Toshiba to show 0.85-inch drive at CES

Toshiba Corp. said it is developing a 0.85-inch diameter hard disk drive with a capacity of between 2GB to 3GB for use in mobile devices.

It plans to offer samples next summer, and will demonstrate the miniature HDD at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January.

Currently 1-inch diameter Microdrive HDDs are the smallest hard disk drive on the market. But the drive does not fit into mobile phones. By offering a smaller hard drive with about coin-size disk, Toshiba aims at cultivate mobile phone applications.

With TV reception expected to be the next big feature for mobile phones — some have already equipped with tuners in Japan — demand for large capacity storage devices for video recording in mobile phones is expected to take off soon.

Flash cards are widely used for storage in portable equipment, with capacity expanding to gigabyte levels. But the cost is still too high. Drives based on conventional longitudinal recording technology have a maximum capacity of about 6 Gbytes with current top recording density.

Hence, the new technology could compete with solid-state memories for capacity while offering cost advantages.

- Yoshiko Hara

EE Times