Tiny hard drive packs a big punch

[mikaztro]

Tiny hard drive packs a big punch
By Alfred Hermida
BBC News Online technology editor in Las Vegas

You could soon be able to store much more on an MP3 player, digital camera or mobile phone.

Toshiba has developed a tiny hard drive which measures less than an inch across but can hold between two and four gigabytes of data.

The drive, about the size of a £1 coin, was announced at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

The hard drive has emerged as one of the key components in the push to bring computing technologies to the home.

Some video cameras and music players such as Apple's iPod have taken advantage of the shrinking size of hard drives.

'Significant breakthrough'

Toshiba was the first major manufacturer to come out with a 1.8-inch drive holding up to 40GB, which is used in the iPod and other MP3 players.

Since then, others have raced to catch up. Hitachi and others now sell one inch hard drives that can hold 1GB to 4GB of data.

But Toshiba says it is the first company to break the one inch barrier with its new drive.

"Our new miniature drive is a significant technological breakthrough," said Nick Spittle of Toshiba Storage Device Division Europe.

"It is set to bring explosive growth in smaller and more mobile digital devices, with a host of hot new portable gadgets for the consumer."

Toshiba said it expects the new drive to inspire others to think about incorporating hard drives into their products, such as mobile phones and digital camcorders.

"Our small yet powerful, highly functional drives are an enabling tool for other companies' imagination and creativity, accelerating the fusion of computing tools and consumer electronics products," said Mr Spittle.

TVs and mobiles

Increasing capacity, shrinking sizes and falling prices have led to the use of hard drives in consumer electronics goods, such as digital video recorders.

Samsung has already put a hard drive into a digital camcorder that is slightly bigger than a computer mouse.

In the future, the miniature drives could be built into television sets and mobile phones.

Toshiba expects to start mass producing the drives in the autumn, with its factories churning out 200,000 to 300,000 units a month.

[mikaztro]

Hard drives for 'terabyte lives'
By Jo Twist

As hunger for storage grows unabated, hard drive makers are continuing to push storage capacity up, while keeping physical size down.

This week Seagate announced a slew of hard drives which it says are for people who want a "terabyte lifestyle".

Among them is the first 2.5-inch 160GB hard drive which uses what is called perpendicular recording to fit much more data for every square inch.

It also said it was producing a specially "ruggedised" drive for cars.

Its 20GB and 40GB hard drives for cars have been designed to withstand temperatures from minus 30 to plus 80 degrees centigrade, as well as vibrations.

"Right now in the consumer electronics industry people can't get enough storage," Rob Pait, Seagate's director of consumer electronics marketing, told the BBC News website.

Bigger and bigger

Cars, digital video recorders, notebook computers, portable media players, mobile telephony, and gaming are all pushing at the storage capacity door.

The demand for hard drives in cars is one of the key areas which will continue to grow quickly, said Mr Pait.

The rising popularity and falling prices of in-car entertainment systems, as well as more sophisticated GPS (Global Positioning Satellite) and navigation applications, will push this demand.

Seagate also announced the biggest ever digital video recorder hard drive at 500GB, which will allow for more high-definition (HD) content storage.

About 80 hours of HD video can fit onto a drive that size. But it will mean people can archive a lot more standard definition programmes too.

Seagate also said its one-inch hard drives, a crucial size for portable media devices like digital music players, has gone up to 8GB.

Terabyte living

Mr Pait thinks that although many people are already living an accumulative terabyte lifestyle, in about five years PCs will have five terabytes of storage on board.

One terabyte is the equivalent of 1,024GB, enough to hold more than 240,000 songs at the standard encoding rate for digital music files.

This will only be possible because of perpendicular recording methods, which Seagate, Hitachi, and others, have to exploit.

The storage industry currently makes hard drives using longitudinal recording, which is reaching its physical limit.

With this method, bits of data are arranged horizontally on the recording magnetic medium.

Perpendicular recording methods arrange bits vertically so more can fit on, and higher recording densities can be achieved without magnetic interference which can corrupt data.

This method should mean hard drive storage based on moving mechanical parts will be around for another 20 years or so, says Mr Pait.

Hitachi, one of Seagate's rivals, expects to ship its first perpendicular recording product in 2005 on a 2.5-inch hard drive, used in notebook computers and handheld devices.

People also want to have storage when and where they want it as devices increasingly let them take their digital media, like video and music, out and about with them.

"The geek in us says it is all about storage, but in the marketplace it is messier than that," said Mr Pait.

"People are looking for storage to enable them to be able to record video, to store photos, to play games. We are talking about applications here."

The rapid demand for the tiny one-inch drives which fit into portable devices has surprised Seagate; the demand has been four times that which they anticipated.

Just the beginning

But the storage industry is still at a very early stage.

Analysts predict that the number of hard drives in consumer electronics gadgets could grow from 17 million in 2003 to 55 million in 2006.

The ability for people to create their own digital entertainment, movies, pictures, and music and even podcasts, has people wanting more space to store it all too.

"My 16-year-old is a trumpet player. He has Sony Acid on his PC in the basement, mics, mixers, everything he needs in his bedroom to mix his own single," says Mr Pait.

"The tools are so easy to use now. Everything you do is so intuitive now you don't have to wait for a thing, you just make them happen. It's going to be huge."

But hard drive manufacturers are contending with people's desire for slimmer and smaller boxes that will be more discreet in living rooms too.

Microsoft's Xbox 360, for instance, comes with an external hard drive which has to look just as sleek as the box itself.

And in the next year, says Mr Pait, mini motherboards, therefore much smaller and compact PCs, will become a bigger area of demand, especially in Europe.

[empy]

excellent...i am hoping we'll see this hd in digicams, videocams and game boys very very soon...i hate those stupid memory cards

[RedHorse]

palm yata meron na 4GB! nasa ads na ng inq yesterday

[shadowfax]

good to hear that... the world is getting smaller.... :-)

[ILuvDetailing]

Wow, I dream of a terabyte HD.

[BlueBimmer]

wow terabyte...dami na collection malagay dun haha

[Tacoma_34]

yeah terabyte HD kahit 10000rpm lang.