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.

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."

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?

[Anonymous Coward]

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

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

[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

[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.

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

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.

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.

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?

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?

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: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: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.

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...

A 1 inch 1.5gb hard drive....

[Blacklotuz]

Porn, from concentrate...

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!!

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: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: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.