Cheap New 1 Inch HDD Holds 1.5GB

SlightlyMadman writes "Cornice, Inc. has unveiled a new alternative for small devices requiring large amounts of storage. With an expected OEM price of about $100, it blows the smaller microdrive out of the water (at least until this fall). The days of cramming bulky 2.5" disks into mp3 players may finally be over."

Comments

The days of cramming 2.5" disks was over in 2001

[KFury]

The Toshiba 1.8" drives used in ipods made huge waves in portable MP3 designs. Granted, 1" is even better, but let's not forget the leaders in the field.

Cool�

[Anonymous Coward]

...a shuttle craft for my 3.5inch floppy Enterprise.

Re:Cool�

[Anonymous Coward]

hmmmm thought I was the only one....

Dad Gummit!

[ackthpt]

Why it seems only 3 years ago I saw them 300MB IBM Microdrives at a CES and marvelled at its compactness and possibilies. I already feel like a geezer when I describe (with misty eyes) my days changing RP04 packs (DEC 80 MB removable, that is, you took the pack of platters and spindle out and put a different one in.) It done be amazin. How long before a Video Ipod? (Or did I already miss it?)

Fast forward to April 15, 2023

"Whatchu got there, boy? Looks like a wristwatch stuck in each of your eyes."
"Aw, gramps, it's a 3D-VR Relay, I'm in a meeting at work, talking to my girlfriend and watching The Matrix Gets Old, can I get back with you?"
"Shee-yoot, I might be daid by then!"
"That's ok, Gramps, I have your soul digitized and can carry on any conversation with you in Virtual Space, now."
"You can fit my very essence into those things?"
"Yeah, you only take up 3 terabytes."

Re:Dad Gummit!

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I am still wary of those things. They have to be treated very gently. I've read that just the act of putting some pressure on the center of the larger faces of the drives can kill them.

I'd rather stick to a "bulky" 2.5" MD or mini-CD, which I've never personally damaged media or players of either format.

Re:Dad Gummit!

[Anonymous Coward]

Hah! Young whipper-snapper"

I remember carting around 20MB RL02 disk packs for a PDP 11/34.

Sheesh. Kids today!

Re:Dad Gummit!

[afidel]

MD and mini-cd are both about 220MB, far from the 1.5GB this unit holds. Hmm 2.5X larger and about 1/8th the capacity, no thanks.

Re:Dad Gummit!

[ackthpt]

I remember carting around 20MB RL02 disk packs for a PDP 11/34.

Yeah? Well, I had to care for 7.5MB packs from

IBM 360/40 drives (there were 5 of them, mfd by Fujitsu in the late 60's!)

I should have kept at least one old Byte magazine from ~1981. There were ads for 5MB HDD for a PC, ~$5,000 5.25" full height.

The thing that was so amazing, was running an entire student admissions/registration system, plus student accounts for Fortran IV, (UCSD) Pascal, RSTS Basic and various DP (remember that term, Data Processing, before it was universally replaced by Information Services?) on a PDP 11/50 with 128KWords (256KB) memory, a 4MB Megastore (Core) swapping drive and 2 RP04 drives. Ah, but it sure beat punch cards ;-)

Re:Dad Gummit!

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I would rather a larger, cheaper format with a known reliability and less capacity than a total unknown that is expensive (smaller size costs money!) and might be too fragile with real world use. I'll let someone else bear the brunt of being an early adopter until the reliability is established.

Affordable?

[osPDAproject]

I don't really call $100 "affordable" for 1.5GB. What I would like to see is a cheap mini-drive for my PDA. Yummy.

Re:Affordable?

[ackthpt]

I don't really call $100 "affordable" for 1.5GB. What I would like to see is a cheap mini-drive for my PDA.

What makes you think you wont? Seems the most logical first adoption.

Re:Affordable?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, considering 1GB CompactFlash cards are around $200, $100 for 1.5GB is pretty cheap for ultra-small storage.

Re:Affordable?

[drunk_as_in_beer]

I don't really call $100 "affordable" for 1.5GB.

I agree. Gimme 1.5 GB of flash ram for $100 and I'll be happy. But hard drives tend to be too delicate.

Re:Affordable?

[muyuubyou]

If this thing is as slow as IBM's microdrive, $100 for a slow 1.5GB CF is nothing spectacular against $200 for a fast 1GB CF.

May have a niche, but save your pyrotechnics for another occasion.

Re:Affordable?

[Anonymous Coward]

The leverages involved in such a smaller drive are much, much less... You can probably put the 1" drive through hell and back without corrupting anything.

Re:Affordable?

[Some Dumbass...]

Well, considering 1GB CompactFlash cards are around $200, $100 for 1.5GB is pretty cheap for ultra-small storage.

Edit for accuracy:

Well, considering 1GB CompactFlash cards are presently around $200, $100 for 1.5GB will be pretty cheap for ultra-small storage in Fall, which is when they're expected to be available.

Now, I'm not sure that I agree with this statement.

Re:Affordable?

[cpeterso]

If this thing is as slow as IBM's microdrive, $100 for a slow 1.5GB CF is nothing spectacular against $200 for a fast 1GB CF.


So 150% the storage for 50% is not interesting? There are some price/performance points where price and size are more important than raw speed.

Re:Affordable?

[Threni]

Thanks, but i`ll be sticking to paying 50p for a couple of blank CD-Rs and burning ~1.5GB onto them. I can drop them - or the mp3 jukebox i got for £80 - without worrying as much too.

Re:Affordable?

[Threni]

>"Freedom Fries" isn't patriotism, it's jingoism

To those of us outside the States, it's pure fscking comedy!

Forget MP3 Players

[levik]

I can't wait to have these start appearing in all sorts of Palm devices. The processors and screens of these guys have long caught up to the PC's of min 90's, but the sotrage capacities have been hovering around late 80's levels with the micro-drives being too large to fit in.

Finally we may see a handheld where storage is not a limited factor.

Another good application would be digital cameras.

Re:Forget MP3 Players

[Anonymous Coward]

Well said. But I don't really call $100 "affordable" for 1.5GB. What I would like to see is a cheap mini-drive for my PDA. Yummy.

Re:Forget MP3 Players

[Richard_at_work]

I can't wait to have these start appearing in all sorts of Palm devices. The processors and screens of these guys have long caught up to the PC's of min 90's, but the sotrage capacities have been hovering around late 80's levels with the micro-drives being too large to fit in.

Yes, but battery capacity hasnt. When alcohol powercells come in, maybe, but until then, no way. Adding a hard disk to a palm device would bring the length of time between charges down to daily, not acceptable. :(

Re:Forget MP3 Players

[levik]

Considering that there are Sony CLIE's that go for around the price of a full-featured desktop (with a monitor) from Dell, I don't see this as a big problem for the high-end market at all...

Consider, the flash memory it would be replacing probably costs around 40-50 bucks, so the price increase would only amount to 50-60 dollars for a tenfold increase in storage capacities.

Now all we have to solve is the battery problem.

Re:Forget MP3 Players

[Baka No Wookie]

Perhaps this would be a great opportunity to explore and research the use of solar technology with PDA's.

Re:Forget MP3 Players

[LePrince]

Bah... Almost all newer PDA have expansion slots (be it Springboard on Handspring or SD in Palms). 128 megs or even 256 megs cartdrige are relatively cheap, and heck, with the applications taking only a few kilobytes (the monopoly game I have takes less than 200k), you can go a long way. I don't see use for a gigabyte of data on a PDA...

Re:Forget MP3 Players

[levik]

For most high-end color devices, it's already there. This is not really too big a deal - the high end PDAs come with cradles that people make a habit of sticking them into every night. Nobody really bitches about the fact that their cell phones need to be charged every evening after work.

Face it, how often is it that you're away from any outlet for over 24 hours? The few people that have these situations can splurge for a replacement battery/addon battery pack/solar panel/hand crank/whatever.

Re:Forget MP3 Players

[evilviper]

Finally we may see a handheld where storage is not a limited factor.

Say what now? 1.5GB, and storage is now not a factor?

First of all, that's not very big. Second, CF cards bigger than that have been around for quit some time, so you could already have had a handheld with more capacity than what you MIGHT, EVENTUALLY, see. And finally, solid-state is much lower power.

Hmm, you know, you might be right. Once these hard drives are in handhelds, the batteries will be dead so quickly that batteries will be the limiting factor, not the storage.

