Hard-disc drive maker Cornice will release in early 2005
a new version of its 1in "Storage Element" drive for consumer
electronics products.
The 3Gbyte drive will offer more capacity than existing models
and better protection against drops and other impacts. It will be
officially unveiled at the International Consumer Electronics Show
(CES) in Las Vegas in early January, the company said.
At present, Cornice offers its drive in 1Gbyte, 1.5Gbyte and
2Gbyte capacities. Its customers include major names in electronics
such as Sony and Philips Electronics, which use the drives in
digital music players, and Samsung Electronics, which uses the
drive in a mobile phone.
In addition to the higher capacity, the drive will also feature
a small latch to keep the read/write-head arm in place when not in
use. Impacts between this head and the disc surface often occur
when a drive is dropped and can lead to loss of data or render the
drive unusable. Cornice calls the latch system a "crash guard"
and claims it is much better at protecting the drive than existing
methods that it and other companies have employed to date.
"Until this point, if you took a traditional drive from your
laptop and did extreme sports, you'd get problems," said David
Feller, vice-president of marketing at Cornice.
Traditional hard drives do not have the protection to survive
some of the bangs and bashes that are more common in the consumer
electronics market than the personal computer market, he said.
"This is brand new," he said. "In the past we and all our
competitors had to ask designers to do special things, like round
the corners of the device or put rubber on the outside, but with
this they don't have to worry about dropping the drive."
Sample production of the drive began in October and the company
expects to begin commercial production in the middle of the first
calendar quarter, said Feller.
"We have a number of customers lined up," he said. "You will see
a number of products and CES or up to [German electronics show]
Cebit launching with 3Gbyte capacity."
Martyn Williams writes for IDG News Service