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Toshiba Develops 0.85'' Hard Disk
onebuttonmouse writes "Toshiba have set a new record for the world's smallest hard disk at a tiny 0.85". Surely this will have some great applications in mobile devices, although the article does not mention power consumption. It'd be great if this made it into the iPod like the 1.5" Toshiba drive that resides in the current models."
And here I wait with my last moderator point to mod down the first post. Buahahah.
"To pass through the jungle; silence, courtesy, ferocity, as the occasion demands." -- Kamau, "Proper Passage"
It's not how big it is, it's how you use it...
SAILING MISHAP
It could benefit all hard drive based music players, not just the iPod.
(Use a disposable account from a disposable IP before moderating this up. Editors generally watch and see who moderates controversial things like this up.)
When you are logged in,
Please *log out* AND use another browser before making your AC comments.
Your UID is being tracked, it's not Anonymous. Lots of people post lots of things to Slashdot as AC only because they believe it is really anonymous - it isn't. They hunt "trolls" (non-karma whores and non-group thinking bots) down.
This is true. I used to be a bit more freestyle and witty AC and be a nice guy logged in [basically a karma whore]. After a short while, I could no longer moderate. Slashdot does brand AC posts with IP and then map them back to users. They lie about AC, AC doesn't exist if you re-use ip addresses.
Big brother is watching. So while I might be a "troll" a lot of the AC things I said were to protect myself from Slash-bot groupthink. They punished me for voicing my opinion freestyle.
They also revoke moderation FOREVER - $rtbl it is called, for any moderations of any post that have been secretly flagged annoying [Slashcode has hidden flags viewable by editors]. If you *EVER* mod up something an editor secretly marked annoying you NEVER moderate again, ever - ever even if your karma is capped.
Also, Slashdot uses the friends system to track "trolls." Mark a troll you find funny as a friend *bang* $rtbl never to moderate ever again. My real account had many many good friends who had good karma, and a few funny trolls later, no more moderation for that account. Again, Slashdot is spying on its users to make the people who find certain things funny ineligible to moderate. You will never moderate again if you are a friend of a "foe or freak" of an editor.
FACT: This is in Slashcode CVS
Revision 1.7.2.5 / (download) - annotate - [select for diffs] , Thu Feb 8 13:12:32 2001 UTC (2 years, 9 months ago) by pudge
Branch: bender
CVS Tags: v1_1_3_0
Changes since 1.7.2.4: +18 -7 lines
Diff to previous 1.7.2.4 to branchpoint 1.7
log more AC info
So AC is a scam here. Hitler-Malda screws AC posts in the caboose. So now all you can do is go 100% AC, or , as they expect you to, KARMA WHORE. And it is so lame and unfair and probably illegal as they lie about anonymity.
Also, sometimes when certain information becomes an active thread, they bitchslap the thread much later so that people think its "safe" to participate and the whole thing gets slapped.
There is a presumption anonymous means something. They lie like rugs to the posting public by using the word anonymous. It is not. They brazenly lie though and the un-assuming poster is having everything he says correlated with him and stored in a computer just waiting to be subpoenaed by the people that Slashdot claims to hate but works for. They work for the fascist forces and components of the US government. I like the US and other Western governments but they have good and bad components - there are things you need to do to protect yourself from the bad components. Basically "covering your ass" so to speak. At Slashdot, in lying about AC, un-protects its posting public (seeding a de-anonymizing privacy stripping pandemic in their own "little" way). This makes Slashdot a very dangerous target for you the posters to have your "anonymous" information subpoenaed and you to be chased down and persecuted for speaking your mind. I think that it is a joke Slashdot editors post about SCO, MSFT, RIAA, MPAA, TIA, FBI, etc. They do
For those in the UK; 0.85 Inches is a nice small 2.159cm. Although I wonder at the capacity and the sheilding from magnetic interference its going to need to keep away from even small magnetic currents erasing the data...
NeoThermic
Use my link above, or to view my server, NeoThermic.com
it would be great if this made it into an ipod!!
no, not really.
