14 DAY TRIAL // The company let aware of its intentions to make it big on the miniature drive market by launching the first of this sort of storage devices, a one inch miniature drive and another coming in the second quarter of 2005. Both are designed to be included in handheld devices like MP3 players, digital cameras, PDAs, for which there's a growing demand.
Notebook drives are still big enough and heavy so as not to be the best choice in terms of mobility and portability, the main aspects of handheld devices.
The sub-2.5 inch market has enough resources to please MP3 player manufacturers and other handheld producers alike, nut the cell-phone including a hard drive could get all the consumers attention as we all get used to having an all-in-one device to place calls, take pictures, listen to music and organize our schedule.
WD's miniature drive launch is expected to ship in the second calendar quarter of 2005. The 1-inch hard drive will rotate at 3,600 RPM and will be able to store up to 6 GB of data. This new hard drive will be offered with the standard CF II interface and form factor, which enables it to fit into the millions of currently available devices accepting CF II cards, as well as easily integrate into future products. It will also feature anti-skip technologies and advanced power management techniques that insure a longer battery life.