Datasheet

Some new designs actually incorporate “drop sensors” that stop a drive, park the head,
and lock the head arm within 140 milliseconds (the amount of time it takes for anything to
fall about four inches) so that the “operating shock” rating is very close to that of the “non-
operating shock.” Shock absorbent materials cushion tiny hard drives further to reduce
the damage from impacts. The fact that the devices are so small and the parts have such
low mass is part of the reason why they can sustain much more abuse than their bigger
brothers.
A surprise threat for hard drives comes from an unsuspected source. Because the head
is actually flying over a cushion of air, it needs air to maintain its flight properly. Hard
drives have small, well-filtered vents in them to balance internal air pressure with the
outside air pressure. At altitudes greater than 10,000 feet or 200 feet below sea level in
unpressurized environments there is insufficient air pressure to maintain the head’s proper
flight characteristics. These are unusual circumstances for most people, but they do pose
a real threat to hard drives used in harsh environments.
WHAT’S NEXT FOR MICRO DRIVES
What were once electronic “gadgets” have fast become essential parts of modern lives.
Cell phones are becoming digital cameras, audio and video players, GPS devices, and
even TV sets. Video and photo storage is now commonplace in the most popular MP3
audio players. These changes in portable devices and demands for even better quality
photos and high definition video in advanced cameras require more storage capacity than
ever before—capacity that must remain small, light, and portable for “digital on the go.”
These requirements are precisely the greatest strength of micro drives—lowest cost per
gigabyte. New developments will make the drives even thinner than today’s while
boosting capacity to 15GB—3,500 times greater capacity than the enormous IBM RAMAC
disc array! Micro drives are the best solution to satisfy consumers’ inexorable desire for
greater functionality and better quality at reasonable cost.
CONCLUSION
There is no perfect storage medium yet. Stone lasts a long time, but it is heavy and
expensive with very limited capacity. The same could be said for paper—one DVD can
hold as much as eight file cabinets full of paper. Flash memory is the latest advance in
storage, but it is still expensive. Magnetic recording remains the biggest bang for the
buck, and perpendicular recording breathes new life into its inherent advantages. Regular
hard drives, though, are fragile; and tape is a contact medium that wears over use. Micro
hard drives, including the new Memorex Mega TravelDrive, use a sophisticated
combination of methods to increase their durability to nearly that of flash memory and still
maintain a cost advantage for the near future. They are 125-year old technology wrapped
in a 50-year old format with the latest innovations—and they are here to stay.
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