I came inside your wife's cunt...enjoy the kid!
this disk holds, it isn't worth it.
I guess it's true what they say about asians...
I wonder how this will compete with Samsung's new one gigabyte (8 GBit) flash. With a storage capacity of only 2-3 GB, this drive is only 2 or 3 of these flash chips, so competing on size would be hard. Hopefully it's much cheaper.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
in such a small place...
God bless technology!
I browse at +5 Flamebait- moderation for all or moderation for none.
If any of you were wondering about "The 1-inch HDD developed by the US affiliate of Hitachi Ltd," that is the same as (what was) the IBM MicroDrive. IBM's hard drive section was purchased by Hitachi.
Also, it says that the Hitachi 1" hard drive was "released in November," but I know that the IBM MicroDrives have been around a lot longer than that. Maybe it's just that they shrunk a little and grew in capacity.
I had but a simple dream, to destroy all humans.
...is that a Microdrive, which I believe is what they're referring to by "1 inch" hard disk drive is too large for cellphones, according to the article, but somehow, this .85 inch one isn't. That's not a huge difference in platter size. Is the associated electronic equipment in this one notably smaller? The article doesn't say, but that's the only thing I can think of-- .15 of an inch (that's shy of four millimeters for y'all metric folks) doesn't seem like it would be a deal-breaker.
Not that it really matters to me. As long as my phone has a vibrate mode, I don't think I want a hard disk in it...
This is great for seek times, high speed applications like watching hi-res movies from a hard drive this small could mean smooth tracking through the film without losing audio sync, a problem which affects larger drives (3.5").
Forget the iPod, this sort of drive would do nicely in a handheld/pocket divx player.
There is no god
I'd love to see this used on a digital camera. Imagine 2 gig of sapce to space your 5 megapixel shots. mmmm Price might be prohibitive at first but what new technology isnt?
No.
Even though it has a lot of great applications.
(sorry for the rudeness. too much work can do that to people)
-- yes, i know it hurz...
is only 2-3 gigabytes... the ones in ipods are at least 10, right? it sounds like they just reduced the size of the platters, and they didn't significantly increase the storage density.
They make some amazing laptops. Not only do they make 90% of the parts they remind me of Apple on the eligance of their laptops.. The new 359 series laptops are slick 15.4 inch wide screen monsters, for a grand it gives you a 1.4ghz centrino (1mb cache) geforce fx 5200, 40gb hd, 15.4 wide screen, 512mb ddr, and all inside a incredible 5lbs machine!
very slick, plus up to 7hours battery life!
keanmarine.com
Great so I can loose this sucker just like I keep loosing that tiny cell phone I had to buy. Or better yet they will prob combine the two and make the worlds smallest cell with a HD. So then I can loose both at the same time. How small do we need things, really. I thought women always say "size matters!" if so the geeks are going in the wrong direction.
Bob Goatse, semi-mythical figure and regular guest on the FC Forum, spoke to our special reporter in a telephone interview from his home on the Christmas Islands. ...OK, Bob. Much like Mahir and the the 'All Your Base' phenomenom, your fame is due to the internet. People think they know what you're like inside without getting to know the real you. Does that bother you?
FC-uk: Hello? Hello? Mr Goatse?
Bob Goatse: (muffled) Where's the cellphone? I thought I heard it.
FC-uk: Hello?
Bob Goatse: (sounds of movement) Agh. Hello? Who's this?
FC-uk: Mr Goatse, I'm Huw Jaersal, calling from the UK. We were going to do an interview?
Bob Goatse: Sure. I remember. Sorry 'bout the mixup - I couldn't find the phone.
FC-uk: Couldn't remember where you'd put it?
Bob Goatse: Couldn't reach it when it rang, actually. Had to jump a bit to get to it.
FC-uk: Ah. On a high shelf?
Bob Goatse: Not really. Let's not talk about my phone, huh?
FC-uk: Sure. You've become quite a celebrity, Mr Goatse...
Bob Goatse: Bob
FC-uk:
Bob Goatse: It's a bit of a stretch, I'll admit. I feel I've put more work into my reputation than the others. Opened myself up more, you know.
