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4GB HD in Under an Inch
werwerf writes "In need of hard disk space but not much physical space? Toshiba is developing a sub inch HD capable of holding from 2 to 4Gb.
Seems that future digicams won't need a compact flash anymore!" They expect to be in mass production by the fall. Also, News.com is reporting that Hitachi's 1-inch 4GB drive is in Apple's new iPod mini.
Can someone who has owned an IBM Microdrive comment on the reliability of ultra-small hard drives such as these?
... but, if these micro drives are reliable enough, then the storage capacity they offer would be mighty attractive.
I've had too many hard drives (of the desktop or notebook size) fail in my day to feel very comfortable about having one in a device as likely to be subject to stress and shock as a digital camera.
Solid state memory like compactflash just seems so much more elegant than a tiny spinning metal disc with teeny little motors and gears
They already make microdrive CF cards in 1-2GB capacities.
Why do I still use CF cards? Because solid state devices are far more reliable than a HD. I know it won't freeze at low temperatures, seize at high altitudes, or die if I drop it.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
A DVD holds ~4.7gb. This sounds almost the perfect size to me for a camcorder. You could record straight to the hard drive, and then transfer the video straight to either a standalone dvd burner, or to your desktop machine and edit/burn from there.
no comment
Later on I found out I shouldn't have even been using the camera at sub-freezing, but I got away with it that time. (Canon D30)
Fortunately the Microdrive heats up a lot when in use.
Seems that future digicams won't need a compact flash anymore!
Get your hard drives out of my portable devices. Devices with no moving parts are infinitely better than any that have them. Drives have the following disadvantages:
(1) Poor battery life
(2) Disk spin up time
(3) Shock / impact problems and drive crashes
You can get 4GB solid state compactflash cards right now (as recently announced by Lexar). They're merely expensive. Expend effort bringing the cost of those down and the market for 4GB mini hard drives will evaporate.
Of course, the nice thing about this is the hope that eventually we'll get that "$150 iPod mini" or some other small form factor device (like a Palm Pilot with a HDD - perfect for my NES emulator....)
;).
But what I keep seeing is that while the physical size shrinks - 1", 0.85", etc, the space it holds remains fairly constant - 1GB, 4GB, so on.
Part of the problem I see is that nobody wants to make a really cheap 2GB solution, since "nobody wants 2GB for anything by then". I believe it's why Apple has their iPod Mini at 4GB and won't go cheaper - it's hard to simply find something that small with less capacity.
Kind of like ordering hard drives these days. I checked the prices on my old Proliant box. It's more expensive to order a 9 GB SCSI drive than to buy an 18 GB. Why? Who the hell wants to make a 9 GB when "everybody" wants to by an 18?
In the end, perhaps solid state will be the answer - probably in "another year or two". No big hurry, since I already have a 30 GB iPod - but it means my wife will have to wait longer
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
Surely it would be better to go with non-moving parts. When you get into that size range, extreme portability is obviously the goal. But hard drives don't do well with constant motion. Just look at all the complaints from joggers/runners trying to use ipods.
We've already got 1 and 2 gig CF cards that can take all kinds of abuse without skipping a beat. What's gained by using a hard drive with all those tiny, delicate moving parts?
As I predicted in a past comment, Apple is indeed using the Hitachi 4gb microdrive. The drive should be hitting shelves sometime next week - there are one or two online retailers who claim to have it now.
What's more interesting, though, is its price. The lowest price I could find for a 4gb microdrive was well over $500 - TWICE that of the iPod mini.
If the drive in the iPod is the same thing being sold by Hitachi (ie. it still has a CF connector), you could get this for half-price. Digital camera users would love this...
This seems to disqualify the notion that the mini is too expensive. I'd say that it's too cheap for Apple to be making any money on it at all. Even IF apple could get the drives for around $200 each, which is the lowest realistic price possible, you've got to remember that there's a lot more stuff in an iPod than the hard drive and Apple still needs to make a profit.
Could the mini just be a loss-leader to promite the iTMS
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
HEY THAR COWBOY
As sleepingsquirrel says, if you need to shoot RAW as most pro photogs do, that little 512MB card is going to net you only 25-40 images. If you're shooting a wedding... or sports... or a police booking, you don't want to be worrying about changing cards.
Now, perhaps wedding photogs might eschew hd based cards since if they lose a 100 images of a wedding they're screwed whereas the news stringer is just going to eat cereal for dinner that night.
--Len
Gotta love those iPods! I have a new 20GB version, but I think I would have bought a 4GB version if it was out at the time - so small and so cool :)
;) Just think of your computer with a couple of terabytes of RAM - gotta make some of that solid state though ;)
Anyway the 1.8" versions of 40GB sounds cooler! 8mm high - or the 20GB 5mm!
Anyway the harddisks will be unnecessary soon it seems
Any technology distinguishable from magic, is insufficiently advanced.