Why is a low end iPod good? 10gb should be minimum for a hard drive based player. Why would someone want a 2gb iPod? It is too much to compete with flash drive mp3 and too little to put your whole collection on.
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Toshiba to Introduce 1-inch Drives
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The answer to a lot of questions here is cost. In 18 months, a 4GB microdrive (1") should cost $200 with the way things tend to go.
g4pismo
macrumors member
a small size ipod is good for folks like me who don't really have a massive library of music, but would like a small /jump/ device, if you will, as well as a music device.. I have a 5gb laptop drive that I put in a firewire case.. I use it almost every day.. it would be great if it could also play some tunes. True 2gb is a little sparce, but for me, a 10 would be overkill..
dongmin
macrumors 68000
cost
My guess is that these 1" HDD drives will actually cost more than the 1.8" drives, just as 2.5" drives cost more (per gig) than 3.5" drives and 1.8" drives cost more than 2.5" drives.
The potential advantages of using the 1" drives are 1) less power consumption and 2) smaller form factor. The iPod is already pretty darn small. It's fits pretty nicely in my hand; I can't imagine it being any smaller without compromising useability (esp. with the display and wheel). It could stand to be lighter, however.
My guess is that these 1" HDD drives will actually cost more than the 1.8" drives, just as 2.5" drives cost more (per gig) than 3.5" drives and 1.8" drives cost more than 2.5" drives.
The potential advantages of using the 1" drives are 1) less power consumption and 2) smaller form factor. The iPod is already pretty darn small. It's fits pretty nicely in my hand; I can't imagine it being any smaller without compromising useability (esp. with the display and wheel). It could stand to be lighter, however.
why doesn't apple just use the IBM 1 gigabyte microdrive used in cameras? hell, it's small enough for even the tiniest of mp3 players...
How is Toshiba doing with their own player?
Little bit off topic...
This news makes wonder since Toshiba has realsed their Giga-something-player in Japane only, how is it selling compares to iPod in the land-of-the-rising-sun? I wonder? Isn't it already smaller than the iPod (in the 20GB version at least)? haven't hard anything of it after it's initial release...
Any Japanese (or resides in Japan) MR members like to fill me in?
Little bit off topic...
This news makes wonder since Toshiba has realsed their Giga-something-player in Japane only, how is it selling compares to iPod in the land-of-the-rising-sun? I wonder? Isn't it already smaller than the iPod (in the 20GB version at least)? haven't hard anything of it after it's initial release...
Any Japanese (or resides in Japan) MR members like to fill me in?
ntg
macrumors regular
I am wondering if this small drive will be announced in a new Apple device at the show next month, because as far as I remember (anyone correct me?) Toshiba held-off announcing one of their 'new' 1.8" drives (can't remember which one) until after Apple had announced they were using it in te new iPod.
Anyone remember this, or is it just the onset of senility?
Nig.
Anyone remember this, or is it just the onset of senility?
Nig.
Is it just me or does anyone else not see the point of these drives? We can already get 4GB CompactFlash, and the price will only drop. What advantage has a 4GB drive, except cost, and then perhaps only for a while. The drive is slower, heavier, more likely to fail, more likely to skip and uses more power.
My 30GB iPod is 95% full - we need more capacity, not less.
My 30GB iPod is 95% full - we need more capacity, not less.
iMeowbot
macrumors G3
Each type of storage still has its place in the world. Flash is pretty much guaranteed to fail, it's designed to last through about 1 million write cycles before bits begin to fail. That's fine for file transfers and read-mostly applications, but not very much if you're running anything that uses temp or swap/page files.
mrsebastian
macrumors 6502a
i'm not expecting apple to use new 1" drives to make cheaper ipods, but i figure new drives could help bring down the production costs. subsequently making ipods cheaper over all. it's pretty darn amazing to me with all the ipods sold, more competitors, and i'd assume cheaper production costs that apple hasn't started lowering costs to get out to more people.
Apple knows people want large storage in their ipods. I don't think they will use the 1" drives until they can hold at least 10GB. But if they are able to get the iPod small/thinner/lighter, with this new drive, I'm all for it!
Smaller drive, same capacity, bigger battery? Answering the only real criticism there is of the iPod.
Why would somebody say this announcement would drop the prices of the 1.8" drives? There's absolutely no logical connection. There's no economy of scale improvement because they are sufficiently different items, and they have vastly different capacities and will therefore be used in different applications, so there's no competitive pressure to drop prices.
The drives will be expensive, and not immediately suitable for mass-market consumer applications. The iPod is small enough for me, thank you, I don't want to pay more and get a fraction of the storage just to save on size and weight.
The drives will be expensive, and not immediately suitable for mass-market consumer applications. The iPod is small enough for me, thank you, I don't want to pay more and get a fraction of the storage just to save on size and weight.
NavyIntel007
macrumors 65816
I've wondered the same thing. Hitatchi makes Microdrives for imbedded applications. The only problem with using HD storage on a handheld is that you have to eventually defragment the thing and have various forms of disk utilities. But that's why there are third party developers right?
Anything 4 GB or larger has to be formatted in FAT-32. Palm does not support that file format.
NavyIntel007
macrumors 65816
You ever checked the prices of the 1.8" PC cards? 5 gb, if you can find them cost $500. Other sizes go up from there. You're forgetting that things are cheaper when you buy in bulk and NOT from retail. OEMs can get these drives for $100 a piece or less.
currently, 2.2 GB drives are about $180 street price. That's for a hitachi CF type II card
About a previous comment, microdrives are usually as fast as the fastest (most expensive) flash cards.
Why don't they make an MP3 player with a CFII slot? Then you can upgrade as it gets cheaper. I guess it wouldn't be a unique product then, and Apple doesn't seem to like people having economical upgrade paths.
In all honesty i could not care less if they make the iPods with a smaller form factor or smaller drives or bigger capacities rite now. I know fore some people 10-40 GB is not enough and for some its too much. for me 10-20GB is perfect but there is a market for people who dont know or listen to that much music. my itunes collection is approaching 2GB rite now and i still have quite a few CDs and a few Mp3 CDs worth of music that i dont have space for until i get my PB and iPod ;,<(its taking way to long). i will fill it up if its 10GB within 2 months of having it and since im so cheap i have to borrow cds from friends. The market does exsist like i said but its also over saturated so i dont 100% think its necessary for apple to enter it. a slomg as 10GB reamins the low end. Staying competetive wich they have now problem doing in the 1.8'/1.0' drive mp3 player market is what apple has to do.
If a 40 Gig hd fits on a 1.8" platter size, why can't you fit more than 4 gigs on a 1" platter size? I don't understand why going down 45% = only a tenth the data amount. There must be a large amount (relative to size) of unusable space on both platters?
Well there are two factors you overlooked. One is the size of the spindle or core that takes area away from the disk platter. Also you need to leave room at both the inner edge and outter edge of the platters which also removes room.
Also, how many platters are in a 1.8" drive versus a 1" drive? The 40GB iPOD drive has to have either two or 3 platters.
The 1" drive may only have data on one side and not two.
So lots of factors.
Also, keep in mind that, assuming that 1.8" and 1" refer to the platter diameters, if my arithmetic isn't entirely forgotten, the 1.8" platter has more than 3X the surface area.