Mikey and Slim: Hitachi's tiny hard drives
Hard drive stories may not be the most thrilling in the world, but when Hitachi sent us a load of neat little photos of its latest products, even we were momentarily beguiled by the tiny things. The mîcrodrives, nicknamed "Mikey" and "Slim" are one-inch and 1.8-inch hard disk drives respectively. Mikey is 20 percent smaller than the company’s previous drive, and will have a maximum capacity of 8-10 gigabytes.
Meanwhile, the 1.8-inch Slim has 30 percent shaved off its thickness, leaving it just 5mm thick with a 30-40GB capacity. The Mikey is all set for the second half of 2005, while Slim will be launched shortly after. Hitachi’s 4GB mîcrodrive is currently being used by Apple for the iPod mini, but with that capacity set to double, there’s a chance we may see it appearing on an upcoming model. Current rumours seem to be that the iPod mini will move onto a Seagate hard drive, but there’s nothing wrong with a bit of idle speculation.