FC-uk: The others?
Bob Goatse: Mahir - I mean, all he had to do was scan in a couple cheesy photos, put some silly greeting on his site, and he's doing ads for IBM. All your base - like, where did that come from?
FC-uk: So that bothers you?
Bob Goatse: Do you see me doing ads for IBM?
FC-uk: Well, no, but...
Bob Goatse: Or Microsoft? 'Suddenly everything fits'?
FC-uk: You've got to admit there's a certain niche appeal in what you do. Have you explored the idea of sponsorship or publicity?
Bob Goatse: The genie's out of the bottle now, son. You have a skill, and then before you can take a breath it's been circulated all the way across the world. Let me tell you - I go to talent scouts, theatrical agents, and I tell them my name. Know what they say?
FC-uk: Ah, no.
Bob Goatse: They laugh. They say 'we've seen that already, thanks'. Then they hang up.
FC-uk: So, what's next then?
Bob Goatse: I had a Vegas tour arranged before the pictures got out. Vegas, for Chrissake. 'The Amazing Goatse and his Magical Secret Pocket' - had the flyers and everything. That's gone.
FC-uk: I heard you worked as a drug mule for a while?
Bob Goatse: Who told you that? Why do you think I'm living on the frigging Christmas Islands now, huh? Two trips from Columbia and I've flooded the market. The price of cocaine in the entire state of Ohio dropped to half because they didn't realise how much I could carry. The drug barons want to put a cap in my ass now.
FC-uk: To limit it?
Bob Goatse: No, I mean they want to kill me. They weren't happy.
FC-uk: OK, moving on. Tell us some more about Bob Goatse. Is there a Mrs Goatse?
Bob Goatse: There is. We've been together ten years now.
FC-uk: And how does she feel about you?
Bob Goatse: Carefully, with a lot of lube.
FC-uk: No, I meant, uh,
Bob Goatse: Oh, I getcha! She loves the fame, but it's kinda 'through a glass darkly'. I mean, she says 'my husbands a star - he's Bob Goatse' and if people don't already know us, they say 'Yeah? Prove it', so I do. And they don't come round any more.
FC-uk: So tell us some more about those photographs. How did it happen?
Bob Goatse: Allergy
FC-uk: Sorry?
Bob Goatse: I've got an allergy to poppy seeds.
Fc-uk: Is it serious?
Bob Goatse: Not really. It only seriously affects a band of flesh about six inches long.
FC-uk: Where?
Bob Goatse: You've seen the photos. Where do you think? It began one night when we'd been out for a meal. I came home, and I itched. All over. So I got out of my clothes and started scratching. Gwen (that's Mrs Goatse) thought this was hilarious, and she began taking pictures of me in the lounge, scratching like an ape with fleas. We'd just bought a digital camera, see, and she figured this was a great joke.
FC-uk: And then what happened?
Bob Goatse: The itchi
It would be kind of cool to see this sort of thing in a smartmedia, multimedia, or securedigital form factor, especially if the interfaces of the memoryslot based MP3 players improve. It would be cool to have 6GB of mp3s along and still have $200 in cash more than the ipod freaks...
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
There have been a few press releases about significant reductions in form factor, but the storage capacity is also much less. Just hang out until they get as fast, as capacious, and as cheap.
Of course, when they do,...
Just to let you know, 30,000 yen is around $278 american. If this pushes down to 10,000 yen that will be around $93 dollars.
...it will be a bit before the price comes down enough to permit it to be used in an MP3 player.
That's not impressive, really. You'd still need a helluva lot of them to get a decent amount of storage space. If they because USB compatible, though, then it might help speed up the development of USB drives.
100 of these crammed together. They could hold about 200G and only be about 5 times the size of a normal drive!
the Japanese Pocket-Size PC Cube
Article stated: The company expects each drive to cost around 30,000 yen ($278.46) initially, but projects that mass production will push down the price to less than 10,000 yen ($92.83) within a few years.
