Storage Matters: The Zune's 30 GB Toshiba Hard Drive

[Jason Dunn]

Pictured above is the 1.8 inch Toshiba hard drive that, according to the FCC documents at least, is going to come in the Zune when it's released later this year (I should note that Toshiba is making the Zune for Microsoft, in case earlier posts weren't clear on that point). The size of the hard drive is 30 gigabytes, and I wanted to discuss that for a moment. The question is, is 30 GB big enough for the first Zune on the market? According to a 2004 study by Jupiter Research, 90% of people who have a digital music collection have less than 1000 songs. Two and a half years later, one could bet that number has risen - let's be generous and say it has doubled and the average consumer has a music collection of around 2000 songs. Let's say roughly 3 MB per song (again, over-shooting the size a bit) and we have around 6000 MB of total storage required.

But wait, you say, what about video? That's something that is a bit of a mystery - I'm not aware of any consumer studies involving how much of a digital video collection people have, and how much of that they'd want to take with them on a device. I'd be willing to bet that it's not very big. Let's factor in another 2000 MB of video files, giving us 8 GB of total media storage. [If those numbers seem small, remember that by reading this site, you're not average by any means.]

Where am I going with this? Even though as an early-adopter type, 30 GB doesn't impress me much and I'd love to see more storage, I think the Zune team knows 30 GB is the sweet spot between keeping the price of the Zune low and the amount of storage the average consumer needs. Toshiba makes an 80 GB drive that would fit in the Zune, but it would drive up the overall cost of the Zune.

Here's what I think Microsoft should do: release a high-end version of the Zune in parallel with the 30 GB Zune, say a "Zune Extreme", that has a massive 80 GB drive. Why? Several reasons. First, it would trump the current iPod lineup by 20 GB. The Zune is going head to head with the iPod - make no mistake about it. For early adopters, the people willing to take a chance on an unknown product, specs matter. Early adopters are also less price-sensitive than mainstream consumers (these are the people who drop $900 USD on a Qtek 9000), so even if the 80 GB Zune sold for $449 I think people who want the most high-end Zune they can get would pay for it. Early tech adopters also tend to be quite different from the average consumer with their media collections, so in many ways 30 GB just won't cut it for these users.

Will the Zune only come in a 30 GB version? Right now, it's looking like it. We'll have to watch the FCC for more documents, because if there is another version, it will go through the same clearance process the first one did. What do you think - would you be willing to pay $449 USD for an 80 GB Zune?

[Jason Dunn]

Pictured above is the 1.8 inch Toshiba hard drive that, according to the FCC documents at least, is going to come in the Zune when it's released later this year (I should note that Toshiba is making the Zune for Microsoft, in case earlier posts weren't clear on that point). The size of the hard drive is 30 gigabytes, and I wanted to discuss that for a moment. The question is, is 30 GB big enough for the first Zune on the market? According to a 2004 study by Jupiter Research, 90% of people who have a digital music collection have less than 1000 songs. Two and a half years later, one could bet that number has risen - let's be generous and say it has doubled and the average consumer has a music collection of around 2000 songs. Let's say roughly 3 MB per song (again, over-shooting the size a bit) and we have around 6000 MB of total storage required.

But wait, you say, what about video? That's something that is a bit of a mystery - I'm not aware of any consumer studies involving how much of a digital video collection people have, and how much of that they'd want to take with them on a device. I'd be willing to bet that it's not very big. Let's factor in another 2000 MB of video files, giving us 8 GB of total media storage. [If those numbers seem small, remember that by reading this site, you're not average by any means.]

Where am I going with this? Even though as an early-adopter type, 30 GB doesn't impress me much and I'd love to see more storage, I think the Zune team knows 30 GB is the sweet spot between keeping the price of the Zune low and the amount of storage the average consumer needs. Toshiba makes an 80 GB drive that would fit in the Zune, but it would drive up the overall cost of the Zune.

Here's what I think Microsoft should do: release a high-end version of the Zune in parallel with the 30 GB Zune, say a "Zune Extreme", that has a massive 80 GB drive. Why? Several reasons. First, it would trump the current iPod lineup by 20 GB. The Zune is going head to head with the iPod - make no mistake about it. For early adopters, the people willing to take a chance on an unknown product, specs matter. Early adopters are also less price-sensitive than mainstream consumers (these are the people who drop $900 USD on a Qtek 9000), so even if the 80 GB Zune sold for $449 I think people who want the most high-end Zune they can get would pay for it. Early tech adopters also tend to be quite different from the average consumer with their media collections, so in many ways 30 GB just won't cut it for these users.

