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Data Storage Businesses Apple

Toshiba Unveils 80GB 'iPod drive' 375

Posted by CmdrTaco from the i-wanna-test-'shock-resistence' dept.
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."
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Toshiba Unveils 80GB 'iPod drive' More

Toshiba Unveils 80GB 'iPod drive'

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  • Size Storage (Score:5, Insightful)

    by odano ( 735445 ) on Tuesday December 14, 2004 @08:33AM (#11080546)
    I think the shrinking of the 40hb hard drive from .8cm to .5cm is much more important than the creation of the 80gb model.

    I think I would rather have a really thing 40gb model than a slightly larger 80gb model that probably will cost a lot more.

    • Re:Size Storage (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ISEENOEVIL ( 206770 ) * on Tuesday December 14, 2004 @08:43AM (#11080593) Homepage
      This is a good point. From the time the iPods were first announced each iteration that came after continually became less thick and I think this is what really helped the iPod continue at its spot in #1. When you hand someone an iPod, they are first amazed by its dimensions and feel in their hand. As an owner of a 40gb iPod Photo, thickness went up considerably, and I think this would be the thickest portable harddrive/player that I would consider purchasing after owner the thinner previous models. Atleast with the size increase on the 40gb Photo the battery life went up instead of down, so this is probably what has to do with most of the thickness. Guess its a hard balance for Apple to find between thickness and battery life.
      • At what point in your interaction with other people, do you ask if they would like to feel your iPod. I found the whole concept of that a little strange. I carry quite a few electronic gadgets and things around with me. I've never felt inclined to ask anyone if they would like to see them or feel them.
    • I think the shrinking of the 40hb hard drive from .8cm to .5cm is much more important

      I dunno, 4000 bytes isn't really that big these days...

      • > I think the shrinking of the 40hb hard drive
        from .8cm to .5cm is much more important


        I dunno, 4000 bytes isn't really that big these days...

        Actually, 40 harpibytes would be (40 * 1024) yottabytes, which is 49,517,601,571,415,210,995,964,968,960 bytes. That's pretty big, even by today's standards.

    • Well, I'm sure there's someone out there aching for an 80GB iPod.

      And, thinking about the market in general, 80GB hard disk drives come in handy if you're Archos, etc selling what essentially will soon become portable PVRs.

      • Need 100GB+ (Score:3, Informative)

        by Cybertect ( 85900 )
        I've got around 1200 CDs. Even 80 GB is going to be too small ripping with AAC at 160 KBps.

        Still waiting...

        • Re:Need 100GB+ (Score:4, Funny)

          by julesh ( 229690 ) on Tuesday December 14, 2004 @09:13AM (#11080815)
          By my calculation (based on average CD length of 55 minutes, don't know if this is accurate for your collection) it should fit.

          1200 x 55 x 60 is a little under 4 million seconds
          x 160 KBps = 640 Gbits
          = 80 Gbytes

          It'll be tight though. You might have to drop some of your least-favourite tracks (with 1200 CDs, I'm sure there are some on there that you actually don't like, right?)
        • Ahh the macho my collection is bigger then yours music comparison. Kudos to you sir! but I have 1201!

          1200 Songs, ~10 Songs an album, ~3 Minutes a song is 600hours of music, you know what would actually useful, putting the 400 tracks you actually listen to onto a music player and turning on shuffle. It would certainly save you hitting "next track" so much.

        • I have 1,149 CDs in iTunes. My library is about 62 GB.

          Step one: Don't use 160 kbps AACs. You can't hear the difference anyway.

          Step two: There is no step two.

      • Re:Size Storage (Score:3, Insightful)

        by shotfeel ( 235240 )
        Or there could be a lot of people like me who are looking forward to the day when I don't have to worry about what lossy codec sounds better than the other at a given bit rate.

        Bring on big drives and lossless compression!

    • Stack a pair of 40gig drives to get to 1cm.
      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 .5cm drives?
    • iPod "mezzi," perhaps? :)

      The mini is too small (storage-wise) for me, but I'd love something about halfway between the Photo and the mini. Actually, I'd love a mini with a 20 GB drive or better, but that's not happening any time soon.

      p
    • I think the shrinking of the 40 gb hard drive from .8cm to .5cm is much more important than the creation of the 80gb model.

      Maybe Toshiba has already developed such a drive and has not publicly announced it yet? I wouldn't be surprised that the iPod Mini gets a 20 to 40 GB hard drive within the next 18 months.
  • does anyone know of any mid-range digicams that use these or similar drives?
    I'm guessing they are different to the 'IBM microdrive' yes ?