Re:Forget MP3 Players

[levik]

Expansion slots are all well and good, but the problem is that the expansions take up those slots. On the handspring, if you wanted to use a camera expansion, you could not simultaneously use the extra memory expansion. The MP3 modules had to have their own external SD media slots, etc.

Also, the reason it doesn't make sense to have large storage on a PDA today is that nobody does (it's a catch 22 situation - there are no large drives because there are no large apps - there are no large apps because there are no large drives)

But if you think about it, having a gig of storage may let you have enough training data to have a reasonably accurate speech recognition engine, which would solve a lot of input problems on PDAs - and that's just one of the potential applications.

Wouldn't it be nice to be able to watch a movie while on the train to work in the morning? Or catch up on last night's Simpsons episode?

Re:Forget MP3 Players

[LePrince]

I already do all this with a device called a laptop computer.

A Palm is devised to be a small, efficient organiser, with some apps to help you do some basic tasks. No, I don't want to watch the simpsons on a 3 inches screen. I want to watch it on my 15 inches laptop screen. My PDA is used to keep my life organised, and make it so that if I go on a 2 weeks trip I don't even have to recharge it (same reason why I don't buy color PDAs, it sucks too much battery). Want to input faster on your PDA ? Well, if you REALLY need to, they have some external keyboards. But I can input really fast using my laptop...

I tell you, my Palm has 8 megs of memory, and I don't need more. It's really enough for some little games, get my news with AvantGo, and a couple of offline webpages with Plucker. So why a gig in my Palm, when I can get 30 in my laptop with a much bigger screen for all multimedia purposes ?

Re:Forget MP3 Players

[levik]

Because your laptop will not fit in your pocket.
Because it will run out of battery 3 times faster.
Because it is uncomfortable to hold if you cannot find a seat on the train.

While you personally may not care to do things with a PDA that you generally need a bigger piece of hardware for, I honestly believe that the market for it is out there, and bigger than for silly things like cell phones with built-in MP3 players or cameras.

Re:Forget MP3 Players

[afidel]

You can already get large storage on a PDA, just get one that accepts CF cards and you can get up to 2GB cards today. They will cost a bit ($800 seems to come to mind) but they are out there. I assume at least one of the handhelds uses a 16bit FS, but they probably need to think about a 32bit one soon.

Re:Forget MP3 Players

[Neil Watson]

Until you drop one. Hard drives are fragile and people tend to abuse thier PDAs. And what about heat? What we really need to have more work done on solid state drives.

Re:Forget MP3 Players

[Glyndwr]

Heat can be a real issue. I've heard horror stories of Sharp Zaurus's (Zaurii?) fitted with 1Gb IBM CF Microdrives hitting 70degC... Rather worrying, methinks.

Re:Forget MP3 Players

[ErikJson]

I don't accept that. I charge my cell phone - a Nokia 6310i - once a week (at best), and my Palm Vx twice a month and I'm not buying anything that I have to charge more often. Sorry.

Re:Forget MP3 Players

[boskone]

oh, oh, youjust made me think of something negative about this.

Let me pose a question. What's one of the best things about PDA software? One answer is it's simple, small, and works because the programmers are constrained to limited resources.

What are they going to do when they have 1.5GB to fill up with junk?

But, overall, i'm excited about this new product.

Re:Forget MP3 Players

[RealErmine]

Adding a hard disk to a palm device would bring the length of time between charges down to daily, not acceptable. :(

Huh? Do you sleep once a day? Can't you cradle your palm (so to speak) each night before you go to bed? What the heck? Maybe you were confused when you wrote that.

I hear that the new iPod firmware brings it back up to 10 hours of standby per charge and it's drive probably uses more power than this 1" one. That's not good enough for damn near everybody?

Re:Forget MP3 Players

[Richard_at_work]

I sleep once a day. My cradle however is not at my place of sleep, its at my place of work. Same as the vast majority of people i know with palms.

Yes the new ipod firmware brings it up to 10 hours, and thats not good enough for me, not by a long stretch. But i make do. There is no way i could "make do" with a pda, as you need the info on it there and then. You can live without mp3s until you recharge, but try telling a business man out of the office that he will have to wait for his info. Get real.

Re:Forget MP3 Players

[levik]

See, you're thinking about the *GOOD* PDA software. *GOOD* software exists on the PC as well, and nobody complains about the overabundance of features in it. Bad software can be made no matter how many megabytes of HD space you have available.

If the extra gig of storage will make writing those 20 good apps easier for the people who do it, do you really care that it also make it easier to create bloaded crap?

Horrible programs existed on the PCs in the DOS days, and they exist on PDAs today. Compare apples to apples.

Re:Forget MP3 Players

[levik]

Then you probably don't talk on your cell phone too much. As long as you keep using your PDAs as often as you do your cell phone, I don't think you will have any problems.

Re:Forget MP3 Players

[RealErmine]

That's a silly and non-realistic argument. There is no way that a person needs their PDA on for 10 hours at a time even on standby if they are using it as the niche device that it is. Assuming a standby time of 10 hours the actual time span would likely be at least double that if you use your PDA once every other minute. You can't convince me that you would often not be anywhere near a recharge source for even just 10 hours. If you're going to be typing papers (which can take hours) or surfing the web and checking email constantly on your wireless connection (a high-drain pursuit), then you should have a laptop.

You can purchase more than one mode of recharge for your PDA if you really need to, for instance a second cradle, an AC adapter, a solar recharger, a USB recharger, an automotive recharger, etc.

as you need the info on it there and then.

There and then != all day, every day. If you are using your PDA for more than 10 hours a day without a recharge then you need to seriously re-evaluate your working habits.

Sure, longer battery life is always a plus, but being a graduate of an electrical engineering program and a practicing system engineer, I believe that I am being realistic in this case. The bottom line is that you can't even make a claim like yours without knowing the power requirements for the device.

Re:Forget MP3 Players

[homer_ca]

The time for CF microdrives may have come and gone. CF flash cards are $120 for 512MB and $250 for 1GB. At these prices, there's no reason to put up with the heat and power consumption of microdrives.

Re:Forget MP3 Players

[Richard_at_work]

That's a silly and non-realistic argument.

Why thanks. Fuck you too.

There is no way that a person needs their PDA on for 10 hours at a time even on standby if they are using it as the niche device that it is.

Im a support technician. My pda contains a heck of a lot of info on the systems that I support and thats what myself and the other support techicians use them for, that and time management. Oh and todo lists, contact databases etc.

I am often out of the office for days at a stretch. My pda handles all this admirably, with maybe one recharge a week. Other than that, its in the cradle for minutes at a time while i hotsync.

Assuming a standby time of 10 hours the actual time span would likely be at least double that if you use your PDA once every other minute.

An Ipod manages its 10 hours because it powers down the drive when the 32mb buffer is full. Your point is what exactly? I should cut down on my use of the pda?

You can't convince me that you would often not be anywhere near a recharge source for even just 10 hours.

Ah yes, while i should be doing my work, you think i should be looking for a power outlet? With my current pda, i dont need to, its on my hip waiting to go.

You can purchase more than one mode of recharge for your PDA if you really need to, for instance a second cradle, an AC adapter, a solar recharger, a USB recharger, an automotive recharger, etc.

I shouldnt need to. Pdas are not high drain devices. Besides, I dont need to.

If you're going to be typing papers (which can take hours) or surfing the web and checking email constantly on your wireless connection (a high-drain pursuit), then you should have a laptop.

If anyone needs 1gb of storage space, then they should have a laptop. Why the hell do you need that amount of storage space in a pda, is your life that busy? Are the documents you keep for referal that big? If so, you need to take a look at your working habits. (sic)

There and then != all day, every day. If you are using your PDA for more than 10 hours a day without a recharge then you need to seriously re-evaluate your working habits.

My working habits are fine, its a hell of a lot better than carrying around the manuals, or a hefty laptop which is overkill for reading a few pdfs. Oh, and "There and Then" does equal all day, every day. Can you guarentee to me that theres a point where you WOULDNT need access to your pda? No, you can only say when you PROBABLY dont need access. When my laptop is out of battery, Im half lost, because i could be blind sided by a request for information which is on that laptop. This is why i carry spare battery packs.

As I said in my last post, a Business Man needs unfetted access to his information.

being a graduate of an electrical engineering program and a practicing system engineer, I believe that I am being realistic in this case.

Get some practical experience and try using your pda for more than time management, and stop carrying around manuals, you will notice a marked improvement in your working practices. Field experience can count for a heck of a lot more than classroom work. (Im not belittleing your degree, so sorry if it sounds like it).

