quality products and immense resources?

October 28, 2020 by Robin Harris in Hardware

What's inside Harris's home office? A no compromise duality

Lockdowns simply prove that my infrastructure is as flexible as I'd hoped: A combination of deeply rooted heavyweight capability and flyweight mobility.

October 7, 2020 by Robin Harris in Hardware

How the Apple Silicon Mac will attack the PC

Apple's pincer movement - features AND price - is a direct attack on Wintel. With a third of the personal computing market, Apple is poised to remake the traditional Wintel PC - or render it obsolete

September 24, 2020 by Robin Harris in Apple

SISR makes every cam a super-resolution device

Of all the startling things AI systems have learned to do in the last decade, the one that seems most like magic is single image super-resolution (SISR). Essentially SISR uses AI to take a single lo-res photo and turns it into a hi-res image. Pixels from nothing!

August 31, 2020 by Robin Harris in AI & Robotics

Try an e-bike: A guide to electric bikes for the curious beginner

In these COVID-inflected days, bicycles have become very popular. I've ridden over 3,000 miles on two e-bikes in the last three years, after decades of pedaling human-powered bikes. Here's what I wish I knew then about e-bikes. Maybe this will help you.

August 24, 2020 by Robin Harris in Hardware

Look at this hard drive data: Sales are way down but reliability is way up

The latest stats from Backblaze, running over 140,000 drives in its data centers, point out some stars -- and some dogs -- among 4TB to 16TB drives.

August 18, 2020 by Robin Harris in Storage

M1 MacBook Air long-term review: A year later, here's what I wish I'd known

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