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Guinness's World's Smallest Hard Drive Record

ketbra writes "CNN reports that Toshiba has received the Guinness World record for the smallest disk drive for their new 0.85-inch HDD. (Covered on Slashdot a while back) The technology editor from Guiness made the comment that "Toshiba's innovation means that I could soon hold more information in my watch than I could on my desktop computer just a few years ago". "

13 of 244 comments (clear)

  1. Guiness has no idea.... by bobthemuse · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Imagine what they are getting themselves into. Will companies now apply for largest screen? Fastest start-up time? Fastest processor? Quietest fan? Largest spam mailing?

    1. Re:Guiness has no idea.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful
      While smallest, largest, fastest, etc are very short held titles in computers, first is an important distinction.


      An apprpriate distinction for GBWR:
      Toshiba Claims First Harddrive to Float on the Head of a Guiness

  2. Already... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    My computer about a decade ago had a 500 meg HD, now I've got a pocket USB drive with about the same capacity.

  3. I miss the bar bets. by oneiros27 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's one thing to have a book of records that's based on bar bets, and things that just involve getting a bunch of semi-skilled people together to do.

    Does anyone care about corporate achievements in the Guiness record books? (other than the corporations, that is).

    If they want in to the book, get 1139 people with golf carts, and break the record for longest golf cart parade.

    I just think about the Guiness book being about things that are done almost solely for getting into the book, with no significant redeeming qualities other than getting someone's name in print. You know -- longest toenails. Worst smelling shoes -- the types of things that the average person could pull off with a bit of dedication, and not needing a multi-million dollar research facility, and not being directly linked to a company's product development.

    How about 'shortest MTBF' for the next hard drive record?

    --
    Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
  4. Good for mp3 players by RichM · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Apple, Creative and other people who make these HD-based mp3 players really should use hard drives like this. One of the main reasons that I haven't bought an iPOD yet is because of the size of the thing...

  5. Not actually innovation by leandrod · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Am I the only one irritated when improvements get called innovations?

    --
    Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
    DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
    GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
    1. Re:Not actually innovation by bloggins02 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Not that I'm entirely disagreeing with you, but I would like to make one nit-pick...

      The drive itself may not be an innovation, but the manufacturing processes required to make it certainly are.

  6. Re:What a let down... by beanyk · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Was anyone disappointed to see people call "Paddy's Day" "Patty's Day"? There's a difference, though it may not sound like it if you slur your "t"s.

  7. Guinness is the new Moore's Law bitch by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I mean, seriously. People used to have to really work hard at breaking records before. And Guinness occasionally had to work hard to find them. Now, it's just a natural, virtually unstoppable progression for all "records" related to technology. Truly lame. The technology secion of Guinness has become a newspaper, effectively.

    Get rid of the tech companies and bring back the human freaks! Guinness has closed many really cool (and difficult) categories like "Eating a Bicycle".

  8. The real problem is... by Kjella · · Score: 2, Insightful

    ...battery capacity. Already they're having trouble with the latest phone/camera/pda/calender/games/java/high res/high color monitor/video recording/video playback/pim/triband/polyphonic/mp3/aac/mms/fm radio/email/browser/bluetooth/gprs/wap/hscsd/touch screen/edge/wcdma/portrait caller id/flashlight/calorie counter/thermometer/picture editor/fax/word processor/excel/ppt viewer/flash player/kitchen sink cell phones (all actual features, tho not in the same phone...)

    Kjella

    --
    Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
  9. Re:Get a clue by bobthemuse · · Score: 2, Insightful

    My point was not making fun of Guinness for searching out obscure facts, but that many of the things I mentioned change frequently. On top of that, try getting a large group of people to agree (think fastest processor: AMD vs. Intel).

  10. Re:Imagine a ... by Xzzy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Stacked like a roll of quarters, you could fit around 200 of these into a space 19 inches wide.. the width of a standard rack.

    That's 800 gigs per 1u assuming 4gb per disk, and that's not even considering the additional 29 inches (or so) of depth you'd have in the case. Which from a density perspective is pretty close to what already exists.. you can easily get 4 terabyte in a 3 unit chassis these days.

    I wouldn't envy the poor engineer that would have to design the wiring for such a setup however, not to mention dealing with pesky details like swapping out bad disks and heat dissipation.

  11. Re:Not a troll - basic physical chemistry by Razor+Blades+are+Not · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Nice reply to your own post.

    There are no such things as those elements to which you refer, and Anser albifrons is the scientific name for the White-fronted goose (which, by the way, lives nowhere near Greece, as it is a native of the northern Americas, concentrated around Alaska and Greenland where it breeds and migrating down to Texas).

    Considering these facts, and the otherwise content-free nature of your post, I think a troll moderation was kind.

    Thanks for playing, better luck next time.