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  • bmbw2014 - Monday, September 9, 2013 - link

    Technically wise this is brilliant but I wonder how much operating noise will affect the casual user experience of a tablet? Do they compensate by reducing RPM?
  • retrospooty - Monday, September 9, 2013 - link

    Technically wise this is possible, but I wonder how many design wins they actually have. Making a product like this is one thing, but making it doesn't mean OEM's are knocking on the door trying to put it into their devices. I would be absolutely amazed if we see this in more than a few niche tablets. Certainly not in any popular model.
  • Cow86 - Monday, September 9, 2013 - link

    I thought almost all mobile HDD's were already at 5400 RPM nowadays? Shouldn't be a huge noise concern I expect...still of course infinitely noisier than a silent SSD though.

    I too don't expect this to gain huge traction with the power consumption and other issues in a small tablet, but the option might work for some...so it's good it's being offered.
  • bobbozzo - Monday, September 9, 2013 - link

    Some laptop drives have been 4200RPM. I've got one, but it is at least several years old. Terribly slow too.
  • StormyParis - Monday, September 9, 2013 - link

    I want as much storage as possible on my mobile devices, because
    - when I'm on the move I can't count on being connected
    - when I *am* connected it is usually too slow
    - and too expensive
    - and unreliable
    - and that's when I most need my stuff, either to work or to relax.

    Right now, I've got a netbook with a 1TB HD that I carry around when I'm going away for more than a week-end. Wifi hard drives don't cut it (pitiful battery life, high price). Micro-SD cards are still limited to 64GB (I've got 5-6 of those already...)

    So yep, I'm interested. Especially if the drawbacks (fragility, size, price, battery, noise, performance...) are contained.

    This sound all the more interesting for the Win8 tablets that purport to replace laptops.
  • lmcd - Monday, September 9, 2013 - link

    Yeah, well RT needs to trim down though, I'd like to see it near the size of a smartphone OS outside of things like recovery partitions. The OS and 1-2 GB app space should fit into the 8GB cache in my opinion.

    And both platforms need to manage this space much better than will be handled forseeably.
  • CZroe - Monday, September 9, 2013 - link

    "I honestly never thought would happen..."
    This is obviously intended for things like Surface Pro 2 and Razer Edge Pro gaming tablet, where I kinda expected something like this (both x86). Also, super-thin notebooks can use it as a hybrid SSD/HDD. Imagine an Ultrabook version of an Alienware M11x!
  • jeffkibuule - Monday, September 9, 2013 - link

    One look at the Surface Pro tear down on iFixIt will tell you there is absolutely no space for such a drive.
  • CZroe - Wednesday, September 11, 2013 - link

    Do you realize how thin this is? Of course it will not fit in a tablet that wasn't designed for it, but a PCB designed around it in a Surface 2 or Razer Edge Pro 2 would be easily possible, especially with the SSD integrated, Haswell, and other advancements.
  • meacupla - Monday, September 9, 2013 - link

    If you actually own a surface pro, you wouldn't want an HDD in it.
    1. HDD is heavier than mSATA
    2. eats into already precious little battery life
    3. HDD is slower, even if it is a hybrid.
    4. You can be a little rough on the device, like tipping it over accidentally, and not worry about head crash.
    5. USB3.0 2TB portable external and 64GB microSD can augment storage plenty.

    Now, if the HDD is inside a separate keyboard and battery dock, like transformer book, then why not?
  • CZroe - Wednesday, September 11, 2013 - link

    "4. You can be a little rough on the device, like tipping it over accidentally, and not worry about head crash."
    That's precisely why this new product integrates with the mobile device's sensors. It's a lot more intelligent than a simple laptop HDD's drop sensor. For example, it can err on the side of caution more readily if there is no touch contact with the screen and the orientation has changed since it was last touched (upside down).
  • eanazag - Wednesday, September 11, 2013 - link

    Agree. I would just aim for a 256 GB SSD - which already exists - for the next couple years in the Surface Pro. The 64 GB model is just dumb. The 128 GB is a tight squeeze and I have a 64GB microSD plugged in.

    I would use this with a thin SSD plugged into the same slot. I won't go SSD-less. Think about laying this like two pancakes into a laptop with SSD and thin HDD in the same slot where just one hard drive used to fit. That would be a compromise I 'd go for.
  • XZerg - Monday, September 9, 2013 - link

    I wouldn't mind something like this in say Surface pro style or "pc" tablets but with a beefier ssd to pair with till ssd prices at that size (storage) do not cost more than rest of the components or even relatively up there. this has no place in android/ipad size tablets as there are plenty of better options in terms of performance, power and physical size (not storage) and dimensions out there already. Also the growing trend is moving towards "NAS" storage while keeping only more regularly used data on tablets.
  • mrdude - Monday, September 9, 2013 - link

    I can definitely see a market for these, Anand. For example, people who want to spend loads of money on a device with 500GB of mechanical storage and watch as the platters shatter when they're playing one of those 'jitter your device for this action' games. There's nothing quite as thrilling as that feeling of watching your >$600 tablet-thing-a-majig rendered useless in your loving arms. It'll be like shaken baby syndrome only with more crying.
  • Flunk - Monday, September 9, 2013 - link

    I could see this being used in tablets like the Surface Pro. Windows tablets are always screaming for more space. But for standard Androids or iPads it's just too big, too heavy, too much power and probably too much money too. Plus the performance in Android would be terrible, the entire OS is designed around having flash-speed random storage access. It's really the biggest reason people buy tablets.
  • MrSpadge - Monday, September 9, 2013 - link

    If it's well done the HDD won't be needed very often - in this case it should be perfect for value-conscious buyers. Increase the cache to 16 GB and anything but videos and large music collections should fit in the NAND. People paying 100 bucks more for an iDevice with 32 GB more NAND would look rather stupid in comparison.

