Disk Drives Move Beyond PCs and Servers

Driver 7 · Jan 19, 2004, 01:14 AM

Hard drives have ventured far beyond their original use in server computers, PCs and notebook computers. New hard drives are finding their way into everything from MP3 players, such as Apple's iPod, to personal video recorders, such as TiVo that store television programming, and more.

Market research firm Trend Focus expects hard drive shipments to consumer electronics makers such as Sony, HP and others to more than triple to 55 million units in 2006 from an estimated 17 million last year.

The biggest-capacity hard drive now available is one that packs a whopping 320 gigabytes, or about 320 billion bytes, onto four 3.50-inch platters.

As more and more media becomes digitized, translated into the computer language of ones and zeros from their analog counterparts, hard drives can go almost anywhere.

There is, of course, a potential rivalry with solid-state flash memory chips, which don't have moving parts, at the low end. But flash memory can't store as much data as hard drives and is costlier to produce.

"Once you put a hard drive in something, it completely changes what a device can do and how easy it is to use," said Amy Dalphy, marketing manager for hard disk drives for Toshiba America. "Cars, televisions, those are great places for hard drives to be," Reinsel said, noting that more work needs to be done to develop drives that can stand up to temperature variations. "I live in Minnesota -- you're talking 20 below zero -- is that hard drive going to function?"

Another application that has drive makers salivating is putting so-called microdrives, which store four gigabytes or less, into cellular telephones.

At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last week, Toshiba rolled out the smallest hard drive so far, with the platter measuring 0.85-inches across, ideal for phones.

Source:Yahoo

Jan 19, 2004, 01:14 AM	#1
Driver 7 Discombobulated NVidiot Join Date: May 2003 Location: Vancouver, BC - CANADA Posts: 1,015 Rep Power: 0	Disk Drives Move Beyond PCs and Servers Hard drives have ventured far beyond their original use in server computers, PCs and notebook computers. New hard drives are finding their way into everything from MP3 players, such as Apple's iPod, to personal video recorders, such as TiVo that store television programming, and more. Market research firm Trend Focus expects hard drive shipments to consumer electronics makers such as Sony, HP and others to more than triple to 55 million units in 2006 from an estimated 17 million last year. The biggest-capacity hard drive now available is one that packs a whopping 320 gigabytes, or about 320 billion bytes, onto four 3.50-inch platters. As more and more media becomes digitized, translated into the computer language of ones and zeros from their analog counterparts, hard drives can go almost anywhere. There is, of course, a potential rivalry with solid-state flash memory chips, which don't have moving parts, at the low end. But flash memory can't store as much data as hard drives and is costlier to produce. "Once you put a hard drive in something, it completely changes what a device can do and how easy it is to use," said Amy Dalphy, marketing manager for hard disk drives for Toshiba America. "Cars, televisions, those are great places for hard drives to be," Reinsel said, noting that more work needs to be done to develop drives that can stand up to temperature variations. "I live in Minnesota -- you're talking 20 below zero -- is that hard drive going to function?" Another application that has drive makers salivating is putting so-called microdrives, which store four gigabytes or less, into cellular telephones. At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last week, Toshiba rolled out the smallest hard drive so far, with the platter measuring 0.85-inches across, ideal for phones. Source:Yahoo