Hitachi to phase out 1.0 and 1.8-inch drives, Fujitsu scraps plans to launch them

As the flood of SSD announcements over the past couple days indicates, flash is rapidly gaining ground on traditional hard drive storage, and it may have just claimed it first victims: Hitachi has just announced that it will phase out production of 1.0 and 1.8-inch drives over the next year, and discontinue plans to launch a 1.5-inch line. Hitachi had only shipped 560,000 1.8-inch drives in the July - September quarter, representing only 3.2 percent of its total drive sales, and just a miniscule 3,000 1.0-inch drives in the same period. Hitachi says it'll keep supplying existing customers, but we're hearing that 1.0-inch production has already stopped, and that 1.8-inch production will cease by next summer.

Similarly, the rising popularity of flash in personal devices has led Fujitsu to scrap plans to develop a 1.8-inch drive line to complement its existing 2.5 and 3.5-inch drive lines. The company announced plans to enter the small drive market way back in 2005, and although it eventually entered a deal with Cornice to jointly develop the drives, it looks like that plan's been tabled for now. All in all, announcements that aren't totally surprising -- but let's hope NAND prices continue to fall, eh?

[Rick H. @ Jan 5th 2008 1:00AM]

interesting for hitachi. i hope they can spend more time on their other drives then.

[Sam_Smith @ Jan 5th 2008 1:01AM]

The problem is that flash storage grows as fast as traditional storage, and sadly, hard drives are MUCH largers.

For the price of 32 GB SSD, you could get 750-1000GB of storage on a HDD. I have a hard time justifying paying $400 for 64 GB SSD, when I can get 500GB in my laptop for less, and that 500GB drive is gonna drop in price just as fast as the SSD

[Amani576 @ Jan 5th 2008 1:29AM]

I think a lot of people don't see that problem though...
They see it as incredibly fast data storage, low power requirements, and less chances of failure, even in RAID 0.
So... as valid as your argument is... if flash can indeed prove itself as a viable alternative to traditional HDD's... who knows... one day relatively soon (15-20 years from now) hard drives may very well be a complete thing of the past.
Some people just like to jump on the bandwagon early, some do it because they can warrant the price for their setup, and some just feel like it...
In the end... it doesn't matter how prices drop... reliability and speed will probably end up winning out.
GR

(Sorry if this was redundant... I'm tired)

[Ghen @ Jan 5th 2008 1:09PM]

I can't wait to have a 64GB C: drive housing windows, my paging file, and my current game of choice.

I'll have a 500GB or whatever is $100 at the time as well for storage and 2nd OS if I get ambitious.

[Austin @ Jan 5th 2008 1:39AM]

but does it play doom? that's what your supposed to say in these threads, right?
oh, i mean, Fourth!
Asian women are sometimes attractive, constable!

[Julian Bond @ Jan 5th 2008 3:59AM]

So Apple and Toshiba own the 1.8" drive market? Amazing. This is a shame because low power 1.8" drives have finally reached capacities (160Gb) where they could be fitted in a lot more devices. Like eeePC sized laptops.

It used to be reasonably easy to obtain replacement bare 1.8" drives but the 160Gb ones seem to be unobtainium. And Apple are the only PMP manufacturer with a player with this size. More evidence that Apple have monopolized the market.

Meanwhile, when does the SSD price/capacity curve cross that for hard drives? Until it does, there should still be a market for drives.

[Sam Zebian @ Jan 5th 2008 1:03PM]

Apple doesn't manufacture the drives, they use someone else (I believe toshiba) for their Ipods, and laptops and other products. Apple is definitely not the only PMP manufacturer that uses 1.8 inch drives, because products like Zune, Creative Zen, Cowon, and many other PMP's use the 1.8 inch drive form factor, not just Apple's Ipod. But yes, the Ipod is still a monopolizing power over the PMP market. It's market share is going down anyways though, it's only a matter of time.

[KC @ Jan 5th 2008 4:07AM]

No, no, no!!! Not the 1.8" drives! Now what are they going to put in those HDD based HD camcorders? Don't tell me flash, as that will only bring the cost up instead of down. I guess now it's Toshiba left holding the flag for 1.8" HDDs.

[JD @ Jan 5th 2008 1:48PM]

Don't forget Samsung. THey have a 1.8" line as well.

[Constable Odo @ Jan 5th 2008 2:24PM]

Yeh, it's the beginning of the end of hard drives in small portable devices. It appears as if mobile handsets or handheld devices are going to be the target of flash storage makers. Meanwhile the prices are going to stay relatively high and capacities are going to stay low with flash storage this year. 32 GB and 64 GB flash PMP devices are going to be common this year. Goodbye to the 80 GB and 160 GB HDD units. Too bad. Flash drives are undoubtedly less prone to failure and I suppose if manufactured in high enough quantity, prices will fall eventually.

[P7230 @ Jan 5th 2008 3:18PM]

This isn't a good sign of being able to upgrade the 40gb 1.8" harddrive in my Fujitsu P7230...

[G_Hammer @ Feb 4th 2008 6:10PM]

Hi Guys,

Samsung already announced a new 1.3" microdrive.

http://www.samsung.com/global/business/hdd/productSubType.do?group=72&type=60&subtype=76

This might be the base for:
- HDDs in EeePC-sized notebooks
- smaller HDDs in HD-camcorders
and some more.
We should keep in mind, that flash memory write cycles are less then writing on a HDD.
Regards
G_Hammer