Of course, exchange rates may change significantly before the price drops to 10,000 yen.
Inches are totaly inappropriate for small measurements, or for any technical stuff for that matter. Use millimetres or centimetres instead!
When I RTFA, I noted a related story on the new Compact Flash 4GB Microdrive and found a randomly chosen supplier with more specs and claims that these are in stock now. Just think, a DVD worth of data on a single CF card. Now I can start taking all my digital pictures in RAW format.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
Apple wants to bring $100 iPod to the market. They can't push the price of current models, but they can bring a new, cheaper and smaller (maybe Flash drive) version to go with that Pepsi promotion.
Slashdot has a MAC FETISH. This same story was posted with "hard drive music players" weeks ago; it was shot down. Insert a MAC reference, BAM! Instant orgasm for the slashdot editors.
You fucking PRICKS.
Jeese, I've heard the Asian stereotypes, but .85"? Wow.
that being said, there are circulating rumors of Smaller/Cheaper iPods.
a REALLY small beowulf cluster of...oh nevermind....
You know, I think it would be kinda nifty to set up five or six of these micro drives in RAID 5 configuration. I mean, talk about a solid mini-application server for household use.
Life is not for the lazy.
It should have quite low power consumption.
All else being equal, the power consumption of similar hard disks should be approximately proportional to the square of their radii.
Of course, friction is a funny thing, and the engineering may need to be different for a small device, so YMMV. In general, smaller disks will use less power.
Damn Sig!
Imagine a handheld GPS locator with every city map!
.
Or that you can set to record a timespace waypoint every five minutes.
You could tie one of these to your outdoor cat and see how many owners he has . .
Stefan
I agree I posted a story about the new KDE and it was not approved because it had no crapintosh tie in.
This is BIG news. It looks like cell phones will become the poor man's computer. How many billions of people live in China and India again? Over two billion.
The article says 2-3 GB....With no mention of future increases.....This is more than likely to compete with CF not hard drives in ipods and such.
...is 1.8 inch not 1.5
high density solid state storage devices
Having seen 2 GB USB memory keys starting to become available, I have to wonder what the great advantage is of the microdrive.
I've heard the memory keys are limited by the number of erase/write cycles (to ~10,000) before they wear out, and also limited to data transfer speeds of about 1 MB/s (although I think USB 2.0 is supposed to be better).
Unforunately, I didn't see any specifications about the read/write speed for this drive, but if it's going to plug into a USB port then it has no practical advantage over the solid state memory device.
Is there any other reason you'd want a mechanical device like this over solid state memory?
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Now they need to make 'em edible, so that I can easily and REALLY securely get rid of all that kiddy pr0-err, MP3s that I have on my computer...:::looks around hastily, then runs away:::
computers may be small enough to fit in a single room.
If the iPod gets an smaller, it ould be too easy to lost, imo. Unless they leave the device the same size and put the extra space to use for the battery. That would be pretty sweet
Why wait for Apple? Creative, Rio, and RCA are already using 1" 1.5GB Cornice drives in some tiny mp3 players that make the iPod seem oversized. Cornice says they will have a 5GB model around the middle of 2004...
Da Blog
Smaller, faster, better! This is cool stuff. Soon they're going to be pushing the physical limits of manufacturing!
Does anyone know if there's a company working on applying MEMS fabrication to similar devices?
=Smidge=
Most of the power used by a hard drive I would presume is used to spin the platters. With a mass and diameter this low, spun at the same rpm as standard drives the power used would be:
a) huge
b) average
c) miniscule
d) I can't think for myself and must be explicitly told.
Come on, at a tiny 0.85" it has to have really really low power consumption.
2 to 3 G is a drop in the bucket.
Already 1 to 2G flash cards/USB keys/etc are available with no moving parts, no shock sensitivity, instant "start up", lower power consumption... that is, all the usual solid state advantages over non-solid state devices.
In the past solid state also meant more expensive. Today, the solid state parts will even be competitve in price.
