This article from Nikkei Mechanical about the new developments in tiny hard drive technology (and its use in mobile phones) has a few choice nuggets, including news that GS Magicstor is developing 0.8-inch hard drives with plans specifically to target “Chinese [the] mobile-phone market, then head into the Japanese market.” Toshiba’s current smallest public prototype is 0.85-inches long and 3.3mm thick, and its 1-inch big brother has been adopted primarily in portable music players (like the HZ-WS2000 and HZ-DS2000 from Aiwa at right). It is mentioned that the current ‘holy grail’ for mobile phone hard drives is 2.1mm, the thickness of SD cards. In addition, the current tiny drives don’t quite live up to standards for mobile phone equipment, which must survive drops from up to 1.5 meters.
