12-17-2003, 04:00 PM
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Executive Editor
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 29,160
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Toshiba Readies Coin-Size Drive: Sub-one-inch Hard Drive Will Offer up to 3GB of Storage
"Toshiba plans to begin sample production next year of a coin-size hard drive that can hold up to 3GB of data, the company says. The new drive contains a disk platter that is 0.85 inches in diameter and the whole drive is about the size of a coin. It has a data capacity of between 2GB and 3GB, says Midori Suzuki, a spokesperson for Toshiba in Tokyo.
Toshiba will demonstrate a prototype of the drive at the CES show that takes place in Las Vegas in January 2004 and plans sample production from the middle of 2004. Commercial production could begin as early as 2005, Suzuki says."
Hard drives keep getting smaller and smaller, but where are the devices adopting these new, smaller drives? Sure there's the super-cool Rio Nitrus, but what else? In order to achieve the "take all my data with me anywhere on any device" nirvana, I'd need at least 20 GB, and that's not including any of my music. And never mind the fact that synchronization software is still a mess - there's no clean way to keep multiple data stores updated yet without ugliness. But I digress...how about those tiny hard drives? ;-)
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12-17-2003, 04:27 PM
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Theorist
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 267
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Having had a 1GB IBM Microdrive fail on me, it will be a long time before I will use anything like it again. It was wonderful while I had it, but why bother now, with the price of flash memory still coming down? By the time this drive hits production we will probably have SD cards with similar capacity and CF cards with higher capacity....and they will be cheaper, too.
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12-17-2003, 06:54 PM
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Magi
Join Date: Dec 2007
Posts: 2,124
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What are they going to call it? Mini-micro drive? Itty-bitty drive? Way-too-easy-to-lose drive? Hide-in-the-couch-cushions drive?
Seriously they must be running out of names by now 
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12-17-2003, 07:03 PM
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Ponderer
Join Date: Nov 2003
Posts: 53
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by PetiteFlower
What are they going to call it?
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Is "DataCoin" taken? :lol:
While really, really tiny drives are cool, and all that, I find myself leaning more towards other storage technologies. Fact is, no matter how small a disk drive is, it still has moving parts.
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12-18-2003, 07:58 AM
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Philosopher
Join Date: Aug 2002
Posts: 593
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I don't get this insecurity about miniature hard drives. The iPod is wildly popular and it uses a Toshiba drive inside of it.
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12-18-2003, 09:01 AM
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Intellectual
Join Date: Aug 2003
Posts: 144
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Just think, a 5" SVGA screen, 256 MB RAM, 128 MB ROM, SDIO, CF II, 802.11g and a 4 GB harddrive in one unit. That's what will be possible with these babies. 0X
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Linear Mode