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
OK, so the T-Cube story on Slashdot is from 6 hours ago, so this is _way_ out of date, and the things run TRON rather than Linux, so you'd need to do a bit of work to port Beowulf to them. At least they've got network interfaces...
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Wowsers, just 0.85"! One-dimensional storage is teh FUTARE!!!1
Sure, on still pictures, this is plenty of space. But a DVD is ~4.7GB - is 2-3GB enough for good video recording, or will you also have to haul around an iPod to upload your pictures to?
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
No matter how many people say they jog/run with their iPod fine, there's no denying that the sucker locks up for a whole lot of people.
"Mine's smaller than yours!"
"No, mine's smaller"
"No, mine... oh, wait, what am I saying!"
"'I pass the test,' she said. 'I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.'"
- JRR Tolkien.
Here's the picture and report(Japanese).
The small picture posted in the article will be more real-size for most people.
...that we should post so much troll and doubt over so small a thing....
Such a little thing...
If you want something like this then check out the Frontier Labs Nex IA. It's got that iPod white goods plastic look and takes Type I & II Compact Flash memory cards or MicroDrives (I think these go to 4GB now with the latest models). Built-in FM tuner and voice/FM recording. You can swap in and out media cards with music or data on them. All the no-skip benefit of static devices with some expandability. Runs on AA. Nice.
1GB, $250
512MB, $250
256MB, $150
Yes, I know the 1GB/512MB pricing is screwed. Go figure.
Da Blog
michael agrees:
jobs by name, jobs by occupation
How come no one ever mentions 4GB compact flash cards. It's sad to see so many "Slashdotters" who think it's still 2002.
What is with that font? Tons of Far-East sources use that same strange font in all English-language printing. I first encountered it as a kid, on the back of some Chinese sandpaper. Does anyone else notice these things? Or am I nuts?
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
Just telling me one dimension, 0.85", is useless. We live in a n-dimensional world. I forget what that n is, but last time I heard a nuclear physicist speak it was over 7. So tell me its the Length, Width, Height, Diameter, Radius or something useful.
/.'er does that make me? having to RTFA uck.
I had to RTFA to find out it was diameter, what kind of
Actually 0.85 inches is 2.16 cm. The extra digit is not meaningful given the precision of the source.
(Sorry, but this sort of thing drives me crazy. If I read one more newspaper article that transforms "100 meters" into "328.08 feet," I think I'll scream.)
from the smaller-is-better dept.
Doing some wishful thinking... eh Timothy? :D
The only thing that will stop you from fulfilling your dreams is you. - Tom Bradley
It's not the size, but how you use it?
I didn't believe it either....
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
I'll take solid-state solution, thankyouverymuchsir
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
Are there now mexican standoff's with quaters and postage stamps of this drive?
I don't believe it! I didn't know a Toshiba hard drive was in the iPod. I was thinking of buying an iPod but after being suckered into thinking the Toshiba e740 PDA was worth buying I'll have to seriously think about that iPod now. I have never in my life come across such a piece of crap, as the e740, and such poor service from a company!
. . . my collection of midget porn.
you don't need a big disk.
Everyone is talking about iPods and other portable media players. How about using one of these hard drives in a handheld PC? I've been waiting for this for years. Forget carying around a stupid mp3 player AND a palm-top. How about XMMS in your pocket? And for that matter, I wonder how long before Apple decides to add a stylus, color display, and a general purpose OS on the iPod? When handheld PCs eventually do have enough memory/disk space to store large amounts of media, what niche will these hard-disk based players fill anyway?
LS
There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
...a beowulf^H^H^H^H^H^H^H RAID cluster^H^H^H^H^H^H^H array of these in an ipod!
OW! STOP HITTING ME!! THE VOICES MADE ME DO IT!
Why wait?
Because I'm already running into space limitations on my 10GB iPod between the music on it and that data that I carry back and forth for work. Once the whole Christmas fiasco is out of the way, I'll be upgrading to the 40GB. And you think 1.5GB is going to cut it?
As for oversized? The frickin' thing is the same size as a deck of cards. Very easy to slip into a shirt pocket and carry from my desk to my car. That's all the portability I need.