The bottom line is that you can't even make a claim like yours without knowing the power requirements for the device.

Im basing my figures on real life devices which ive used. Putting a hard disk into anything decimates the battery life. Try putting a microdrive into a camera and see how long the battery lasts vs the memory card. It drops, dramatically.

Re:Forget MP3 Players

[Goonie]

Say what now? 1.5GB, and storage is now not a factor? First of all, that's not very big.

You obviously never used a 160 kilobyte floppy drive, have you? Or the massive 5 megabyte hard drive my dad used to keep his business records on...

Re:Forget MP3 Players

[evilviper]

What used to be suffecient, no longer is. Just because something would have been astronomically large 30 years ago, does not mean it is suffecient for today's purposes.

Re:Forget MP3 Players

[srussell]

I can't wait to have these start appearing in all sorts of Palm devices. The processors and screens of these guys have long caught up to the PC's of min 90's, but the sotrage capacities have been hovering around late 80's levels with the micro-drives being too large to fit in.

Yowza, you haven't been paying attention to the Palm market lately.

I'm listening to music on my Palm Tungsten T right now, from a 256MB SD card -- these are the static RAM cards the size of a postage stamp (although thicker). Right now, you can get these SDs for about $70, so this is pretty affordable. You can actually get 512MB SD cards, although they'll set you back closer to $300. I remember 40MB hard drives being pretty decent storage for a PC in the early 90s, so the static storage for Palmtops have certainly surpassed the early 90's PC.

Curiously, the cost curve for static RAM seems to be an inverse bell. The lowest cost point seems to be the just-less-than-the-maximum storage capacity, for SD around $0.27/MB. The maximum is over $0.50/MB, and anything below the second-to-best is between $0.40 and $0.50. I'm not sure why, but this strikes me as odd.

Interface

[rf0]

Well if you look at the Microdrive its takes a standard interface, in the form of CF which allows me to plug it into my camera, PC or whatever I want.

However from the article

"It does not employ common interfaces such as CompactFlash and ATA to connect a HDD and a host device, but uses a simple and original interface."

So basically its a propriatory interface. Its cool don't get me wrong but I don't think IBM will be scared just yet. For it to make an impact the interface it uses will have to become wide spread and I don't think that will happen taking the current number of different formats in a similar space such as SD Cards, Memory sticks etc. I'm sure it has it uses but prehaps not in the public field.

Rus

Re:Interface

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder how difficult it would be to stick one into a CF card and make it compatible though.

Re:Interface

[Wuffle]

You seem to forget that the article states that it isn't designed as a replacement to CF cards and the like as it was designed to be embedded into the device eg. Apple iPod.

The reason for it not using the standard ATA interface was to bring the number of components down. This allows them to make the drive smaller and cheaper.

It also states the the drive isn't just a shurnken IDE drive but a complete redesign to tailor the drive for small size.

Re:Interface

[Drakonian]

Boooo! New interfaces bad, old interfaces good. Shun your Firewire and USB and Serial ATA, turn back to the glorious days of ISA! Who is with me?

Re:Interface

[Anonymous Coward]

nitpick. ibm sold their hard-drive division.

Don't forget, in Canada...

[Steve Cowan]

If that HD is packaged in an MP3 player we will have to pay a huge levy on that gigabyte.

Re:Don't forget, in Canada...

[sogoodsofarsowhat]

And thats what you GET for living in CANADA!!! BWHAHAHAHAHA (unprovoked attack on canada hehehe)

Re:Don't forget, in Canada...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup. It's still better than living in a neo police-state.

Re:Don't forget, in Canada...

[Gulik]

If that HD is packaged in an MP3 player we will have to pay a huge levy on that gigabyte.

In corporatist Canada, blank media burns you.

(Score: -1; Moldering meta-joke)

Re:Don't forget, in Canada...

[Anonymous Coward]

IN SOVIET CANADA, cheap new harddrive holds YOUR one incher, Eh?

It's fine IF....

[binaryDigit]

you don't mind proprietary interfaces. I wonder how many /.'ers will pipe up and dismiss this tech since it doesn't support ATA (or anything else).

OR will they say, hey, it's fine for it's purpose and it's intended host is probably going to be something that you can't upgrade anyway (i.e. throwaway) so who cares? In either case it's a different market specialization than the micro drive.

Anyway, one thing they don't mention is the performance specs. What is the throughput of this technology? If it's designed to be low powered (which you would assume given it's intended usage), how long does it take for the drive to spin up, etc. Often when you simplify you get better mtbf (fewer things to fail), however with their push to produce a cheaper drive, will reliability suffer?

Re:It's fine IF....

[Anonymous Coward]

Performance is microdrive-comparable - over 3Mbytes/second generally. Spinup is usually 1 second. Power use is similar to microdrive, but it's 3.3v only.

It *does* give an ATAPI interface, but the point is the drive is embedded - you plonk the drive controller chip (which has pins that form an ATAPI interface to your own circuitry) onto the board with the rest of your circuitry, and a teensy twenty-something way connector connects to the drive mechanicals.

This way, the drive mech is smaller, you don't need bulky CF plugs and sockets, and it's integrated deeply into your system where you can optimise the design for power, speed, whatever.

If you check out recent press releases/rumour sites, you'll notice that Samsung announced a 1.5GB digital camcorder at CES, and Rio showed a 1.5GB minature MP3 player at CES. Noone else makes a 1.5GB drive that I know of, so I guess this is what's inside those two toys.

Re:It's fine IF....

[iabervon]

I assume they'll also make a CF adaptor for these, since it would be easy and useful. Actually, what would be really cool is a CF adaptor for four of these. Maybe that way they'll be big enough not to get lost...

Re:It's fine IF....

[Drakonian]

OR will they say, hey, it's fine for it's purpose and it's intended host is probably going to be something that you can't upgrade anyway (i.e. throwaway) so who cares? In either case it's a different market specialization than the micro drive.

No, we definitely won't say that! How will we run Linux on our digital cameras/MP3 players/Fridges/VCRs? ;)

Re:It's fine IF....

[jelle]

"for four of these."

Hey, that would be half the space my two year old laptop has.

Re:It's fine IF....

[iabervon]

But more than just about anybody's camera; useful if you want to take a long continuous video. Or, for that matter, if you want to do a lot of professional quality audio on your PDA...

Video iPod...

[Keighvin]

It's called a Multimedia Jukebox - http://www.archos.com

20GB, plays MP3 and DivX simple profile (even with a video out port for TV), also records to MP3 audio or MPEG4/DivX video. Got one, it's a lot of fun.

Also available on ThinkGeek.com, or modded on eBay up to 60GB+

Re:Video iPod...

[Anonvmous Coward]

"It's called a Multimedia Jukebox - http://www.archos.com"

I wanted one of those until I saw one at CompUSA. That screen was extremely tiny. Like watching TV on your cell phone.

My advice: Hold one in your hands before you buy one.

Re:Video iPod...

[Keighvin]

Right - common sense, make sure any product fits your actual needs before you plunk down the cash. For me, it was to be able to transfer files from portable media (Smart Media, Compact Flash) to this gadget on the go. I use it to record video in some cases, but only for transfer to computer or playback on a larger device afterward.

I wouldn't recommend it for watching anything over about 20 minutes on its built-in screen.

Re:Video iPod...

[ichimunki]

Ooh. Tough tradeoff between the huge amount of storage on that thing and the flexibility and larger screen one gets with a Zaurus. I've already got the Zaurus, but that Archos looks pretty nice too-- might just have to add to the gadget collection. :)

Does it work with Linux?

Re:Video iPod...

[AirFrame]

It *is* kinda hard to use with Linux. That is, if you think plugging in a USB cable is hard.

Plug in... Mount... Copy files. Pretty simple.

Re:Video iPod...

[Dylan Zimmerman]

I believe that he said "video iPod". The Archos is no iPod by any stretch of the imagination. Consider, the iPod has only 5 buttons, a wheel, and a hold switch.

Now, I will admit that I haven't seen many Archos products in person, but the only Archos Jukebox that I _have_ seen had easily a dozen buttons. It's screen was also significantly smaller than the iPod's and it's backlight was dimmer.

I love my iPod. If Apple made one that could play and record videos (think pocket PVR), I'd have it as soon as it came out. And really, that isn't too unrealistic. IIRC, Intel has a technique that lets them put inductors into ICs. Just pay Intel for that technology and then build a one-chip tuner. Double the thickness of the iPod for an extra battery and the tuner/output circuitry and you have a PVR that can fit in your pocket.

