09-30-2004, 03:00 PM
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Swami
Join Date: Feb 2004
Posts: 4,303
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Hard Disks for Handhelds
"The first hard drive in 1956 was the IBM 305 RAMAC, and cost $10,000 per MB � it had a capacity of 5MB. But now the cost, Fox said, is something under 10 cents per MB and that he said, is a retail figure, including tax. Average home will have 15 hard drives, although most households don�t know it. There are some hard drives in cars and they�re starting to appear in mobile phones. Hard drive vendors are getting overexcited about the potential of hard drives in the mobile market. Although 260 million units shipped last year, the figures for mobile phones far exceed that number."
We've already got a Samsung mobile phone with a hard drives, so when will we see Pocket PCs sporting them? The Inquirer article mentions that Hitachi�s CE ATA interface is specifically designed for handhelds, as mobile users don't need the same speed or throughput that desktop users require. It does of course help that this reduced specification makes the units substantially cheaper. :wink:
So, how do you feel about the prospect of PPCs with hard drives? On one side you have the possibility of large amounts of cheap, fast storage, while on the other you have the problem of increased fragility and power consumption. Would you like a PPC with an embedded (non-removable) hard drive? What are your thoughts about the pros and cons?
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09-30-2004, 03:09 PM
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Thinker
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 335
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I'm looking forward to installing a 80GB CF card into my soon to be purchased Dell X50v....
As long as the drive is only used for storage, and powers off when not in use I can only see it as a plus. But I don't want it to replace the built-in flash for the OS and most requently used programs.
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09-30-2004, 03:10 PM
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Intellectual
Join Date: Sep 2002
Posts: 143
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I think the problem in putting a hard drive in a Pocket PC comes dow to price. For instance, you can get a 20 GB iPod with a nice 20 GB Toshiba PC Card drive for about $299. BUT, add-in the VGA screen and other feature set of say a Dell Axim x50v or an HP iPAQ hx4700 and you put the price of the unit up close to $1000 with an internal hard drive.
I'd like to see PPCs with a decent amount of built-in memory that approaches some of the MP3 players that we see people scavanging for their CF Micros-drives, but it will be hard for manufacturers to belly-up to higher price points for the mass consumption market.
I'm happy to report that my new hx4700 has enough power going tot he CF slot to drive a Toshiba 5 GB PC Card drive with an adapter. That combo makes my PPC a real computer as opposed to a lite version or desktoip take-away unit.
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09-30-2004, 03:14 PM
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Thinker
Join Date: Jun 2004
Posts: 482
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I think flash memory is just easier. No moving parts to worry about, more reliable (I hear more about hard drives crashing than my 64MB Flash RAM chip), it is quieter, and it consumes less battery power. And, well the large capacities for less money would be nice (I think it is that way, is it?), but I'm still doing fine with my 1 gig and 256 meg CF, and my two 128 meg SDs, and I'm sure many many other people are doing quite fine with much less storage than I have.
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09-30-2004, 03:34 PM
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Thinker
Join Date: Mar 2004
Posts: 469
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Wouldn't you need more ram for this sort of application. All these hard drives are not meant to spin continuously. This of course saves on battery but limits the amount of information you can load. With the latest news on all the new CF/SD cards with pricing coming down daily, this idea seems less attractive to me than it did a year ago. Why not just install a 1GB CF inside the unit and make it upgradable?
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09-30-2004, 03:38 PM
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Thoughts Media Review Team
Join Date: May 2002
Posts: 1,004
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the idea of having 20gb of storage on my PPC does have some appeal but I agree that I would not want to see it replacing the flash memory model for the OS and Programs. Why? You ask.
Well for one thing I suspect that the moment you start having such large amount of storage available for OS/programs we are going to see some really serious program bloat starting to happen (we already have some programs that take multiple megabites to load and run) and we would probably end up in just about the same position comparatively speaking...
__________________
...waiting for the arrival of my Axim x50v...But I still love my Newtons!
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09-30-2004, 03:48 PM
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Intellectual
Join Date: Dec 2002
Posts: 210
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This recent thread discusses pretty much the same thing.
As for my $0.02, I would love to get a hard drive-based mp3 player, but I just can't justify it when I am already lugging around a PPC (and a cell phone). I have a 1GB CF card that I use, but with only 1GB, I frequently have to upload new songs to it when I get tired of the ones on there. Also, I don't have the ability to carry every song with me, so if I get in the mood to hear a certain song, I most likely don't have it on the card.
I am certainly willing to sacrifice a little battery life to get a hard drive, and with good caching techniques, it won't be that much of a energy-drain. Load programs in RAM or a storage card and put media on the HD.
If you look in the thread I mentioned above, someone is releasing a PPC with a hard drive.
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09-30-2004, 04:25 PM
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Pupil
Join Date: Mar 2003
Posts: 15
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Re: Hard Disks for Handhelds
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Jonathon Watkins
[i]"The first hard drive in 1956 was the IBM 305 RAMAC, and cost $10,000 per MB � it had a capacity of 5MB. But now the cost, Fox said, is something under 10 cents per MB and that he said, is a retail figure, including tax.
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Huh? By my calculations, hard drive costs are well under 1 cent per MB. I see a 200 GB Seagate drive at NewEgg for $120. $120 / 200 = 60 cents per GIGABYTE. $0.60 / 1000 = $0.0006 or six one-hundredth's of a cent per megabyte. Even the $299 20GB PC card is only 1.5 cents per megabyte. Oh well, the sentiment is correct if not the math... :roll:
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09-30-2004, 04:43 PM
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Pupil
Join Date: Mar 2004
Posts: 13
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Considering the number of times I've dropped my PDA and cell phone, I don't think a hard drive is a good idea for me. Unless they have some super-duper-uber-protected one.
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09-30-2004, 05:35 PM
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Sage
Join Date: Nov 2006
Posts: 702
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Re: Hard Disks for Handhelds
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Originally Posted by Jonathon Watkins
Would you like a PPC with an embedded (non-removable) hard drive? What are your thoughts about the pros and cons?
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I'm sure many would have a different view on ths from mine, but as you stated the question my answer would be a definite no. The deciing factor for me would be whether it is user removeable. With Toshiba developing .85 inch HDs, there would be a great possibility for PDA vendors to use a slot, inside the battery compartment, to install one of these drives. I could be very similar to the way many OEMs have put the slot for the backup battey slot that hold the CR2032 battery.
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