Toshiba develops tiny disk for phones ( 2003-12-18 09:22) (Agencies) TOSHIBA Corp. has developed a
hard disk drive about the size of a nickel that can be used to store music and
video images in mobile phones and other portable gadgets.
The disk of 0.85 inch (2.12 cm) diameter is believed to be the world¡¯s
smallest hard disk drive that can store about 2 or 3 gigabytes worth of
information, company spokeswoman Midori Suzuki said Monday.
A 2-gigabyte hard disk drive can store about 30 hours of music but can¡¯t
store a movie-length video, she said. Toshiba plans to start taking orders by
the summer of 2004 and start mass production as early as 2005, she said.
Pricing has not been decided. Demand is growing for smaller hard disk drives
for network gadgets. The world¡¯s smallest HDD is believed to be a 1-inch (2.54
cm) model from Hitachi Global Storage Technologies, Hitachi¡¯s U.S.
unit.
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