Tiny High-Capacity HDs Coming For Mobile PhonesTiny High-Capacity HDs Coming For Mobile Phones

Cornice Inc. and Seagate Technology introduced new high-capacity tiny hard drives aimed at the mobile phone market as the 3GSM Congress underway in Barcelona on Monday.

Seagate announced its ST1.3 Series 12GB I-inch drive with a 23 percent smaller footprint than its current 1-inch hard drive. The new device has 50 percent more capacity and consumes 30 percent less power, the firm said.

Cornice introduced 8 and 10 GB hard drives in its Cornice Dragon series and noted that its 3.0 GB Storage Element is already included in Samsung's new SGH-1300 music smartphone.

"The increasing availability of more content creates an insatiable demand for additional storage packed into a small device," said Cornice president and CEO Camillo Martino in a statement. "Cornice expects that greater than 10 percent of all cell phones will adopt a high capacity storage device within five years."

Seagate said its new 12GB drive uses its perpendicular recording technology. The 40x30x5 mm drive also features an optional drop sensor that increases operational shock resistance up to 2000Gs. In perpendicular recording, drives can store more than traditional parallel recording techniques by standing charged particles on end.

In introducing its drives, Cornice noted that they have been designed exclusively for consumer electronics devices. The Cornice drives feature a Drop Safe solution in which the drive is able to sense it has been dropped enabling the head to protect itself before the device strikes the ground. Cornice said its new drives will be available this quarter.

Seagate said its new drives will be available in the third quarter.