"IBM to announce world's smallest disk drive"
By Duncan Martell
PALO ALTO, Calif., Sept 9 (Reuters) - International
Business Machines Corp. will unveil on Wednesday the
world's smallest and lightest disk drive -- a potential boon to
the digital camera market and other consumer electronics devices
with increasing demands for data storage.
Weighing less than an AA battery, the drive could be used in
car-navigation systems to store maps, to pack addresses,
schedules and phone numbers in handheld computers and could pose
a threat to the most popular type of data storage now used in
digital cameras, called flash memory.
The announcement is the latest in a string of disk-drive
technology breakthroughs from IBM's Almaden Research center at
the southern end of California's Silicon Valley. In addition to
disk drive advancements, the relational database -- a powerful
software tool to store, organize and sort data -- came out of the
research center.
"This should sell very well and it potentially
revolutionizes the digital camera market," said Rob Enderle, an
analyst at Giga Information Group.
The drive can hold up to 340 megabytes of data, enough to
hold about 340 200-page novels. The Microdrive also can store the
equivalent of more than 200 floppy disks.
Analysts said the biggest hurdle now facing digital cameras
was the amount of data the flash memory chips hold. IBM, the No.
3 maker of disk drives, said the Microdrive would have lower
storage costs than flash memory, now used in digital cameras.
"One of the disadvantages of flash is that it's slower to
write data to a flash memory chip than it is to a disk," said Bob
Katzvie, an analyst at Disk/Trend, a market research group in
Mountain View, California.
The drive, which will be available in the middle of 1999,
could also be a threat to companies like SanDisk Corp. , which
makes memory modules based on flash technology, and Iomega Corp.
, a maker of removable data storage devices.
"It could yank the rug out from underneath Iomega and
others as a backup device" for data, Enderle said.
The technology, as with most breakthroughs, will be used in
the most sophisticated and expensive applications, and trickle
down to lower-priced devices. IBM said one of the Microdrive's
first uses would likely be in high-end digital cameras, some of
which cost more than $10,000.
Enderle estimated that IBM would price the drives at about $1
per megabyte and that the price would fall as IBM geared up
production to meet demand.
"We're going toward more personalized computer appliances and
computer devices," Bill Healy, general manager for IBM's mobile
storage products division.
IBM, of Armonk, New York, said the drive would be
compatible with devices that now use flash memory chips and
modules, which should speed the acceptance of the Microdrive.
Canon Inc. <7751.T>, Hewlett-Packard Co. , Hitachi
Ltd. and Minolta Co. were looking into using the Microdrive in
future products, IBM said. |
