Tablets using flash drives in thin form factor formats is painful for HHD manufacturers.
The shipment volume of these flash in these devices is high enough to spark some effort to develop HDDs that are small enough to fit into tablets.
Scientists at the Data Storage Institute in Singapore said they are working on a HDD form factor that will drop the thickness of the currently thinnest HDD from 7 mm to at least 5 mm , which should be enough to be an option for tablets (the iPad 2 is 8.8 mm thick). DSI said that it already has developed an axial field motor for HDDs that is just 4 mm thick and can support both 5400 RPM and 7200 RPM drives.
"DSI is very excited about the direction that we are taking. We strongly believe there is an opening in the market for thin drives," said Pantelis Alexopoulos, executive director at DSI. Apparently, DSI is not only working on pure HDD designs, but also flash-supported hybrid drives.
There are still questions whether there is a general tablet market and there have been reports that tier-1 PC makers may be considering to actually drop out of the tablet market in 2012 due to a lack of profit opportunities. However, 5 mm HDDs may not only work for tablets - they may also be an interesting option for ultrabooks.
DSI said that it will be demonstrating a 5 mm drive sometime in the future, but did not mention an exact time.
Perhaps hard disk manufacturers should diversify, not continue to make the same shit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microdrive
My first digital camera had a 384MB version of that drive. Slow as molasses, but at the time WAY cheaper then flash of comparable size.
TTYL
Eh, my iRiver e10 mp3 has one of those, I think. That's the point here, man - SLOW... NOT good for a tablet. TTYL
No?
:-) Well, actually they are allready working on it, but it will take many, many years until ssd are even near hdd in the price. If the pace remains the same as it has been last years. As long as they manage to make smaller memory chips the price will continue to fall, but guite soon the price dropping will be slover. 10 nm is near and soon after that there are some serious problems... propably before that.
No?
:-) Well, actually they are already working on it, but it will take many, many years until ssd are even near hdd in the price. If the pace remain the same as it has been last years. As long as they manage to make smaller memory chips the price will continue to fall, but quite soon the price dropping will be slower. 10 nm is near and soon after that there are some serious problems... probably before that.
Due to the recent HDD price increases, maybe not.
P.S. Typed on a tablet or what?
Flash storage is:
- more reliable
- completely silent
- less power hungry (nothing spins, no reading head travelling across the surface) - a lot more suitable for portable devices
Seriously. What are they thinking??
due to the spinning platter of a hard drive, the platter becomes a gyroscope
because of that, it resists changes in angle. which is why you can kill a laptop hard drive by repeatedly and rapidly changing the angle of the drivewhile it is spinning.
For a device that will be in your hand, It will be more likely to encounter changes in angle which will damage the drive or put additional stress on it.
And I don't see them researching ways to most effectively break the laws of physics.
They may be relying on the shortsightedness of most people
eg they flock to devices with no user replaceable batteries even though those batteries will be the first thing to fail in the device, (same goes for hybrid cars, only difference is the battery is user replaceable, it just cost $7000)
The content will be indexed on the flash storage and the HDD will remain powered off until needed.
That way the device can pop up a warning not to move the device around too much while the HDD is in use, or rely more on content such as movies being stored on it where the tablet is more likely to be stationary.
The area where a tablet really crushes a laptop is when it comes to low cost video consumption. Nothing like using the $100 hp touchpad to watch anime while in bed, and if I don't want to hold it, I simply place it on my cardboard stand http://underdesign.wordpress.com/2010/10/18/diy-ipad-stand/
Result: dead tablet, RMA with the fty IF still under warranty
----------------------------------------------------
Scenario 2: user drops his tablet which has an SSD
Result: you tell me. but it still works.
Give up on HHD, just let them die, this is a waste of research.