Fujitsu Bets on Solid State Drives

Fujitsu has announced it is put a stop to plans to make 1.8-inch hard disk drives, believing the market is more interested in flash storage.

Electronics manufacturer Fujitsu had planned to begin production of its own line of 18-inch hard drives, the sort of thing used for storage in iPods and other portable devices, no later than the third quarter of 2007. Fujitsu is a long-time maker of hard disc drives, although price drops in the storage market have led to declining profits from Fujitsu’s existing 2.5-inch hard drive business.

Now, the company says it’s not going to enter the 1.8-inch hard drive business at all. The reason? Portable and handheld device makers seem more interested in flash-based storage than hard disk storage for their devices, attracted by their fast access times and low power requirements, even though they cost more than hard disk-based systems. “We want to see if the market tips toward flash, or if it stays with hard drives,” said Fujitsu spokesman Masao Sakamoto in Tokyo.

Fujtsu would have been competing with Samsung and Toshiba in the 1.8-inch drive arena; Samsung is also manufacturing 32 and 64 MB flash-based solid-state drives, which Fujitsu recently began offering in a handful of pen-based LifeBook portable computer systems.