Re:Video iPod...

[jred]

I had to glance over at mine, because I was thinking it had ~5 buttons. There is an on button, an off button, 5 main navigation buttons, and 3 "system" like buttons. My 6yo has no problems using it.

Re:Video iPod...

[ak_hepcat]

Well, for contrast, my Archos Jukebox Recorder (running Rockbox) has 5 navigation, 2 power, and 3 menu buttons. It's been modded to 60Gb, and I've got 12Gb free, with nearly 10K legal MP3s. upgrading from the standard 1500mAh to 2000mAh batteries, and I can listen from coast to coast without hearing the same song twice, and still have enough power to make it from airport to hotel before plugging in.

I love my AJR+RockBox. It makes the iPod look like something from the early '90s by comparison -- in terms of functionality and cost/feature.

Re:Video iPod...

[Dylan Zimmerman]

OK, well, so it has 10 buttons and not 12. Oops. My point remains. The iPod's UI is much more elegant. It is entirely navigable using only the wheel, the center button, and the menu button. You never need to touch the other three except to modify the song that is playing.

Although, I will admit that 60 GB is quite impressive. I just prefer the iPod to other devices. However, I can see why you like the Archos.

What kind of transfer interface does it use? I think that the one that I saw used USB2. FireWire is faster under most circumstances, but transfer speed doesn't really matter that much once you have your music on the thing.

I really like how the iPod charges through the FireWire port. That was a good feature to put into it. That makes charging it rather idiot-proof. It's not like there are lots of universal AC adapters with FireWire on them.

How long does it take your battery to charge? Mine charges most of the way in an hour or so. That's almost 8 hours of straight playtime from an hour of charging.

The only features that I really want in the iPod are the abilities to make and delete playlists on the device and to use weighted random playlists. Both of those are software based, so Apple could concievably add them later. I sure hope that they do. Right now, I'm playing by the artist and cycling artists whenever I feel like it.

$100/gig?

[Junior J. Junior III]

For $100, I can get around 100-120GB in a 3.5" hard drive. I can't think of too many reasons I'd want to be lugging around 1.5 GB of portable storage. Music is nice I guess, but it's not worth $100 for me to have a decent-sized MP3 library I can carry around with me.

Benefit?

[Anonymous Coward]

You can find 512 MB flash cards now for about $100
and the price is dropping by at least a factor of two every 10 months.

I don't see why anyone would buy this. It is sure to draw more current than a flash card, will likely not be as shock resistant, and it is not meant to be removable. No more easily transfering files between you're camera/mp3 player with a cheap USB flash reader.

The only advantage may be in access speed, althoug flash cards are plenty fast for MP3 playback and camera use.

So why get this?

Re:Benefit?

[WindBourne]

The nice thing about CF is that you can switch to something bigger in the future, be it Flash Card or a HD. This drive has a propreitary interface which makes upgrading less likely and almost certainly expensive.

Re:Benefit?

[TheGratefulNet]

photo use.

if you're in the field (esp. if its raining) you do NOT want to open your CF slot to change cards.

I have a 1gig microdrive for my nikon D1. if and when the 4gig version comes out, and if it works with my camera, I'd consider getting it. more high res pics (maybe even tiff pix instead of jpgs) and no need to open the CF door the whole day long.

good enough reason for you?

Re:Benefit?

[stratjakt]

These will get cheaper over time too, so it'll probably lead to super-cheap mp3 players/digicams and the like in the future, with an embedded gig or two, and maybe make CF or something an option for expansion.

They have a ton of embedded applications, from rackmounted equipment (0.5u servers?), or even the next Gameboy - or maybe even the current GBA (price comes down and have a 1.5 gig HDD inside a GBA Cart? That'd make for some cool games)

Re:Benefit?

[CatOne]

I'm not so sure about that. I've heard the OTHER side of the coin -- namely that professional photographers PREFER multiple, smaller cards. That way if "something bad happens" they lose the photos on that particular (say, 256 MB) card, but not *all* of them. The photographer at my sister's wedding this past weekend was using a Fuji FinePix S2 Pro, and he had a belt full of CF cards -- probably 10 or 12 of them at least. They were all smaller CF cards (at least the couple I could read were 256).

Re:Benefit?

[Ungrounded Lightning]

You can find 512 MB flash cards now for about $100 and the price is dropping by at least a factor of two every 10 months. [...] I don't see why anyone would buy this.

Flash is starting to hit some physical limits and may fall off Moore's Law real soon now, unless they come up with a new storage mechanism. Current flash depends on stored charge behind an insulator, and you can't scale that down much more because the insulator is already thin enough that the electrons are on the edge of tunneling through. (That's how you write it.)

Mag disk, on the other hand, has a long way to go before it hits a limit. And the size of the disk doesn't have a lot to do with its capacity, since reduced size also means reduced length of parts to be affected by tolerances and to sonic-delay the part of the feedback loop from actuator to head, so tolerances cancel out and the limit is the size of the bit on the surface - currently limited by head technology rather than physics of magnetization.

I don't really understand why this thing ONLY has 1.5G, unless they didn't want to push the envelope on the first release. Expect that to climb rapidly if there's any pressure from flash.

Re:Benefit?

[TheGratefulNet]

my response to that is: digital wallet. there are neat toys that you insert a CF into a slot, press a single button and it creates a new dir and copies the files to it. you use a 2.5" drive in that 'wallet' and then you can init the flash card and reuse it. in fact, you usually double buffer - you have one card in the camera and another being dumped to hard disk. I have such a 'wallet' and its pretty cool. you can even dump the card twice (2 unique dirs) if you are that paranoid.

and if you're REALLY paranoid, you ALWAYS shoot film as well as digital. I do, and I'm not even a pro/working-for-a-living photog - just an enthusiast who knows a bit about the field.

No replacement yet

[mblase]

The days of cramming bulky 2.5" disks into mp3 players may finally be over.

Eh, 1.5 GB is just under three CD-Rs worth of storage. A new iPod holds 30 GB, twenty times the size of this storage box. Plus those hard drives are probably a whole lot cheaper than these will be.

I think these will be a good replacement for microdrives in, say, digital cameras, but not necessarily in mp3 players.

Re:No replacement yet

[afidel]

Nope, the 1.8" Toshiba HDD that's in the iPod is not cheap at all. If bought in a PC Card form factor it costs around $210 for the 5GB model, so only about 1/2X the cost/GB. Basically it's the same old story size/cost/capacity choose two.

Re:No replacement yet

[Anonymous Coward]

actually.. its just over 2 cdrs worth of storage..
standard cdrs: 700 mb x 2 = 1.4mb
there are also hi-cap cdrs and burners capible of burning up to 900 mb, which is just under 2 cdrs for 1.5mb

Think twice...

[dekashizl]

OK so the drive is really cute, especially next to that coin. But I drop my phone about once a month, in haste I've slammed my Palm into a phone booth wall, and I keep my MP3 player in my sweaty pocket at the gym. Is it just me, or does little moving parts and sensitive magnetic equipment not seem to mesh well with these environments?

Re:Think twice...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not as cute as this :)

Re:Think twice...

[Anonymous Coward]

and I slammed your wife against a phone booth wall. She loved it.

size

[sstory]

Look at the photo of the microdrive next to the penny. It looks like the storage density's higher that even that of flash. That's amazing.

Re:size

[Nintendork]

That's not a penny, it's a $500 coin. Dumb ass.

-Lucas

Re:size

[Nintendork]

Actually, the coin is a new 500 yen Japanese coin. Dumb ass.

-Lucas

Re:size

[sstory]

Your name is Nintendork and you're calling me names?

Re:size

[Nintendork]

My original comment was supposed to be funny. $500 coin...haha, get it?

Re:size

[sstory]

oh okay. There are so many flamers I assumed it was one.

80 GB

[LBArrettAnderson]

The days of cramming bulky 2.5" disks into mp3 players may finally be over.

I don't know about that... The other day i saw a 2.5" HD that holds 80 GB of data. I think that's worth the extra 1.5".

Re:80 GB

[afidel]

Not for a portable it's not. The 1.8" hdd of the iPod is as big as I would want to go, any bigger and it no longer fits in a pocket. For an example see any of the laptop-drive based mp3 players, really clunky.