    • I dont think that theese things exists, but you can have a look at www.dpreview.com and see for yourself..
      The microdrives are micro harddrives in compact flash form factor.

  • Captain Obvious speaks - (Score:5, Funny)

    by EvilStein ( 414640 ) <spam@BALDWINpbp.net minus author> on Tuesday December 14, 2004 @08:37AM (#11080565)
    "I see a new, higher capacity iPod in the future..maybe just in time for MacWorld SF 2005..."

    *cues fog machine*

  • how about adding a port for external drives? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by djeddiej ( 825677 ) on Tuesday December 14, 2004 @08:46AM (#11080609) Homepage
    How about just adding a small USB port that will hook up already existing external drives, and adapting the software just to read from it? I know it defeats portability a little bit, but then you could place in your car those old laptop hard drives in external chassis, filling them with music or movies, and then switching them on your iPod - like old 8-track cartridges?

    That would be kinda' neat, kinda retro.
  • At what speed a disgusted user can throw it because it don't "operate"? In fact, wonder what kind of action/device can generate 500G or what would be the size of the biggest piece of the owner of the disk if suffer that.

  • But why do they insist making Ipods of these? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by gsasha ( 550394 ) on Tuesday December 14, 2004 @08:49AM (#11080629) Homepage
    I'd rather see a hard-drive-enabled video cam. No need for tapes, easy editing... don't feel like I have to continue.
    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.
    • In fact, they are buying LOTS of them... and if the damn thing supported FLAC I would buy it too and load up the whole 80 or 100 or 120 GB it offered (I don't want to hear about iPods supporting AppleLossless -- that is not an open format so I don't plan on using it).

      But a HDD based video camera would be nice too.
      • Ok, you misunderstood me. I'm not ranting about IPODs - they're nice and well. I'm ranting that there is an obvious and cool application of this technology that they seem to be missing.
        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.

        • HDD on digicam (Score:3, Interesting)

          by parvenu74 ( 310712 )
          There in only one reason I can think of that small hard drives are not currently used on digicams: power consumption. If the iPod (and its imitators) were not caching info to flash memory and having to run their mini hard drives all the time, the longevity of both the battery and the hard drive itself would be significantly reduced. Unless you are willing to compress all video shot on your camera, the memory format will need to be able to write at a speed of no less than 25 Mbps and flash memory is only now
    • There are a few issues with this idea, though:

      1. The hard drive is only 4200 RPM. Not really fast enough for video capture/editing. Maybe doable if the camera has MPEG-2 compression on-board, or something, but it is cutting it close.

      2. You can carry as many tapes as you want with you. If you need more storage, you stick in another tape. The same can't be said for hard drive based cameras.

      and finally (you'll think I am mad for saying this)..
      3. Editing is EASIER with a tape-based system. Sure,

      • 1. Rotational speed doesn't matter - video recording is a matter of sequential writing, and the density of this thing would more than compensate for RPM. Moreover, it's not that far-fetched to assume MPEG-2 encoding on such a device.
        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
    • I think this would look great in DSLR such as a Canon 1Ds Mark II...

      Come to think of it, it would make a better fit in my PowerMac Cube too!

  • 80Gb = 22 Days (Score:4, Interesting)

    by rf0 ( 159958 ) <rghf@fsck.me.uk> on Tuesday December 14, 2004 @08:50AM (#11080646) Homepage
    So this gives approx 22 Days of music. So now if the battery last this long it would be worth it

    Rus
    • So this gives approx 22 Days of music. So now if the battery last this long it would be worth it

      This is getting as old as the windows BSOD jokes. I'm sure all the Rio Karmas an d Irivers out ther will last 22+ days.

  • Great now (Score:2, Funny)

    by reconflux ( 839833 )
    if someone would only port MAME to the iPOD, i'd stop crying.

  • IPod? No, PDA! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by fireboy1919 ( 257783 ) <(rustyp) (at) (freeshell.org)> on Tuesday December 14, 2004 @08:59AM (#11080714) Homepage Journal
    A PDA with this kind of drive in it could be used to store 120 or so movies (well...mine only gets 320x240 resolution, and I'm assuming good compression like DIVX).

    They already have video units like this, but for some reason they think that if your PDA does this then it doesn't have to be able to do anything else.
    • I think 512x384 is the minimum resolution a portable DivX/XVid player needs to support to be useful.. as far as 640x480 would be optimal. A recent build of XVid at around 1mbit looks great at those resolutions, or around 141 kb/sec with 128kbit audio. This gives roughly 157.6 hours in 80GB or 80-100 movies.
  • "1.8in HDDs are 0.8cm thick"

    You mean .8cm thin. Sheesh - get with it.

