Toshiba Readies Truly Tiny Hard Drive: Sub-1-Inch Drive Likely to Appear in Portable Devices Later This Year

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,114180,tk,dn010804X,00.asp' target='_blank'>http://www.pcworld.com/news/article...n010804X,00.asp</a><br /><br /></div>"Toshiba has unveiled a prototype hard drive that's smaller than any currently on the market. The drive could start appearing in devices such as cellular telephones and digital music players before the end of this year. The drive is the same length and width as an SD memory card and is 1 millimeter thicker, says Maciek Brzeski, vice president of marketing at Toshiba's U.S. storage media division. A prototype on display at the Consumer Electronics Show here this week has a data storage capacity of 2GB. Toshiba is also planning to produce a sample drive with 4GB capacity around the middle of this year, Brzeski says.<br /><br />...It is expected to be used in small handheld portable devices such as cellular telephones, digital audio players, PDAs, digital still cameras, and camcorders, Brzeski says. Serious talks with manufacturers of some of these devices have already begun, he says. Toshiba expects to begin sample production in the middle of this year and begin commercial production in late 2004."<br /><br />Although I greatly prefer Flash-based memory concepts to spinning platters of metal, thinking about a Pocket PC with 4 GB of on-board storage makes me weak in the knees. 8O

[Air]

there goes iPOD.

[ricksfiona]

there goes iPOD.
Yeah, that's about it. I just hope the drive maker builds some nice shock absortion mechanizms into the drive. I wonder how the speed would be compared to flash memory.

[David Prahl]

Egad! I thought they were aiming for a CF-ish formfactor, not SD! 8O

Are we assuming that only OEMs can buy these, and they'll never be removable?

[Air]

Imagine hunting for this tiny HD under the pillow, with 4GB of your data. hmm, maybe removable is not such a good idea.

but seriously, anybody realizes, only a couple of years ago, 4GB in a laptop was a miracle? yeow....

[gohtor]

sweet. i'd like to see an sd hd =)

[corphack]

and its "disposable", too!

(Toshiba doesn't warrantee "disposable" goods).

[Janak Parekh]

there goes iPOD.
Hm? The iPod Mini is using the Hitachi 4GB 1" drive... if anything, this will be a boost not just to iPods, but to Windows Portable Media Centers.

--janak

[jeffmd]

I belive beause of its very small mass, shock wont be an issue. Cost might be an issue though, but being the size of a small chip = uber. Seeing a hard drive in anything from a cell phone to a watch would rock. Just think, the portable medium of the future are not tiny removeable disc or cf cards, but rather every day devices you have on you allready. I think if this was ever in a removable form, id like, stick it on a credit card like interface so then I could stick it in my wallet.

[whydidnt]

" The drive is the same length and width as an SD memory card and is 1 millimeter thicker, says Maciek Brzeski, vice president of marketing at Toshiba's U.S. storage media division.

8) Oh man if only it was a millimeter thinner, then everyone would want one!! :wink:

The really good news about a hard drive this small is it will push flash memory manufacturers to increase capacity and reduce cost.

whydidnt

[possmann]

cool - but I wonder what it will do to battery consumption....

[Wasp]

I agree with Possman. I bought the IBM 340 MB hard drive for my PDA, and that sucking sound was my battery life being depleted. 8)

[jeffmd]

well how much power does that cf hd draw compared to a full fledge drive? or a note book drive? now compare that to a drive half the size of a cf drive.

[tsb_hcy]

and its "disposable", too!

(Toshiba doesn't warrantee "disposable" goods).

Your anti-Toshiba posts get old. Don't you ever get tired of bad-mouthing Toshiba on every PPC forum? Pathetic. :roll: :(

[Kati Compton]

Please try to avoid personal attacks. Thank you.

The Management.