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Cheap New 1 Inch HDD Holds 1.5GB

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the here-we-go dept.

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."

8 of 232 comments (clear)

  1. Forget MP3 Players by levik · · Score: 4, Interesting
    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.

    --
    Ñ'
    1. Re:Forget MP3 Players by evilviper · · Score: 4, Interesting
      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.
      --
      Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
  2. It's fine IF.... by binaryDigit · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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?

  3. Benefit? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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?

    1. Re:Benefit? by CatOne · · Score: 3, Interesting

      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).

  4. So, where is the RAID chip, huh? by LibertineR · · Score: 4, Interesting
    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.

  5. No CF2, No dice by agslashdot · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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 ?

  6. Re:Video iPod... by Dylan+Zimmerman · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.