Hitachi’s New Micro Drives: Are They Bling?

Hard drive maker unveils industry's smallest one inch and lightest 1.8-inch hard drives for MP3 players, mobile phones and the like.

Are miniature hard drives really the new bling for consumers? So says Hitachi, who today unveiled the industry’s smallest one inch and lightest 1.8-inch hard drives, formerly code named Mikey and Slim.

Mikey, Hitachi said, is now known as the Microdrive 3K8. It will be available in 6 and 8 gigabyte sizes for smart phone and other types of consumer device makers. The hard drive maker says the 3K8 is nearly 20 percent smaller and consumes 40 percent less power than its predecessor. Other useful features include a first ever CE-ATA interface and drop sensor technology to help protect against data loss.

Slim, meanwhile, now goes by the name Travelstar C4K60 Slim. Hitachi said Slim is 30 percent thinner than its predecessor, measuring 5mm on the one disk model. It has a total volume advantage of 10 percent, comes in upper capacities of 30 and 60 gigabytes of storage, features a ZIF connector and has a 20 percent improvement in operating shock tolerance.

Hitachi, in an effort to draw attention to their new hard drives, is offering visitors to their information website a chance to enter a contest to win some real bling – one of 25 gold and diamond studded accessories to carry a MP3 player or mobile phone.

“We believe the hard drive — especially miniature hard drives — has become the must-have accessory for today’s portable electronic devices; in consumer electronics, the hard drive has truly become the new ‘bling’ for both the valuable and priceless data they carry,” said Bill Healy, senior vice president, marketing, HDD business planning and strategy, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies. “Mikey and Slim offer the unique combination of small physical size and high capacity to give new categories of devices — like smart phones — the benefit of more powerful applications that require multiple gigabytes of capacity at an affordable price.”