1.8 Inch Removable Hard Drives Coming 135
bedessen writes "According to an article at PCWorld.com, a new type of removable storage known as iVDR will be demonstrated at January's Consumer Electronics Show. The iVDR standard (backed by a consortium consisting of a number of manufacturers) describes a lightweight, compact, removable hard disk drive compatible with a wide range of applications from AV to PC devices. The products on display will come in 2.5" and 1.8" form factors with parallel and serial ATA interfaces. Capacity will start at 80GB for around $170, but manufacturers hope to drop this to under $80 and well as double the capacity by next quarter." Here's hopin'
Re:are they delicate? (Score:1, Informative)
Re:are they delicate? (Score:2, Informative)
just how delicate would these be....it still means nothing if I have to treat it like a baby. Id rather have tape disk still, which is probably way more shock resistant. True, this harddrive is selfcontained.
Actually the smaller the head assemblies get, the more rugged they tend to get, since they weigh so little that a sudden drop or shock a) can't bend the tiny arm and b) can't give the head sufficient momentum to carry it far enough to touch the surface. The arms and heads are made from the same materials as normal size drives, and the adhesives are just as strong.
That being said, the drive manufacturers know this and constantly bring the heads closer and closer to the surface. Combined with platter and head technology increases, this gives you more bits per inch at the cost of making it easier to damage.... It's all a big trade-off, but in the end the drive is more rugged, at least in the "heads touch platters" damage department.
Re:iPod? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Parallel & Serial ATA? Where is Firewire? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Parallel & Serial ATA? Where is Firewire? (Score:1, Informative)
More importantly, SATA does not need new drivers, Firewire does. As far as I know, you cannot use Firewire hard drives or practically any other devices in Linux.
Erm... (Score:2, Informative)
Of course, even if that weren't common knowledge, the parent post still wouldn't be funny.
1.8 and 1.3" drives have been out before. (Score:2, Informative)
Places like MiniStor, Maxtor and Aerial (SP?). Although since density was a lot less then they were only turning things out in densities of about ~130MB at the end of it.
Some of these were available with a ATA interface, some with a PCMCIA Type III, (11mm high), some were a Type IV (13+mm high). a Type III device will take the space of 2 pcmcia slots. Most standard pcmcia stuff is type II. (5mm)
HP actually had a 1.3" hard-drive out at that time, in 20MB and 40MB configurations. This was called (nicknamed?) the kitty-hawk.
All the products eventually vanished off of the market. MiniStor went bankrupt in 1995, Aerial (SP?) i think folded a bit after it, and maxtor I think just gave up on it.
From a shock perspective, things like compactflash offer a better shock resistance, but less capacity.
Oh, and the difference between 5.25 and 3.5 and 2.5 and 1.8 and 1.3 is that each disk is half the surface area of the other. So assuming the same number of platters and same density, each size drive would have half the capacity.
-- C
Re:Why are hard drive connectors male ?? (Score:2, Informative)
Try pricing out the reverse.
Re:Floppy Replacement? (Score:3, Informative)