Will the Zune only come in a 30 GB version? Right now, it's looking like it. We'll have to watch the FCC for more documents, because if there is another version, it will go through the same clearance process the first one did. What do you think - would you be willing to pay $449 USD for an 80 GB Zune?

[saru7755]

if the price difference is not more than 20% than the 30GB then i would pay for the 80GB

[jerboa]

Originally Posted by Jason Dunn

What do you think - would you be willing to pay $449 USD for an 80 GB Zune?

Much more important than an extra 20GB over an iPod will be how the Microsoft music store and the Zune interface work. If they are a significant improvement over Apple's, then maybe I will consider it.

[Philip Colmer]

From my perspective, I think that I would be likely to watch video and then delete it, whereas audio is likely to hang around longer 'cos you tend to listen to music over & over again.

So, on that basis, I'm not sure that 30GB is a particular problem. PVRs in the UK typically come with 40GB drives and that is for 20 hours of SD files. Something like the Zune, because of its smaller screen size, is going to be able to compress the files much better, so you'll get several hours of video onto that drive.

--Philip

[mcsouth]

Personally, I've never been particularly keen on the idea of a hard-drive based player - probably for illogical reasons. My fear is that, with a houseful of young kids, my unit would get dropped on the floor once, and would then be a pile of junk, due to a failed hard drive. Yes, I know that the greatest risk would be as a result of dropping it when it is actually playing, but the fact remains that I perceive hard drive based players to be fragile.

Of course, that leaves flash-based players as my alternative, but things are promising with the Sandisk 8GB flash player - finally a reasonable amount of space for songs, photos, videos, etc. So, do we think that MS is considering a flash-based player as part of their strategy?

[Philip Colmer]

Another area that might affect whether or not this is enough storage is going to be connectivity.

Will you be able to use it as a USB-connected harddrive & store files on it?

Will future models ('cos I don't think this one does) have inputs for microphone and, even better, video in? Possibly a bit of a stretch for these but it would be nice.

--Philip

[rvacha]

Flash is a tough call methinks. Flash can't hold much data and would limit the video usability of the unit. Second issue I see is that if it did support video then it would need a large battery and the unit's size would be relatively large compared to other devices. It would be even larger if it supported WiFi as well. On the other hand, MS would be silly not to cover all the bases if they really want to make a dent in the iPod space. I look for MS to do a flash player with video and WiFi stripped out - and I'd further guess that it would not be called Zune to avoid market confusion. But that's all conjecture on my part.

[mcsouth]

Originally Posted by rvacha

Flash is a tough call methinks. Flash can't hold much data and would limit the video usability of the unit.

I'm confused about why you believe that flash would limit the video usability of the unit - is it just because of the relative size of flash memory units relative to audio and video file sizes?

I currently have a 2gb SD card in my PPC, have 3 full-length movies on the card in Divx format, and they play just fine without issues on the unit. Battery life averages about 1 to 1-1/2 movies on one charge, which is somewhat limiting, but then it is an iPaq 4150 (very compact) without the extended battery. Oh, and the 2gb SD card? It isn't half full yet, and has lots of other programs and music loaded on it as well.

As a result, I'm not sure that I buy the idea that a flash-based player couldn't be a good video and music player, although in my opinion, I wouldn't buy a player smaller than 4gb if I was considering putting video on it. Sandisk has released an 8gb player - how long until a 16gb player is released? I, for one, would prefer that over a 30gb hard-disk based player.

[ucfgrad93]

Originally Posted by jerboa

Much more important than an extra 20GB over an iPod will be how the Microsoft music store and the Zune interface work. If they are a significant improvement over Apple's, then maybe I will consider it.

I agree completely. This is the big question that will determine the success or failure of the Zune. Say what you want about the iPod and iTunes, they do work great and you don't need to be a techno-geek to use it.

[Jason Dunn]

Originally Posted by jerboa

Much more important than an extra 20GB over an iPod will be how the Microsoft music store and the Zune interface work.

Indeed, for the average consumer, this is much more important than extra storage. But for the early adopters out there, music library UI isn't quite as important. Long term though, it's absolutely critical - the Zune music library app HAS to be better than Windows Media Player!