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1.8 Inch Removable Hard Drives Coming

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the now-thats-what-I'm-talking-about dept.

bedessen writes "According to an article at PCWorld.com, a new type of removable storage known as iVDR will be demonstrated at January's Consumer Electronics Show. The iVDR standard (backed by a consortium consisting of a number of manufacturers) describes a lightweight, compact, removable hard disk drive compatible with a wide range of applications from AV to PC devices. The products on display will come in 2.5" and 1.8" form factors with parallel and serial ATA interfaces. Capacity will start at 80GB for around $170, but manufacturers hope to drop this to under $80 and well as double the capacity by next quarter." Here's hopin'

21 of 135 comments (clear)

  1. Desktop machines? by Malic · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You could make a RAID of these things the size of a couple of decks of cards. And I imagine that they kick out less heat.

    Seems like a candidate for use in the next generation iMac...

    --
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  2. Just how useful is this going to be? by John+Jorsett · · Score: 5, Insightful
    The consortium plans to approach the movie industry soon and hopes to complete the standardization of its copy protection code by March, next year, Hioki said.

    In other words, "we're still working out how to cripple it in a Hollywood-approved way with DRM."

    1. Re:Just how useful is this going to be? by weave · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Amen. You have to wonder why these storage manufacturers are so willing to risk product failure and a hit to their own profits, to save some imaginary profit hit to some other industry and companies. What's in it for them? (discounting the fact that some of them own entertainment companies of course...)

    2. Re:Just how useful is this going to be? by kilonad · · Score: 3, Insightful

      What's in it for them? With the storage business having such a low profit margin, it would seem that there's nothing in it for them. Until you realize that once a few companies start doing it, the rest don't want to be caught with their pants down if the *AA come around with their team of lawyers. They probably figure it's just cheaper and easier to do this now (possibly also in preparation for Palladium) than to get tangled up in a huge legal battle later on.

    3. Re:Just how useful is this going to be? by analog_line · · Score: 3, Insightful

      What's in it for them is avoiding goverment regulatory burdens such as have been threatened in the United States.

      While the profit hit may, in the end, truly turn out to be imaginary (I don't honestly believe that any side in this numbers game has the real answer right now) the political clout that the entertainment industry holds is very, very real.

  3. Yeah, I'll think I'll pass on this one... by weave · · Score: 5, Interesting
    From the article:

    One more hurdle to clear for iVDR in the use of consumer electronics is that of a copyright protection format. The consortium plans to approach the movie industry soon and hopes to complete the standardization of its copy protection code by March, next year, Hioki said.
  4. 1.8 inch removable hd's have existed for years by phr2 · · Score: 5, Insightful
    They're called PCMCIA drives and the older ones needed a type III slot. Toshiba makes a 5 GB one that fits in a type II slot now, and they make 1.8" embedded drives up to 20 GB that could fit in a type III slot except that their whole production is going to devices like iPod's. I hope they'll do a PCMCIA version soon.

    This PCWorld thing is about a drive in some weird bigger enclosure which seems pointless. They should just make higher capacity PCMCIA drives.

  5. are they delicate? by hfastedge · · Score: 3, Insightful

    just how delicate would these be....it still means nothing if I have to treat it like a baby. Id rather have tape disk still, which is probably way more shock resistant. True, this harddrive is selfcontained.

    Do i think the benefits of portability outweigh the fact that its still just a harddrive? No.

    Im all for solid state.

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  6. IBM? by Karamchand · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Though I know that IBM has sold its consumer hard drive assets to Hitachi I still have to wonder why IBM is not a member of this consortium, since IBM has a very active and large research department.
    Wester Digital is also "missing"...

    Anyone who knows more?

  7. Recommendation by Daengbo · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Sounds like a great partner to these.
    Comments?

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  8. Who measured this thing? by medscaper · · Score: 5, Funny
    From the Article : The 1.8-inch iVDR will be slightly thinner than a 2.5-inch iVDR disk, which measures 5.2 inches wide by 3 inches deep by a half inch high.

    So who measured this thing? Hilary Rosen?

    "Yes, well we saw that it had the capacity to appear to be a 2.5 inch disk if used at full capacity and fitted to your pc with a Sawzall and a ballpeen hammer."

    --
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  9. Parallel & Serial ATA? Where is Firewire? by leandrod · · Score: 3, Insightful

    An obsolete connector and other yet vapourware...

    Why ignore the relevant, modern, already available standard, Firewire AKA IEEE-1394?

    --
    Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
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  10. Sony Noticably Absent by spinozaq · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I see that Sony is absent from the list of members. One wonders whether they will ever use an industry standard storage in any of their products *cough* Compact Flash *cough*. It's almost ironic though, because they make massivly overpriced digital camaras that take standard computer media, floppies and CD-Rs. I'll like to beat a few sony execs will some memory sticks.

  11. Re:iPod? by Toraz+Chryx · · Score: 4, Informative

    iPods use 1.8" Toshiba disks

  12. Re:Parallel & Serial ATA? Where is Firewire? by Toraz+Chryx · · Score: 3, Informative

    mainboards are shipping with Serial ATA controllers onboard (Asus A7N8X-Deluxe amongst others.)

  13. The Curse of Moving Parts by handy_vandal · · Score: 3, Funny

    Moving parts: barbaric.

    What I really want is a RAM drive the size of a Monolith.

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    -kgj
  14. Floppy Replacement? by LinuxInDallas · · Score: 3, Interesting

    You know, every now and then I look down at my floppy drive and start to wonder if there will ever be another standard like it for removable storage. Does anyone know if the PC industry is working on that?

    What prompted me to say that is here is another great little storage device that looks like it could be made to be portable and fairly rugged. Is technology changing too fast for the industry to want to standardize on a real floppy replacement?

    For some reason I am not all that interested in carrying around a CD-R with me. They are nice, but 3.5" floppies seem more rugged and definitely smaller. Oh well.

    1. Re:Floppy Replacement? by GlassUser · · Score: 3, Informative

      It's called flash memory, usb, and mass storage class drivers. I have pretty much all my users now trained to use one of those usb keychain deals or SD/CF to USB interface. For longer term or larger storage, there's always CD. Some of them prefer to use those little 3" CDRWs like floppies.

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      funny munging
  15. The real purpose: Copy protection by Brett+Glass · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Why is this consortium coming out with a "new" storage standard when so many good ones already exist? The answer can be found at http://www.ivdr.org/consortium/consortium_e.html, which the three working groups developing the standard. One is doing the hardware, and another is developing a spec for the file system -- neither of which is rocket science. But the third is focused on "security" -- in other words, DRM. This is the main purpose of the entire effort: To get the industry to standardize on a medium that's copy-protected from the get-go.

  16. Future trouble? by paiute · · Score: 3, Funny

    Old school disaster: data lost due to power surge, cracker attack, backup tape erasure, or three-alarm fire

    New school disaster: data lost when tech sneezes, blowing rice-grain size multiterrabyte storage device into cracks between floor tiles

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  17. Re:Let me put one of these in my iPaq.... by commodoresloat · · Score: 3, Funny
    Just imagine if HP makes a jacket that fits this into an Ipaq... ::wets pants in anticipation::

    I assume you need the jacket to cover the stains in your pants?