Monday, August 25, 2003
Hitachi Microdrive Nearing Release
Posted by Janak Parekh in "HARDWARE" @ 05:00 PM
"HITACHI Global Storage, which now owns IBM's hard drive business, said it has started sampling 4GB microdrives aimed at the consumer market. The drive, said Hitachi, weighs 16 grams, is the size of a regular book of matches, and is already being sampled by Sony, Kodak, Minolta, Pentax and Sigma. Hitachi also claims the data transfer rate is 70 times more than its previous microdrive. Interestingly, even when used in a digital camera, that camera must support a FAT32 file system."
It appears that the 4GB Microdrive will finally appear in stores in November... for $500. 8O That's pretty expensive, and I don't think it's going to be popular in PDAs this time around; instead, by claiming the performance metrics, I suspect it'll primarily be used by increasingly-high-megapixel professional digital cameras where its high write speeds can be best utilized. They also mention a 2GB version; I wonder how that will be priced.
It appears that the 4GB Microdrive will finally appear in stores in November... for $500. 8O That's pretty expensive, and I don't think it's going to be popular in PDAs this time around; instead, by claiming the performance metrics, I suspect it'll primarily be used by increasingly-high-megapixel professional digital cameras where its high write speeds can be best utilized. They also mention a 2GB version; I wonder how that will be priced.
