“Hitachi Global Storage Technologies Inc. (HGST) is planning to at least double the capacity of its 1-inch Microdrive hard-disk drive within this year, the company said Tuesday as events ahead of the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) began in Las Vegas,” Martyn Williams reports for IDG News Service.
Williams reports, “At present Hitachi’s most capacious Microdrive can hold 4G bytes of data, but the new drives, due in the second half of this year, will be able to hold between 8G bytes and 10G bytes, said Bill Healy, senior vice president of product strategy and marketing at HGST.”
Williams reports, “In addition to offering more storage space, the drives will also occupy about 20 percent less volume than current models, said Healy. One of the biggest space savings will come from replacing the Compact Flash interface with a ZIF (zero insertion force) connector of the type favored by consumer electronics makers. Beyond offering more storage capacity in new generations of the products in which they are now used, the drives could also end up in other types of devices. At present, any device that has to have more than about 5G bytes of storage requires a larger 1.8-inch drive. The benefits of being able to use a smaller drive are obvious if you consider Apple Computer Inc.’s iPod and iPod Mini. The former uses a 1.8-inch drive, while the latter uses a 1-inch drive.”
Full article here.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Hitachi to double Apple ‘iPod mini’ hard drive production – May 16, 2004
Hitachi to ramp up Apple iPod mini drive production ‘sooner than later’ – March 26, 2004
