Toshiba Unveils 80GB 'iPod drive' 375
sushant_bhatia_progr writes "The Register has an article about a new 80GB drive from Toshiba. Toshiba says it will ship an 80GB 1.8in hard drive in Q3 2005 - a year after it introduced the 60GB version that can currently to be found inside the iPod Photo. The 80GB HDD - model number MK8007GAH - comes in a 7.9 x 5.4 x 0.8cm casing. Toshiba will ship a 40GB version - model number MK4007GAL - that's just 0.5cm thick in the second quarter. It's lighter, too: 51g to the 80GB HDD's 62g. Toshiba's current 40GB and 60GB (model numbers MK4004GAH and MK6006GAH, respectively) 1.8in HDDs are 0.8cm thick, so the new drive should make for thinner mid-range iPods.
Both drives spin at 4200rpm, offer an average seek time of 15ms and operate across an Ultra DMA 100 interface. They can take 500G operating shock and 1500G non-operating shock."
how about adding a port for external drives? (Score:3, Interesting)
That would be kinda' neat, kinda retro.
But why do they insist making Ipods of these? (Score:4, Interesting)
And it better be 80 GB, not the measly 4GB like in some recent news...
I really believe that a device like this would win the market... it's beyond me why is nobody making them yet on mass scale.
Re:Size Storage (Score:1, Interesting)
I'd be more excited by 20GB microdrives
80Gb = 22 Days (Score:4, Interesting)
Rus
iPod is old technology (Score:1, Interesting)
but if you want to put 80gb in my mp3 playing cellphone/pda [sonyericsson.com] , please do it quickly
Because people buy them (Score:3, Interesting)
But a HDD based video camera would be nice too.
Re:Because people buy them (Score:2, Interesting)
I was actually planning to buy a digital video cam, but the moment I thought about the possibility of HD-based one, I decided to postpone the whole thing and wait for them to appear.
It may take a year or two, but I'm pretty confident they'll be the new rage. And all necessary technology is already here.
Re:I'd sooner see (Score:2, Interesting)
I've had my IPod for a few months now, and with a decent amount of usage I have yet to have the battery run out. It came close, once, while driving to Canada from PA.
* No DRM
Like the other poster said, you don't have to use any DRM'd files. You can throw all of the unprotected AAC or mp3 files you want on the thing. Also, Apple does let you do quite a bit with the files. You can share them on I think up to 5 devices now, and you can burn them to cd. I have yet to run into a situation where I wanted to do something with files I bought from the ITMS that I wasn't able to.
* More colors
Well you can buy that hideous U2 black and red IPod now.
* Decent remote
The inline remote Apple sells is pretty decent, it's just frustrating that they make you buy a new set of head phones with it.
* Digital I/O
Not really what the IPod is intended for. It's a portable personal music player, it's not meant to be connected to your home stereo, it's meant to be connected to head phones.
There are plenty of things I would change about the IPod, the first thing that comes to mind is for it to scroll song titles while you are browsing your library. Very often you get several tracks in a row with the exact same name and no way to tell them apart other than listening. This is especially true when it comes to audio books.
Do some math... (Score:4, Interesting)
HDD on digicam (Score:3, Interesting)
Stack two 40gig drives... (Score:2, Interesting)
I know... battery drain for 2 drives... but you don't have to spool up both drives at once.
You could have separate archives on separate drives.
Really, you could use 3 drives, implement RAID.
All 3 drives could spin when docked.
Photos on one drive, video on one drive, music on 3rd drive.
40gig on
Re:But why do they insist making Ipods of these? (Score:2, Interesting)
2. 80GB ought to be enough for quite a couple of hours o'video. Now correct me if I'm wrong, but I see no use of more than 10 hours off of any single event... and moreover, you wouldn't have enough storage to keep them on your comp anyway.
3. The whole point is that you will ultimately edit all the video on your computer. Said that, the only editing feature you need from the recorder is the *DELETE* button. All the rest shouldn't be done on the device itself.
DISCLAIMER: said all that, I'm currently not an owner of any video cam, and my opinion could change when I do get one.
Next steps for Apple (Score:3, Interesting)
This would cater to the people who have large music collections and have no interest in storage of photos or a need for a colour screen. Like me.
Given that the iPod Photo has significantly longer battery life with a colour screen, one with a b&w screen could probably increase the 12 hour duration as high as 15.
I'm still not convinced that video is the way to go at the moment, mainly because it's such a niche area. Digital photography only really took off for the average Joe a couple of years ago with the reduction in price of digital cameras to an affordable (and in many cases, dirt cheap) price.
At the moment, I'm looking at the photo iPod simply because I want 60 gig. It's somewhat disappointing to think I'm paying out extra money for the photo functionality that I'll never use.
Video will kill the MP3 star (Score:3, Interesting)
I use the iPod solely for music, and the Archos solely for video. If Archos ever got their act together and shrunk the device even a little, integrated a remote and smartened up the sw then I'd drop the iPod in a hearbeat.
I've got a one hour long commute each way. For me that is nothing more productive then watching the overnite market news instead of listening to music. I haven't messed about much with movies and such, but for catching up on the news the Archos can't be beat!
At least until Apple enters that market.
finally "collection in a box"? (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course, the iPod doesn't support lossless compressed formats, but this is about a harddisk that could also be used by better audioplayer manufacturers.
Anyway, a record, ripped in good quality, or even lossless will run between 100MB and 300MB. Let's be conservative and say 150MB per album. That means that on this disc will have space for around 500 albums. (rounded down to be on the save side, if you have only mp3 playback this number might grow to be around 800-900 albums)
500 albums is a medium sized collection for music lovers. (and 800-900 is not excessive) Personally, I would really like to see players with 80GB that are small and have good battery life. I don't care for colour screens and video, image and other capabilities (apart maybe from recording or digital in/out) and I would really like to design a menu for a music player. (is it so hard to have different random modes: artist, album, year, genre? or the ability to schedule songs to play next without generating a playlist?)
Oh well, I guess I'm not a good target market, I want to control how I listen to the music I love...
CC
Re:Need 100GB+ (Score:3, Interesting)
Step one: Don't use 160 kbps AACs. You can't hear the difference anyway.
Step two: There is no step two.
Re:Do some math... (Score:5, Interesting)
6MB mp3 file
14 songs per CD
975 CDs
$10 per CD
$9,750 to full load the damn thing
So let's flip the logic.
What if, IF, you already have 50 CDs? 200 CDs? 300 CDs?
If you have $1,000 in music, or $2,000, or $3,000, the cost of an iPod is CHUMP. What's $249 for 4g? $299 for 20g? That's essentially nothing when you consider the ability to access almost 1,000 CDs at any one time.
Where before the iPod you could only access 1, maybe 10, CDs depending on your mp3 player.
Re:But why do they insist making Ipods of these? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:When will we see these in (desktop) computers? (Score:2, Interesting)