SD/CF/MemoryStick

[barnaclebarnes]

Considering you can already get 512MB (1GB maybe?) on an SD, CF, or MemoryStick which is 1/4 of the size why would you want one with moving parts if it is only 1.5GB? Price would be the only reason so it is really not anything special. If it was 15GB then it would be something to write about. /b

Re:SD/CF/MemoryStick

[markclong]

Consider using it in an embedded type device. Say a network appliance. Using Compact Flash is difficult, as you need to write to the disk and not only read. Writing to Compact Flash or any other form of memory using flash or EEPROM is hard on the memory. There are a finite number of writes before the memory device fails and placing a operating system swap file on one can kill it in a hurry.

I see this as geared more towards the network appliance, a PDA, or an embedded system that requires a real hard drive. Digital cameras and other devices needing removable media would probably still use Compact Flash, Secure Digital, or Smart Media and they are not as write intensive, at least not to the extent that a OS swap file is.

Re:SD/CF/MemoryStick

[LBArrettAnderson]

I believe you can get a 2 GB CF card. It's like $800, though.

Re:SD/CF/MemoryStick

[drunk_as_in_beer]

4 GB of Compact Flash

"bulky 2.5 disks"

[Anonymous Coward]

Could ya have imagined it 25 years ago?

how big are the toshiba drives?

[Snuffub]

"The days of cramming bulky 2.5" disks into mp3 players may finally be over."

Theyve been over for a long time now, the ipod came out over a year ago. besides being a bit smaller what do these drives have over the toshiba drives used in the ipod?

$100 is not consumer cost.

[jetkust]

The $100 price tag is the manufacturer's cost to install in consumer electronics item, not how much people can go out and buy it for.

Re:Linux Loser Saddam Loving Slahdotters

[sk8king]

"Bush is the most popular"

Just a thought.....so was his father..93% popularity during the Gulf War and then he lost to Bill.

Consider the alternative

[Christopher Bibbs]

If I could have 1.5GB of memory in my digital camera for $100, it'd be a done deal. As is, CompactFlash memory is around $50 for 256MB so I'd have to buy six cards which will cost more and be a greater hassle. Even the MicroDrives are $200 for 1GB. I think 1GB is really close to the sweet spot for digital photos. Very few people will need any more than that on a vacation. MP3's on the other hand, I think 100GB is closer to what is right.

Re:Consider the alternative

[AnonymousComrade]

1GB is really close to the sweet spot for digital photos. Very few people will need any more than that on a vacation.

640 kB should be enough for anyone. :-)

Re:Consider the alternative

[levik]

If you need 100GB for MP3s, you probably have the "Write-Only Syndrome" where you download music/movies/programs to add them to your collection, but never actually listen/use/watch them (well maybe once). While it's your right to do this, you have to admit that you don't really *NEED* all that space.

Re:Consider the alternative

[Eric_Cartman_South_P]

640 kB should be enough for anyone. :-)

And if it isn't, use QEMM to put some TSR proggies in UMB and HMA space. Perfect for Ultima VI or Wing Commander.

(Nothing new here, just felt nostalgic after seeing the "640 kB" quote).

Re:Consider the alternative

[Anonymous Coward]

If you need 100GB for MP3s, you probably have the "Write-Only Syndrome" where you download music/movies/programs to add them to your collection, but never actually listen/use/watch them (well maybe once). While it's your right to do this, you have to admit that you don't really *NEED* all that space.

The point of having such a massive library is so that lets say you think of a song or band you want to listen to. You probably don't even know whether you have it or not, so you do a search of your collection for it. Rather than do a Kazaa search, search your own collection, you just might have what you are looking for.

Re:Consider the alternative

[TheRaven64]

And if it isn't, use QEMM to put some TSR proggies in UMB and HMA space.

QEMM? Pah! Some of us manually editied out config.sys files and autoexec.bat files to load drivers into UMB and HMA space in the optimum order.

Run mem, hack start-up files, reboot and repeat. Ah, those were the days...

It's amazing, computers get less irritating, and we get nostalgic for the 'good old days' when we could be properly elitist. I guess that's what people use Linux for nowdays.

Re:Consider the alternative

[Eric_Cartman_South_P]

QEMM? Pah! Some of us manually editied out config.sys files and autoexec.bat files

Did that too... himem.sys and emm386.exe with all the tweaked options. Fun stuff. QEMM 386 was great because it had tons of colorfull, complex, and completely useless (for a 12 year old, anyway) screens to stare at and run tests again and again. Crazy. I think the test of a true hard core geek is to see if he/she gets mesmerized by watching the GUI of a hard drive degragging program. I used to stare at that thing like moths to a blue light. Ahh... memories of BBS's and ZModem and leechin' files and checking .nfo's.

Re:Consider the alternative

[TheRaven64]

I think the test of a true hard core geek is to see if he/she gets mesmerized by watching the GUI of a hard drive degragging

I'd have to disagree here. I know quite a few non-geeks who found the old dos DEFRAG program totally hypnotic. The Diskkeeper derived on in Win2k is nowhere near as good, and the one in 9x had almost no information content.

Re:Consider the alternative

[norton_I]

Right, but the capacity of the human brain is finite, while the capacity of hard drives is ever increasing. It is better to just save everything than worry about what to delete and what to save, and every rising hard drive capacities make that feasible. With a little (hopefully automated) organization, there is no reason the 80 GB you never listen to should get in the way of the 20 you do, and who knows -- someday you might want some of those.

Also, I have a friend who is really into live recording and the like. He has something like 320 GB of MP3s, including many that he has made himself, and stores for archival purposes, even if he doesn't listen to them himself.

Re:Consider the alternative

[netsharc]

aaahhh... I remember getting a lot of the 640 KB memory free after putting in DOS=HIGH,UMB in CONFIG.SYS .. man that was fun.. and after so much work to free memory, did we do something useful? Nope.

Re:Consider the alternative

[fisgreen]

I love archiving just about everything I download, just I like collecting DVDs and CDs. At $1/GB or less, why the hell not?

You never know when a random Milli Vanilli or Vanilla Ice song will crack someone up!

Re:Consider the alternative

[Christopher Bibbs]

Do you toss out your old music? I don't. There are still boxes of LPs that I haven't gotten around to encoding yet. Not to mention my father's record collection that I inherited which hasn't been touched yet.

Now, I know some people buy a single CD every month and consider themselves "into music". If that's your niche, I'd guess 20GB would be enough for you. Personally, I can't imagine compressing the last 50 years of music into only the best 1500 albums. I'm not sure if the last 10 years could be handled that way.

Re:Consider the alternative

[Anonymous Coward]

Now, I know some people buy a single CD every month and consider themselves "into music".

You don't really measure how "into music" someone is by the number of CD's they buy, do you? That's gotta be the most depressing thing I've heard all week.

Go take a walk somewhere and *listen* to the world around you. In five minutes you could find enough sound for a life's study.

Re:Consider the alternative

[abradsn]

640k of ram. Even then they had megabytes of physical disk storage.

Re:Consider the alternative

[hplasm]

Like a whacking great 10Mb of hard disk...OOOO!!

Re:Consider the alternative

[hplasm]

If you need 100GB for MP3s, you probably have the "Write-Only Syndrome" where you download music/movies/programs to add them to your collection, but never actually listen/use/ watch them (well maybe once)

Just like video tapes !!

So, where is the RAID chip, huh?

[LibertineR]

Actually this thing is pretty cool. However, I am not too keen on a lot of movable(breakable) parts to insure my access to pictures in my digital cameras. For cameras, I think it is best to stick with solid-state memory. I cant imagine anyone being able to do data recovery on one of these things.

Were I shooting someone's wedding, there would be hell to pay if I came to them and said the DISK CRASHED, and their pictures are kaput. No, I think I will stick with flash memory, and let some other sucker iron out the kinks.

Re:So, where is the RAID chip, huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sensitive disks can still be recovered. To fully erase the data, pack disk in themite, and light.

microdrive

[Xunker]

It may very well blow the IBM Microdrive out of the water, but please keep in mind that the Microdrive is, in fact, a five-year-old design and with something of that age a new advancement is bound to come along.

It's all evolutionary, not neccessarily revolutionary. Revolutionary would be, uhm, I don't know, using lazors to etch bit patters in my Raspberry Jello.

Old Geezer?

[delphi125]

Obviously not old enough to remember the original microdrive (circa 1984).

Re:The days of cramming 2.5" disks was over in 200

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah...let's hear it for Toshiba.

I wonder how long it will take Apple to integrate this new $100 drive with $50 worth of decoding hardware and a case and charge $500 for it.

