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IBM

World's Smallest Hard Drive 30

Posted by CmdrTaco from the itty-bitty-box-of-bits dept.
Rogue_F writes "Always thought your digital camera, or PDA never had enough storage space for your needs? IBM may have solved this problem with their new microdrives. They may end up being too fragile and expensive, but just think of the degree of coolness it adds to something like Itsy Good things come in little packages " 340 megs in an inch? Smooth.
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World's Smallest Hard Drive More

World's Smallest Hard Drive

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  • I've heard about these in the past. The ad for it was the drive pictured beside a baby chicken. The HD was coming out of a cracked egg. Made me laugh, then made me think about the fragility myself.

  • Not bad (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    pretty cool, so when can this be incorporated in the world's smallest web server?
  • I work for a company that does business with IBM, and IBM demonstrated one of these drives for us. They claim it is rugged, and very stable. Judging that it is IBM, I would have to agree. They are one of the best storage makers in the world. Looks cool, but it could be the deathnell for flash card makers :(
  • The more we get away from magnetic media, the better we'll all be. It's just too susceptible to shock/temperature/dirty looks.

    --E. Charles Plant

  • Imagine a whole bunch of these running in a raid system. Good transfer times and low storage cost. Yes, this is old news, but good news none the less.

  • MP3's (Score:1)

    by rafa ( 491 )
    This is something I'd like in a portable MP3 player. (Assuming of course that the shocks and vibrations won't damage it).
  • My only question.. Since my RIO takes 3.3v CompactFlash memory, can I just stick one of these in? It says that they're compatible with the Compact Flash spec, and that they run on 3.3v..
    Sounds good.. 372 MB of MP3s running on a single AA battery.
  • But, what the hell IS CompactFlash Type II?
    According to the RIO manual, it takes Compact Flash memory, is Type II bigger? I see that it has pins, almost like a ribbon cable.
    The flash memory standards are horribly confused.
  • Hard drive will diseapera and be replaced by static memory with 10 ns access time !

  • For those who are wondering, the CompactFlash interface is just IDE, but smaller. So yes, you could wire one of these to the JumpTec DIMM-PC and put some real storage on a tiny web server.

    CompactFlash Types I and II are 3.3 and 5 mm thick respectively, just like PC-MCIA types I and II. You can get PC-MCIA cards which they slot into.

    Flash-memory CompactFlash cards come in all sizes up to about 128 MB. Apparently digital cameras usually put a FAT filesystem on their cards.

  • Just imagine the sounds that can pour of this little annoying creature at last...

  • This was posted MANY months ago right here on slashdot.

    However, being a big PDA user, it is nice to relive it. *grin*. 340MB in a CF form factor will rock with CE 2.11 that plays MP3's. Every CE device will become a RIO!
  • Remember 1st generation Star Trek, where people on the ship would hand each other little orange plastic rectangles and say, "Here's the data on the reptile beings of Satyricon IV."? Admittedly, you'd think the Enterprise would have enough networking to avoid "sneaker-net" entirely. I wonder if these drives are the precursor to that. Note to IBM marketing: Use bright colors!

    Finally, I fell in a heap on the ground. I've no idea who left it there.
    --Neddie Segoon [Harry Secombe], The Goons: "Dishonoured"
  • Gracias, almost missed that peace of info, pretty cool.
  • The flash memory used by the Rio is compact only in that it is small, not that it conforms to the CompactFlash specification.

    I made the same mistake when I bought mine, but I can't return it now...
  • Think of the possibilities:
    Calculators
    Watches
    A Mouse that can boot Linux
    etc...
  • (And the QL - remember that?)

    Of course, Sinclair Microdrives were based on tape technology, and the cartriges were always breaking, and only stored a few hundred K if I remember rightly.... Guess Sinclair never trademarked the name? Although I note that IBM doesn't call them Microdrives(TM). Hmmm.

    Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute.
  • Imagine about 30 (10 x 3) of those, packed tighly together inside the volume of an existing 3 and a half hard
    disk (you probably need to concentrate all the logic parts somewhere)

    and maybe:
    - all simultanious access
    - use one or two as a redundant storage
    - using only one scsi connector/address

    doesn't sounds bad at all !

    oh, wel probably won't need it anyway.
  • Posted by LOTHAR, of the Hill People:

    CompactFlash II has the same footprint 1" x 1"
    but is thicker(about 5.6mm).

    If youre handy with a soldering iron you could swap out the connectors but I wouldnt recommend it :)

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