Small Form Factor Drives
Hard disk drives are designed to be installed inside of a PC, and are produced in one of few standard sizes and shapes. These standards are called hard disk form factors and refer primarily to the external dimensions. Compatibility is the main reason for such standardization of size as well as of the interface used in the drive. This allows the producers of computing systems to buy HDD from any manufacturer. There were attempts to make drives smaller than 21 2 inch form factor in mid 1990s. It was not economically viable at that time as the market was not ready with appropriate application for such storage devices. Integral Peripheral’s 1.8-inch drive and Hewlett Packard’s Kittyhawk (1.3-inch) are two examples of these attempts. The Kittyhawk supported a capacity of 20 MB on two 1.3-inch disk platters. Recently, IBM introduced a new product (micro drive) that uses 0.85 inch disks. This drive can store 1 GB of data on a disk of the size of an American quarter. The world’s first gigabyte-capacity disk drive, the IBM 3380, introduced in 1980, was the size of a refrigerator, weighed approximately 250 kg, and had a price tag of $40,000. A comparison between the micro drive and IBM 3380 is a proof of the magnanimity of the achievements that the HDD industry can be proud of. Now the 21 2 inch format shows promising future with the growing demand of new applications in the consumer electronics and PDA market. The 31 2 inch drives are still the dominant secondary storage in the server and desktop applications, where as laptop market is the niche for 21 2 inch drives. Small form factor drives, such as the micro drive, will provide the storage solutions for the growing market of PDA, digital entertainment, and other similar products.