Nice font

[Andrewkov]

Slightly off-topic, but did anyone notice the font they used on that site? It sure is unusual to see a fixed width font on a web page, and a rather ugly one at that (I'm using Mozilla under Win2K, so maybe your screen looks different). Anyway, I didn't realize till just now how good the fonts have become over the last few years. The fonts on that site were fairly standard not too long ago. Anyway, I'm burned out from work today so sorry for the off-topic post. ... back to work....

Re:Nice font

[Anonymous Coward]

bahahahaha.. lamer

Pixie Dust?

[Jedi Holocron]

I knew this was all really technomancey...but puhlllleze!

I wouldn't buy a drive running on Pixie Dust! Now Orc Blood maybe? Seems to me Orc Blood would be much more robust and secure... at least from a marketing point of view...

Never happen

[moc.tfosorcimgllib]

That conversation will never happen. You'll already be in prison for of those (soon-to-be) trademarked "3D-VR Relay".

History!

[ecalkin]

you might point out that the rp04s were 18inch packs! someone above mentioned a 1.8inch drive introduced a couple of years ago. i never made the comparison... 18>1.8.

you might also point out that the rp04s were a whopping 88MB!

i used to hold up a platter from one of those puppies and tell a class: 5 (or six or so) of these and you still have less storage than this and hold up a zip disk in the other hand.

eric

Unfunky, obsolete and out of time.

[Anonymous Coward]

Way too late. Compact flash has just about caught up with this, uses less power and is more reliable. If they'd brought it out 3 years ago, they'd have had a winner. Gonna take your funk and make it mine.

problem

[British]

The only problem is now trying to hook up that really tiny IDE cable to your motherboard. And don't get me started trying to find mounting brackets and screws for it.

Re:problem

[eht]

this place has somereally nice compact flash to ata connectors that mount in normal brackets

and this place has adaptors that fit in floppy bays, his prices on ebay usually end up better than those on his web site though

Limited Imagination

[Christopher Bibbs]

I'd say you probably don't. I'd guess you probably don't carry any form of electronic memory on a regular basis. Most people don't and that's cool. Some of us, though, move that much data between home and work now. I still used a Jazz drive until recently because having a single piece of media for moving >1GB of data was handy (plus the suckers could take a lot of abuse).

IN SOVIET RUSSIA

[Anonymous Coward]

1" hard drive keep secret KGB document and used as supository to hide information from American.

KAOPECTATE!

Sig

[Anonymous Coward]

Couldn't agree more, I even learned a new word.

Here is a link for people like I that didn't know what it meant.Jingoism

Finally

[Gyorg_Lavode]

I expected I'd need 500+mb of memory for the music I want in an mp3 player. I also want one that is small. With this drive, all we need is ogg ability and there might be an mp3 player I actually want.

Re:Finally

[Jack Porter]

Try one of these. iRiver iFP-195TC 512MB, tiny, 20 hours from a single AA battery. Amazon started selling them last week. I love mine.

Re:The days of cramming 2.5" disks was over in 200

[johny_qst]

But let us not forget what made the ipod so interesting to consumers... Capacity! The fact that I can now get a 20 gig handheld mp3 player based off a 2.5" or 1.8" drive is incredibly more impressive. And seeing my HDD compared to a coin for scale really makes me wonder whats MTBF? Does anyone know yet?

Never Happen

[moc.tfosorcimgllib]

That conversation will never happen. You'll already be in prison for infringing on the copyrights of those (soon-to-be) trademarked "3D-VR Relay".

That's what I get for not using the preview button >:(

Re:The days of cramming 2.5" disks was over in 200

[bsharitt]

1.5 GB? That's not enough for my legally ripped MP3s, much less what I get from giFT.

Blown out of the water?

[foxtrot]

it blows the smaller microdrive out of the water

I'll consider my Microdrive blown out of the water when this new thing fits in my Canon Powershot G1.

It sounds like they're two very different markets. This thing requires a proprietary interface; the Microdrive (and similar devices like the 5 or 10GB PCMCIA hard disks) use standard well-published and darned near ubiquitous interfaces. This new thing sounds like it could be built into something easily, but not as useful as removable storage. I get to thinking there's room for one of these in my car stereo, for example...

What I want...

[Andy Dodd]

People have already pointed out the issues with this... Too expensive for a device that's too fragile.

Has anyone released a portable MP3 DVD player yet?

DVD-R - $230 for a 4x recorder ($150 if you wait for a really good sale like the one OfficeMax had on the CenDyne rebadged Pioneer DVR-105s a month ago. Yes, I got a 105 for $150), $1.10/4.7GB disc for good Ritek media.

Smaller Drives..

[xRelisH]

Smaller Drives -> easier to hide pr0n.

Would be cool if these drives were like flash cards, where you could actually use them like disks.

still too pricey!

[u19925]

at $100 a piece, it is still pricey. last time, i bought my 512 MB CF card for $68. So CF cards, which come in different sizes, fits in PCMCIA slot with just a passive connector, requires no driver, .... is only 35 % more expensive. I guess, I will stick with CF. The prices of CF cards are falling faster than any microdrive, iomegra click drive, etc may even go below $100/GB before the time, this drive comes in market. I have PDA, Digital Camera which take CF card natively. Also I have a laptop and printer which read CF card with just a passive adapter.

Re:still too pricey!

[seniorcoder]

I agree.

Further advantages of flash memory:

• Less power required
• No spin-up time
• No head crashes
• Cannot be jarred/jogged
• Less heat generated
• Completely silent
• Less affected by temperature

Disadvantages of flash memory:

• Slower access times
• Smaller transfer rates

The key point is whether flash memory is fast enough for the application.
Certainly OK for MP3 player, probably not fast enough for video capture.

Re:still too pricey!

[Far�]

i bought my 512 MB CF card for $68.

Please, where can I purchase such cheap CF cards?

Re:The days of cramming 2.5" disks was over in 200

[2nd Post!]

Than get a 20GB iPod. The smallest available is 5GB, since 2001 :)

It's not the size of the drive that counts ...

[Anonymous Coward]

it's how you use it!

Write limitations

[phorm]

From what I remember about these:
It's been mentioned that Flash cards have write-limitations? If you had a device using a swap partition, I could see you eating away at these quite quickly.

This is based on the assumption that it functions differently than flash in this aspect, but right now the article just shows up as blank for me so I can't verify. My other concern would be reliability, especially in "impact" situations. For an Mp3 player, this might be a no-go, considering that many play their music while engaging in exercise which might involve jarring (slashdotters exempt from the exercise clause).

A 1 inch 1.5gb hard drive....

[Blacklotuz]

Porn, from concentrate...

Re:A 1 inch 1.5gb hard drive....

[Anonymous Coward]

Porn, from concentrate...

Add 3-4 inches to your pr0n collection with our new...

Re:The days of cramming 2.5" disks was over in 200

[Directrix1]

So, why are they even talking about this 1.5 Gig 1" disk, when at the bottom of the friggin' article they're linking to, they talk about a 1" 2.4Gig disk?

Great, they grew their own interface.

[dilvish_the_damned]

...a part of electronic circuitry is separately designed from the body of the HDD for shared use with a memory and microcomputer of a host device.
So its like MFM or RLL or any number of other grand designs, before people figured out that interoperability is a good thing? And yes, size and price were a driving force then as well. The CF you can buy at your local grocer for 10 bucks has an IDE interface, could it be that this home grown interface is a round about method of incurring license fees?
Still, its always good to see things get smaller 'n cheaper.

Re:The days of cramming 2.5" disks was over in 200

[Anonymous Coward]

The smallest 20GB iPod is 5GB?
Wow, neat trick.

well if the RIAA get it's way..

[azcoffeehabit]

"The days of cramming bulky 2.5" disks into mp3 players may finally be over."

yeah if the RIAA gets their way this will be is the understatement of the year.

inovation on the horizon?

[louzerr]

With this device's size and storage capacity, it could revolutionize hand-held devices (should the technology catch on). While I see mp3 players as just a trend, this would have a lot more applications - portable phones, calculators, not to mention devices only imagined now.

Think of all the data you could store in a small GPS device, or the amount of audio you could keep on a digital recording device. Or how about a hand-held card catalog for the libarary? You could look up a book while standing right in the aisle! Rather than a paper 'chart' at a hospital, patients could have a small digital device that could hold their medical history & insurance info. These are all things that were slightly possible before, but with 1.5GB of storage - the sky's practically the limit.

Of course, being a web fanatic, I think of the idea of coupling this HDD with an iPic (see http://http://www-ccs.cs.umass.edu/~shri/iPic.html )
Maybe one day /. will be served from a device the size of a pager!

