25 cent coin-sized HDD

Cams · Post by **Cams** » Mon Jan 09, 2006 2:45 am

Just saw this over at anandtech.com in their news from CES. A hard drive the size of a quarter (or a 1 euro coin, I guess)

It's 0.85" with storage of 4 gigs and 3600 RPM. The march of technology!

There is also a 1.8" perpendicular recording drive with a capacity of up to 80GB.

I think I'll stick with my 3.5" large-capacity drives for the next few years, but I'm wondering just what my 2-year old daughter will be carrying her data around on when she's my age. I'm looking forward to the day when you can carry your entire desktop and applications and data around on a secure credit-card and computers are simply monitors with card slots like on ATMs.

andyb · Post by **andyb** » Mon Jan 09, 2006 2:56 am

4GB in a form factor that small is very impressive, however they dont have 80GB drives just yet in that form factor, thats something for the future.

Andy

Kizz · Post by **Kizz** » Mon Jan 09, 2006 4:20 am

Well these things just keep getting smaller and smaller - first nano-ITX and now this. The technology is really cramming it in, and tbh I would not be at all surprised if in 5 years time PC's are half the size they are now - who knows, MATX could become the new set size standard

.

CoolGav · Post by **CoolGav** » Mon Jan 09, 2006 7:30 am

Kizz wrote:MATX could become the new set size standard .

I've wondered for a while why full ATX is still the most common form factor. Back in the days of the BX chipset (1998), you needed the PCI and ISA slots. Then everything started going onboard. Now there's little need for more than 2/3 PCI slots IMHO for most usage. That means MATX should be more popular. The only reason I can see is that motherboard makers keep putting out MATX boards later and not top of the line so enthusiasts buy ATX. And case makers design more ATX cases as that's what the majority of boards sold are... I guess it's only OEMs who go for MATX in big numbers where the end user doesn't often care what format the board is, as long as it runs...

That drive is amazing - just when you think flash is making great strides and will be commonplace PC storage in a few years, the HD makers fight back!

Al · Post by Al » Mon Jan 09, 2006 8:10 am

Englishman's first thoughts - "A quarter the size of what...? Do they come in half sizes too?"

[Mod comment: I reworded the title, to try and make it clearer...]

Looks kind of breakable to me...

Al

theyangster · Post by **theyangster** » Mon Jan 09, 2006 8:50 am

I would imagine it'd be very quiet

I'd want to boot XP off it, but considering that an ide (or even SATA) cable is too big....

jaganath · Post by **jaganath** » Mon Jan 09, 2006 10:08 am

Now if they can make a working hard drive that small, why the hell can't they make a normal hard drive that produces 0dB noise level? It just goes to show that the technical know-how is being focused on miniaturisation, not silencing.

Cams · Post by **Cams** » Mon Jan 09, 2006 10:51 am

Al wrote:Englishman's first thoughts - "A quarter the size of what...? Do they come in half sizes too?"

LOL! I thought exactly the same thing! I added the euro coin in for that reason, but I guess that might not help the UK posters either so lets say a 10p piece.

jaganath wrote:Now if they can make a working hard drive that small, why the hell can't they make a normal hard drive that produces 0dB noise level? It just goes to show that the technical know-how is being focused on miniaturisation, not silencing.

I've been thinking about that and I guess it's simply because we're in such a minority, even though hanging around here can make one think that we're all after quietness. The truth is that most folks don't care. I think my family PC is still noisy, until I go to my brother's house and switch on his PC. Yikes! (we bought similar systems from the same builder at roughly the same time before I got into silencing and self-building)

Fat_bloater_dave · Post by **Fat_bloater_dave** » Mon Jan 09, 2006 11:50 am

Al wrote:Englishman's first thoughts - "A quarter the size of what...? Do they come in half sizes too?"
Al

Hah me too, damn americans with there words...

That thing looks so sweet i want one for a pet.

Pauli · Post by **Pauli** » Mon Jan 09, 2006 12:16 pm

I'm looking forward to the day when you can carry your entire desktop and applications and data around on a secure credit-card and computers are simply monitors with card slots like on ATMs.

Actually, I do software development for ATMs and they are nothing more than regular PCs with special peripheral devices attached and custom BIOSes.

Shining Arcanine · Post by **Shining Arcanine** » Mon Jan 09, 2006 2:09 pm

That kind of reminds me of the time that I read about an ATM displaying a BSOD message from Windows NT.

mathias · Post by **mathias** » Mon Jan 09, 2006 2:15 pm

CoolGav wrote:I've wondered for a while why full ATX is still the most common form factor. Back in the days of the BX chipset (1998), you needed the PCI and ISA slots. Then everything started going onboard. Now there's little need for more than 2/3 PCI slots IMHO for most usage. That means MATX should be more popular.

Yes, but back then you didn't need an ellaborate cooling solution for the video card(s)(or for anything, to a lesser degree), and low capacity hard drives were more expensive, and there were less devices for 5" bays.

Cams · Post by **Cams** » Mon Jan 09, 2006 9:48 pm

Shining Arcanine wrote:That kind of reminds me of the time that I read about an ATM displaying a BSOD message from Windows NT.

Coming out a carpark the other day, the screen to raise the bar at the exit was showing a Windows XP desktop with a message telling me that the screen resolution was low and did I want to fix it. There was no mouse attached so I couldn't say yes, nor could I get out the carpark as it wouldn't take my ticket. I had to go into the building and report the problem. It was quite amusing though.

Shadowknight · Post by **Shadowknight** » Mon Jan 09, 2006 10:24 pm

Maybe MikeC should write a new harddrive article; "Is the future 0.85" wide?"