  • Do some math... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by dark-br ( 473115 ) on Tuesday December 14, 2004 @09:05AM (#11080748) Homepage

    80GB storage
    6MB mp3 file
    --------------
    13.334 songs
    99 cents/song
    --------------
    1.326 bucks to full load the damn thing!!!

    • Re:Do some math... (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Actually, you need to check your math. That would be $13,199.99

    • Re:Do some math... (Score:4, Funny)

      by smatthew ( 41563 ) on Tuesday December 14, 2004 @09:24AM (#11080942) Homepage
      I think you are off a few decimal places......
    • 1) iPod doesn't need to be full.
      2) mp3 or whatever the format used need not be 128 or 192 kbps. in fact, i can see 80 GB being filled quite easily by classical music enthusiasts who may be able to at least consider using AIFF with such a large capacity.
      3) if you have 200 to 300 CDs, which isn't all that rare, that's already over $2,000 in investment you've made and will give you over 2,000 songs. it's surprising how much investment over the years we've made in various things. CDs are one of them. video ga
    • Why do so many people think that the only way you can get music onto an iPod is thru the iTMS???

      Not to mention, if it only cost a buck thirty to fill one up, I'd be all over it...

    • Re:Do some math... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by 2nd Post! ( 213333 ) <gundbear@p[ ]ell.net ['acb' in gap]> on Tuesday December 14, 2004 @10:26AM (#11081509) Homepage
      80 GB storage
      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.
  • ...the 1,8" disks are completely unbuyable. I'd love to replace my 20GB disk with the 60GB one (laptop) - except even though they've been announced ages ago, are in the iPods and are shipping, there's nowhere to buy just the disk :/
  • Now can I please get a 10 or 20 gig IPod for $99?

    Bastards.

  • Next steps for Apple (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Mr_Silver ( 213637 ) on Tuesday December 14, 2004 @09:17AM (#11080867)
    Although I am in no way an expert regarding Apple's strategy, I'd love it if they create a 60 gig version of the non-photo iPod.

    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.

  • Ah! They learned their lesson. (Score:3, Funny)

    by nativespeaker ( 797751 ) on Tuesday December 14, 2004 @09:36AM (#11081051)
    The Japanese manufacturer didn't mention any customers by name of course, but having supplied Apple with micro hard drives to date, it seems likely the relationship will continue with the new, higher capacity.

    We all remember the fit that Apple threw when they pre-announced Apple's order for the 60-gig. Seems like they're thinking things through this time.
    • Yes, I think you'll find the huge delay between announcement of the 60GB drives and the introduction of the 60GB iPod photo was a penalty from Apple - they'ld probably arranged to buy 100,000 drives or something initially, with the expectation of buying another 10,000 a week or something and an agreement to not sell the drives to anyone else for 12 months. 6 months of not buying those drives while having an exclusive sales agreement would HURT the vendor.

      Annoucing Apple will use your hardware before Apple

  • Video will kill the MP3 star (Score:3, Interesting)

    by The Mutant ( 167716 ) on Tuesday December 14, 2004 @09:36AM (#11081055) Homepage
    I've got both a third gen 20GB iPod, and an Archos AV400 [archos.com] PVR.

    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.

  • Perfect for the New Newtons! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Johnny Mozzarella ( 655181 ) on Tuesday December 14, 2004 @09:42AM (#11081105)
    I'm sure Apple is planing on using these in the new Newton that will be released at MacWorld SanFran next month.
    [hint] Imagine how many HyperCard stacks 80GB can hold?

  • finally "collection in a box"? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by chuckychesthair ( 576920 ) on Tuesday December 14, 2004 @09:45AM (#11081135)
    I know a lot of people say this is too big, to much this or that, but really, if you have over 20GB of storage, you are not really targeting the casual music listener (other than the gullible ones, who think bigger is always better), but people with an interest in having their music collections in a good quality with them.

    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

  • Other applications? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by amichalo ( 132545 ) on Tuesday December 14, 2004 @09:57AM (#11081252)
    Focusing on the news of the smaller, lighter 40GB drive, coule there be other applications of this in a device such as the iPod mini or even an Apple branded cellphone [engadget.com]?

    Or perhaps the 80GB will me a debut not in an iPod for music and photos, but in an iPod-like PDA/Table/Treo type device.

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