Devices like these are what spark new innovation! Now we can only pray that M$ doesn't "embrace & extend" and wipe out any non-M$ inovators.

more 1-inch drives

[Traa]

funny to find a link to a 2.4GB 1-Inch drive article .... at the bottom of the slashdot linked article!

If the capacity were big enough ...

[Anonymous Coward]

and the transfer speed via wireless networking were fast enough, you could put one of those little babies in a remote control that handles your tv and all your other multimedia/entertainment equipment, small enough to go to grandma's house and play your favorite toons, tunes, etc there - now that would be cool.

Re:If the capacity were big enough ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Pocket TiVO!

Couple of options

[Eraser_]

For one, a lot of people hotsync their palms every evening after work. Wether this be to update the calendars on their home computers, to grab the latest news and info, or just to charge it. The daily battery suck wouldn't be so bad for those people. The other thing to remember, is a lot of people who might want or need it, wouldn't mind plugging it in after work every day.

The other thing is, it would probably go in a removeable bay. Need more battery? Just use a 128meg Memory Stick in your Clie. Need less? Take out a loan and purchase the 1gig memory stick(!). Makes it a non issue for those who don't want to lose battery life.

Re:The days of cramming 2.5" disks was over in 200

[b_pretender]

Don't limit yourself to MP3 players. Think about what a embedded tiny 1.5 GB drive would do for digital cameras, PDA's, you name it!!

Hard Drive? How boring!

[b!arg]

I don't care how small they can get hard drives anymore. It's old technology. Now give me an affordable 10GB (and bigger) solid-state drive then I'll be one happy guy.

No CF2, No dice

[agslashdot]

The compact flash marketplace is huge. Just about every digital camera requires and supports CF2, and the IBM microdrive is the only HD fitting in that slot that offers 1GB capacity. By choosing to ditch CF2, I don't see these guys having much of a chance. Do you seriously expect Nikon and Canon and every other big fish in the camera market who have finally agreed to settle on CF2 to now support this new harddisk without CF2 ?

Re:No CF2, No dice

[tommten]

I wonder if they could package the drive with an adapter and fit it all in a compactflash card?

hmm.. nah.. what's the idea of doing that? :)

This made me think...

[jolyonr]

I have a 1Gb SCSI drive sitting on a desk in the office here, it's 5.25" form factor, full height, pulled out of an old server.

Seeing the photo of this new drive has made me think it's probably time to throw it away! (Unless anyone near Croydon, UK, wants to come and take it! - unlikely!)

Jolyon

Slashdot Rule Nbr 93.

[SomeOtherGuy]

If the linked page requires Japanese text support, the chances of ever seeing these puppies on American soil, let alone your local Best Buy is slim to none.

Re:The days of cramming 2.5" disks was over in 200

[Bingo Foo]

And seeing my HDD compared to a coin for scale really makes me wonder whats MTBF?

You'd have to ask the treasury department to be sure, but I think it's about 20 years for quarters, slightly longer for dimes and nickels and slightly less for pennies.

Re:The days of cramming 2.5" disks was over in 200

[Smidge204]

Because the 2.4GB disk isn't available yet, and will be at least twice (and likely more) expensive just inof itself. The article also explains that their 1.5GB disk requires a mere fraction of the supporting components - meaning cheaper and easier to build (and therefore buy) products that use them. I'd imagine it would also use less power too, which is good for portable devices.

The big deal isn't the capacity, it's the simplicity.
=Smidge=

Re:The days of cramming 2.5" disks was over in 200

[MushMouth]

When the IPod first came out, the bare Toshiba drive was priced at $500.00.

Wow!

[dasmegabyte]

Now to squeeze them into a compactflash slot so I can listen to the White Album uncompressed. And can you imagine a RAID of these things?

No, seriously. Put them in a pluggable format, allow me to daisychain them bandolier style, and there's my infinitely expandable mp3 player/portable hard disc. You could build it into a belt and take the place of slung Palm Pilots and flip phones as the elite fashion accessory of the geek world.

be more creative

[GunFodder]

I could figure out how to use a gig on my phone. With an MP3 player, a camera, a video recorder and a GameBoy emulator I could fill up that gig in no time. And most PDAs can do more than a phone.

fsck is kind of like fuck

[rice_burners_suck]

Soon, nanotechnology will make hard drives the size of the sharp point of a needle with the capacity of one hundred thousand million billion trillion terabytes a reality. Only you'll need to make a backup cuz you won't be able to find your hard drive... it'll blow away in the wind.

Try 4GB Compact Flash...

[deadfishhotmail.com]

There's 4 Gigabyte cards intro'd at CeBit back in March. How long before this takes over the drives used in high end (expensive anyway) MP3 Players.

This thing blows

[Anonymous Coward]

My company looked at using one of these for an MP3 player.

It requires significant additional hardware to make it work. That isn't included in the cost. Also, it doesn't support ATA, instead a subset of ATA-like commands.

It has no useful way of sparing bad sectors in the field. You will have to reformat each time a sector goes bad.

Furthermore, the company seems unwilling to supply software to replace the missing functionality.

We really wanted to use this stuff, but the company doesn't seem willing to meet customers halfway.

reliability?

[bani]

will it be plagued with the reliability problems of other microdrives though...?

Is this a hoax? Where's the Cornice web site?

[writertype]

Unless my Google powers are sadly lacking (and it's a possibility; I stopped clicking after the third page of results) I fail to see how this story has been proved to be legitimate. Yes, Nikkei reported it, but you would think a company with intentions to be a real player would at least have a web site. The only mention I can find of Cornice on the 'net is a circular chain of stories, all linking back to the Nikkei piece.

Re:Is this a hoax? Where's the Cornice web site?

[pizzicar]

The web site http://www.cornice.com returns a "this page under construction". Not encouraging. While I don't doubt the existence of the device, the applicability seems limited to niche products. The price to storage ratio of solid state devices, not to mention the standardization of those devices, says the future does not seem bright at Cornice.

Re:Is this a hoax? Where's the Cornice web site?

[phriedom]

They seem to be selling these to larger OEMs, not to the public. And they may have been in stealth mode until now to avoid reactions from IBM etc. So I'm not all that surprised that they don't have much of a public website. They must also be privately held, so none of the financial stuff you might usually find is going to be visible. Unless you are really a potential customer who whats to audit them and make sure they will still be here in 6 months, they shouldn't tell you squat.

Re:Is this a hoax? Where's the Cornice web site?

[Anonymous Coward]

www.corniceco.com

Depends on the interface...

[Ungrounded Lightning]

So basically its a propriatory interface. Its cool don't get me wrong but I don't think IBM will be scared just yet.

That depends on the interface, doesn't it? If it's dog-simple to support on the far end it might take off big time. If they provide a small macro for designers to use in FPGAs or ASICs, standards aren't a major issue. Ditto if it presents itself as an internet-like device you can get to through a stock serial port and a minimal stock stack.

Looks like five wires. Five? Power, ground, three left over. Clock, TxD, Rxd? Bidirectional balanced serial bus and a reset/shutdown signal? Motor power, logic power, ground, bidir bus? Power, ground, balanced bus, EMI ground? (Maybe the flexy-board is double sided and it's ten wires?)

I want to see a description of this "simple and original" interface.

Re:Depends on the interface...

[Kazriko]

Exactly, This may not be the best thing for cameras and the like, but it could be a boon for embedded device developers if it has a simple interface. I'm sure I could find a use for one along with my 8 bit Zworld controllers. Would be quite good for long term data collection in low-shock environments, for example.

As for consumer devices, it could be useful in mid-range devices which don't have a compact flash slot. I can also see a use for it as an internal storage for a camera that has cf, so that the camera can be used with and without a cf card.

Until you drop one

[cgenman]

My wall of dead PDA's can attest to the durability of the modern device. Several were dropped only once. I don't think adding a hard drive will limit the machine's lifespan. Battery span, yes. Lifespan... doubtful.

Right on the cutting edge...

[Anonymous Coward]

...of last month. The link description fails to mention the non-standard interface. That should do a fairly good job of killing the consumer market as the cost of adding an interface will push it into the Microdrive's price range. Don't forget that the $100 price mentioned in the article is the projected OEM price. And we've already got 1 gig CF-1 cards which are far more durable, available now, and compatible with existing interfaces. 4 gig cards should be here pretty soon.

So what's the point of this new drive again?

Moveable parts

[sjbe]

I am not too keen on a lot of movable(breakable) parts to insure my access to pictures in my digital cameras.