Wouldn't a 1" cube 3 of these drives at right angles (X, Y, Z) to each other appear to be a very heavy little box, because of the gyroscopic "inertia" in each plane?
--
make install -not war
They mention plans on using it in mobile phones... AFAIK, micro-HDD aren't quite shock-resistant, compared to solid storage. I wonder, how long such drive will live in "sporty" phone, like my Nokia 5100?
-- grmbl woz heer
Well, you only have to wait -2 years for a 5 gig iPod, and when you figure out how to wait negative years then you'll make more money than any mp3 player manufacturer.
For quite sometime the HD drive has been the only way of storing large quantity of data, but is it still the only way?
The memory devices presented as small flashram IC's are certainly moving forward as the prices keeps dropping.
My guess is that its only a matter of time before the small hard disk devices will be dropped again - it is still way to fragile to store data on a HD device.
But is it only me?
...just like a frightened turtle!
For the metric among us.
An EMC frame made of these things. It could sit on your desk! Mmmmm, terabytes.
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
...you could put a 4x7 array of them on a carrier to fit a normal 3.5" bay. RAID on 28 spindles in one bay, think of it! :-)
Once the whole Christmas fiasco is out of the way, I'll be upgrading to the 40GB
A friend of mine swapped out her Archos 20GB for an 80GB and she still runs out of space. This thread is discussing small-factor drives so I think that in a way you are thread crapping.
But there is a more general issue. The drive to ever larger capacity for a media handheld is a symptom of there not being sufficient broadband wireless. Eventually, when everyone can get decent 100+ Kbps downloads, then all you will need will be a relatively small hard drive such as the Cornice or the Toshiba. Streaming is the way to go!
I have 1TB+ of mp3s and video that I stream over land line internet (I have Cyberonic DSL 786K upload) so for me it's a relief not to have to carry that damn file server everywhere. Future generations will wonder why everyone assumed they had to sneakernet their entire music collections around with them...
Da Blog
I think the point you make is spurious. We are talking about a significantly smaller form factor drive. Remember when Appl brought out the iPod it was a year later than Archos and Creative and offered only 5GB (compared to their 10GB and 15GB models).
Apple traded capacity for size. At the time some people commented that people wanted and were used to more than 5Gb so the iPod was doomed. They were wrong.
Now today you can get 80GB in the 2.5" factor, 40GB in the iPod's 1.5' factor, and some companies are creating a new niche with these sub 1" drives.
And you are putting yourself in the same position as Apple's competitors a couple of years ago. Do you really feel that confident, to say that the current iPod form factor and capacity is the optimal handheld audio size?
If Apple or anyone else bring out a model using these 22mm drives, then they will be limited to around a GB at present. But they will have marvellously small drives with long battery life.
Maybe they will compete well with flash ram players, maybe not. Personally I think they will have to wait for a year or two so their capacity can exceed the 1GB and 4GB CF cards now available at a lower cost.
Da Blog
Clayton Christensen was interested in technology innovation and adoption but was having a hard time figuring out how to study it. Then someone suggested that he study disk drives. He makes the case that disk drives are the fruit flies of technology.
In his book he examines why the drives smaller than 3.5" haven't revolutionized disk storage as 3.5", 5.25", 8", 12" did for previous generations.
HP developed a microdrive but the project/product failed because it was "too good" which meant it was too expensive.
The question for the Toshiba drive is whether it will enable new products which will find a new and exploding market.
Cell phones, PDAs, MP3 players are not likely to be that market.
Maybe 100 drive RAID arrays will be the market. (Think bare drives wave soldered to the board.) Then again, maybe not, because this idea was proposed in the mid-90s and went nowhere.
How about kids toys? A toy bear loaded with 1000 stories and rhymes, with the story selected based on randomness and keying off some crude voice recognition. "Tell me a story" starts it talking.
One advantage of the small drive is that it has far less mass and with less mass, less rigidity is required to shock proof the drive. Why can't ants be scaled up to man size? The greater mass of a man sized ant would require material strength beyond any natural or man made technology.