Minidrives to make big splash

Last modified: May 10, 2004, 4:00 AM PDT

By Michael Kanellos
Staff Writer, CNET News.com

By the end of the year, tiny hard drives are going to start to become downright common.

Sony and Philips plan to release minidrive-based music players toward the middle of the year in the United States to capitalize on the growing interest in small electronics devices, said Kevin Magenis, CEO of Cornice, which makes the hard-drive element in the players.

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These tiny drives, in 1.5 and 2 gig capacities, are similar in form factor to a CF card. I’m sure that a lot of people remember the 30-40 meg small drives that were popular for a while a few years ago, but these tiny drives are a lot bigger in capacity, thanks to advances in storage technology. I took a look at the Cornice web site mentioned in the article and they offer a sample drive, interface electronics, and a developer kit for a fairly-amazing $119. According to the website, they do this by leaving most of the electronics off the drive, to be added to the internals of the host mechanism. I’m guessing here, but I would think that in production quantities, we could see a price of around $50-$60 for the 1.5 gig ‘drive’. That puts it a LONG way ahead of an equivalently-priced CF or SD card. Not to mention which the CF card of that price is only 128 megs.

I predict that this will be something to watch.