You mean like shutters, auto-focusing lenses, & film winding?

Kidding of course.

Somehow I don't think you are throwing your digital camera around. While a disk drive isn't as reliable as solid state, unless you really abuse it, it shouldn't be a huge issue.

Re:Moveable parts

[LibertineR]

All those things you mentioned come into play BEFORE the picture is taken. I can always switch to a backup camera.

What I am concerned about, is the data once the pictures are taken. If they are on a disk drive subject to all sorts of failure modes, then I am totally screwed.

There's a new one with bigger screen

[jeti]

I've seen the new Jukebox Multimedia that was
presented at the CeBit fair. It ships with a
320x240 screen like the Zaurus.

But unlike the screen of the Zaurus, it has
really good colors and contrast. I think it'll
be quite enjoyable to watch even a full length
movie on those. :-)

I think those new boxes will ship within Q2.

not insightful

[Anonymous Coward]

Read the article. It's designed to be embedded into devices, meaning you won't be using it in a camera.

Re:not insightful

[LibertineR]

Dont be stupid. If you think this thing is NOT going to make it into digital cameras, then maybe YOU should read the article again yourself.

100GB for MP3s?

[osPDAproject]

If you need 100GB of storage for your MP3s, the RIAA would like to have a word with you.

Re:100GB for MP3s?

[Lt Razak]

How about a terabyte?

size/cost/capacity choose two

[cgenman]

Sadly, you don't always get to choose two... There are relatively fixed size^3 to capacity ratios at any given time, because the technology develops in parallel. 3.5" drives go up to 240 GB, 2.5" to 80GB, 1.8 to 30GB, and 1.0 to 4... a rough size^3 to maximum capacity ratio of .25.

No matter what you do, you won't be able to get a 1" drive to 30 GB until the 1.8" drives hit 180 GB, and the 2.4" drives hit 400 GB. Sadly, I don't see these going into high-capacity MP3 players any time soon.

Total control

[ashitaka]

I guess that's what people use Linux for nowdays.

Exactly. I got into Linux late in the game but once did was hooked by the almost absolute control I had over what was loading when and where. The warm, fuzzy feeling that I had the ability to tweak the memory use and performance of the operating system to the point that it was As Good As It's Going To Get(tm)

Re:The days of cramming 2.5" disks was over in 200

[ReelOddeeo]

Don't limit yourself to MP3 players. Think about what a embedded tiny 1.5 GB drive would do for [....]

Think of what it could do for portable, easily concealed packet sniffers!

Spelling nazi

[p3d0]

"inof"? Do you mean "in and of"?

Some awesome uses..

[g8way]

Instead of trying to use this like a CompactFlash, like most of you would like to do, you could embed this into, say, a PDA. You could replace the usual 64mb flash that comes with them, to possibly eliminate the need for extra power hogging storage devices.. Maybe someone should embed this into a cd player so you can record your cds to it, and not have to fumble with them again (before the government outlaws the device because everyone rips their friend's cds)

Re:The days of cramming 2.5" disks was over in 200

[wo1verin3]

>>The days of cramming bulky 2.5" disks into mp3
>>players may finally be over."

Ugh... the 3.5" disks I've been trying to cram could explain why I keep going through so many MP3 players.

unless you're a treetoad or something...

[Recoil_42]

normal humans take at least 45 terabytes... forget where i heard that; some science experiment emulating a 3 year old child.

Re:The days of cramming 2.5" disks was over in 200

[bsharitt]

But the point of the artilce seems to be smaller hard drives with as much space and that's just not so. I'm well aware of the iPod.

Nicely out of context

[Christopher Bibbs]

Pretty lame troll. In the middle of a discussion about MP3s it certain is fair to use purchases of prerecorded music as an indication of interest in music. Especially when we're in the middle of talking about how much disk space you need to store all the music you listen to.

Re:Nicely out of context

[Anonymous Coward]

In the middle of a discussion about MP3s it certain is fair to use purchases of prerecorded music as an indication of interest in music.

No, that's not a fair measure at all. I've known a lot of people who thought they were "really into music" because they spent a lot of friggin' money on it and knew a lot of bands and stuff. Then I've known others who just had that one Miles Davis record they really loved and could sing every solo on it. For some people I admit that the collecting itself really is meaningful, but for others the constant search for more and different music is really just a way to get away from learning anything at all.

As for the digital connection--I'm really disappointed to see that so much of the market for consumer music gear is for gear that just stores music and plays it back. The wonderful thing about digital music, as far as I'm concerned, is the *malleability* of it. You can slow it down, speed it up, pitch-shift it, play it backwards, cut it up into little pieces, study it from every angle, combine it with other stuff, turn it into your own.

Of course the music biz doesn't care about that crap, they're happy enough if you just look at the sonic world as so many perfect shiny little 3-minute units to be collected, sorted, and regurgitated. Blech.

Re:Nicely out of context

[Christopher Bibbs]

Listening to the same album over and over isn't about being into or studying music, it's about a single work. I love Picasso's "The Bullfight", but I'd never use that as a basis for the statement "I'm really into art."

The companies that make that equipment are simply responding to their consumers' demands. Most people don't want to alter their music, just play it back the way the artist created it. Look at reviews of receivers with fancy DSPs for effects. Generally they get labled as useless. You and I want to create something new and we have the hardware and software to do it. My wife is more concerned with being able to listen to her old 45s without damaging them further and nothing else.

Business is business and music is music. If you expect an industry to care about anything other than profits, you need to check your rethink some details. Let artists worry about art and business men worry about making a buck. Its what each does best.

Re:The days of cramming 2.5" disks was over in 200

[radish]

You mean something like, I dunno, an IBM Microdrive? That would be cool. Oh wait...

Microsoft cell phone

[Anonymous Coward]

Soon Microsoft will need this baby to install its bloated OS in a cell phone.

Here's the site--mod parent up, please

[Anonymous Coward]

up, up, and away!

SLOW!?! It writes faster than most every CF card

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.dpreview.com/articles/mediacompare/

Re:The days of cramming 2.5" disks was over in 200

[jred]

Well, that depends...

Having worked as quality control (yuck) for one of the leading mints (mainly US-based casinos), I can say that the amount of use has a lot to do with it. Some casinos rotate their lower denominations yearly. The higher value coins last a bit longer, 5+ years. Granted, they get more use than legal currency, and legal currency uses a different alloy, but we used some pretty hard alloys, so YMMV. :)

Microdrives and NASA

[hakubi]

I can't find the article that used to be on IBM's website, but NASA use(s/d) 1GB micridrives with their Kodak 6 MP cameras on the shuttle. I believe because of the large data capacity and reliability of the drives. I also own both 340MB and 1GB microdrives and have never had any difficulties with my Canon Powershot G2, or my Toshiba e740. They're extremely reliable and the 1GB drive writes faster than basically every solid state CF card out there .

Re:The days of cramming 2.5" disks was over in 200

[addaon]

Heh. Nothing quite like hearing your concealed packet sniffer spin up, I imagine.

Re:The days of cramming 2.5" disks was over in 200

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

It'll be kind of like the current generation of 2G and 4G Compact Flash cards, only with less capacity and with moving parts.

To be fair, at $100 OEM it's a lot cheaper. The last price I saw for a 4GB CF card was US$1,400.

Which will come first? Serial ATA or 1.5GB in 1"?

[Webmoth]

I'll believe it when I see it on the peg at Wal*Mart.

Wonder which we'll see on the shelves first: this thing or Serial ATA? Which, by the way, has been on backorder for the last 6 months or so.

If anything deserves an award in the "Promises, promises" category (excepting Duke Nukem Whenever; that's earned several), it's Serial ATA.

Has anyone out there actually got their hands on a Serial ATA drive, PURCHASED from a retail source? I mean, several online shops LIST them, but nobody seems to actually HAVE them.

I take that back. In researching for this post, I actually DID find a place that lists them in stock. Let's hope they are telling the truth! Also, let's hope their order system can survive a slashdotting, since they seem to be the only place in the world that has them. I'm sure they'll be backordered by tomorrow.

Last Post!

[alpg]

Stop! Whoever crosseth the bridge of Death, must answer first
these questions three, ere the other side he see!

"What is your name?"
"Sir Brian of Bell."
"What is your quest?"
"I seek the Holy Grail."
"What are four lowercase letters that are not legal flag arguments
to the Berkeley UNIX version of `ls'?"
"I, er.... AIIIEEEEEE!"

- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...