Thank you for reinforcing most of my comment, except for one little thing:

Fortunately for the USA, you are wrong:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J...
Consider it a lesson learned from 9/11.

"ADS-B is slowly superseding the ground-based radar systems that have been used for decades"
... until the aircraft decides to become "uncooperative" and turns the darn thing off -- at which point, this (and any beacon/transponder-based system) becomes instantly useless.
Which is why you'll see ADS-B augment, but never completely replace old fashioned search radar anytime soon.

So many great quotes from his Spock character, so expertly delivered. I've (obviously) always been partial to the one in my sig. It is sadly relevant to his demise too (vis-à-vis smoking).

This isn't about raw storage; it's about an appliance that *just works* (for a long time, in my case). I've had my ReadyNAS NV (pre-Netgear, Infrant version) up and running 24/7 since March of 2006. It never, ever crashes. Administration (when rarely required) is quick & brainless. It cost 700 bucks back then (no drives). Along with my IBM Thinkpad, that's the best computing money I've ever spent.

If I would have built a DIY version, it probably would have needed rebuilding (software-wise) 3 times by now, largely due to my own propensity to keep messing with it.

Oh, I have got plug the ReadyNAS proprietary "X-RAID" feature, too: slap in an extra drive, and the array auto-expands to fill that drive. Zero-config, instant upgrades!

They're selling in spite of (and now because of) folks like me.
Yep, I was one of those haters when the service came out, but I'm a Steam convert. There's just too much to like. Crazy low prices during sales + the almost instant gratification factor = lots of impulse buys. I find myself visiting the steampowered.com site to check out the current deals.

Sure, you won't be lending out discs anymore, but you won't be losing/damaging them either. OTOH, you get easy access to your old games for as long as Steam sticks around (the only possible catch, I suppose).

I'd never played the Mass Effect series before, then saw them on sale on Steam. Picked up ME1 for 5 bucks! (ME2 is currently $24.) That's a LOT of entertainment per $.

Don't hold your breath. Although the Federal Desktop Core Config (FDCC) only mandates *security settings* for federal gov't XP/Vista machines, many IT PHBs have taken it as a mandate to USE Windows for the desktop environment. Hard to blame them, if you just go by the title of the program. I mean, where's the Linux FDCC, or the Mac version? Oh, that's right... they don't exist (yet).

Add to that the fact that AD, Exchange, SharePoint, OCS (among others) are de-facto standards across the DoD, and you can see where that leaves us for desktop machines. Not impossible to integrate alternative OS's, just very difficult; and nearly impossible to reap all those "MS-unique features" from your Windows servers w/out Windows/IE/Outlook/OCS on the other end.

I think it's safe to say that vendor lock-in has been achieved.

Regarding the Addonics AD44MIDE2CF fit, it would be nice if all laptop HD bays were so easily accessible as the one pictured on the Addonics site, but sadly, that's not the case for my machine (IBM T42) and many other laptops.
My system uses a little caddy & external cover that you must fasten to the HD, then the whole assembly slides into the side of the system. I know many Dells are like this, too (usually w/just the cover, not the caddy).
Since the AD44MIDE2CF does not have the same dimensions and screw holes as a normal HD, it will not attach to the caddy, and therefore cannot be easily slid into place. That's why I glued the adapter to the caddy, lining up the pins so they'd sit exactly where they would on a normal HD. Now, the whole thing can still be easily swapped out. Come to think of it, without the caddy (like on those Dells), I'd be completely hosed.

The Addonics CF-IDE adapter seems like a good idea (and it is for many, I'm sure), but I hope this serves as a warning for any other Googlers who are interested in the same solution I've got. It's not exactly plug & play.

And you're probably right about the voltage not being a deciding factor in TFA, but (at least in the case of the Transcend cards) it has some bearing on the DMA mode, so it may be worth the author's time to investigate it.
I know I've been absolutely certain in years past that technical issue a,b,c couldn't possibly have been caused by factors x,y,z... only to have to eat crow later.