    I could also see a market for hybrid storage in tablets where you put an HDD into the keyboard dock (along with some battery and maybe WLAN for remote access).
  • lmcd - Monday, September 9, 2013 - link

    Very appealing indeed -- glad someone sees it.
  • Death666Angel - Monday, September 9, 2013 - link

    Sounds like something very niche. I expect some Archos products to use it, but the general tablet market has been happy with 16 to 32GB onboard and expandability with mSD cards. There are just too many downsides to this, at least in the ARM tablet space. On Win8 with Atom+ CPUs, there may be more positives to outweigh the negatives.
  • psuedonymous - Monday, September 9, 2013 - link

    I was about to mention Archos, who've been putting HDDs into tablets (recently Android, previously their own OS) for years.
  • Rick83 - Monday, September 9, 2013 - link

    I wonder how one can cover this kind of announcement without name-dropping Archos :D

    Their 5" Android Tablet with 500 GB came out....4 years ago now? And had a small but dedicated following for quite some time, simply because it was basically the only choice if you needed that amount of storage.

    Plus, with the G9 I think they also paired it with a flash-cache, so really, they've done exactly what the article announces, two years ago. A bit of an oversight not to mention it....

    Of course, since then Archos have changed their game a bit, so I'm not sure if they've pre-ordered the first batches, or just go after the mass market now.
  • solipsism - Monday, September 9, 2013 - link

    Moving into 2014 this doesn't seem like a great solution for mass market tablets. NAND is already slow enough and battery life precise enough that it doesn't seem viable for anything other than a fringe usage case.

    I would much rather see a notebook PC paired with an SSD + 2.5" single-platter HDD. For example, IMO the Retina MBPs would be much better machines that are still fast and have plenty of battery life if they added a Fusion Drive (single-platter HDD + PCIe SSD).
  • nerd1 - Monday, September 9, 2013 - link

    Most windows laptops provide empty mSATA slots so they can be easily configured as SSD+HDD combo. Obviously apple does not allow that.
  • ET - Monday, September 9, 2013 - link

    It's an interesting idea, in particular as a second drive for Windows tablets, and may be okay for 10" tablets and larger. It might work for smaller ones if the disk was 1.8" and lower power.

    All in all, I can see a market for this. Any tablet aimed at being usable as a full PC would need a decent amount of storage, and even a 1.8" drive should be able to provide 250GB at least. If the price is low enough, that would be a good upgrade to the specs.
  • solipsism - Monday, September 9, 2013 - link

    ET wrote, "Any tablet aimed at being usable as a full PC would need a decent amount of storage…"

    I'm not seeing much, if any of that with tablets. The "pro" users that have tablets (e.g.: users that read this site) are likely not replacing any standard PC by incorporating a tablet, but the users who are replacing their PC completely with a tablet device are users that never needed much power, performance, or storage capacity to begin with.
  • ET - Tuesday, September 10, 2013 - link

    It's a young market still. The options are just not there. But most people did switch from desktops to laptops, and going the tablet/phone way is a natural progression. Having all your programs and data on you everywhere you go, and being able to connect that phone/tablet to a screen and keyboard to work or to a TV and controller to play is a natural way of consolidating your computing devices into one. It's not there yet, but I see it as the way forward.
  • ET - Tuesday, September 10, 2013 - link

    Oh, and by the way, a lot of mobile users do want lots of storage. Maybe not all of them, but even my Nexus 7's 32GB is mostly full just installing games. If I was watching movies on it, or taking pictures / videos (which is not possible with the original Nexus 7 I have, but in concept), I'm sure I'd have run into a storage problem already. Given more storage as standard I'm sure mobile games would take advantage of it.
  • lmcd - Monday, September 9, 2013 - link

    This is brilliant, because mobile is right now optimized to fit in 8GB anyway. The only things that should end up on the HDD are active-use items, not passive-use items, so the idle penalty will be small.
  • MarcusMo - Monday, September 9, 2013 - link

    I don't really see the point in large storage in mobile devices in the first place. To me all media consumption will be streamed to the device (netflix, spotify etc). If you remove the media, what else is there to store? Huge apps? To me, 32 GB on device storage is more than enough.
    Granted, you're not connected to the net all the time, but for those occasions you could easily do a local cache of a movie or two on your device, to last through a flight for instance. The point is that your media library will not exist on your device in the future.

    Everyone is not like me of course, and there's always someone with a huge stack of DVD:s somewhere that just have to get them onto their tablet. But even to these people, I don't see mechanical storage making sense for the following reasons:
    - The storage density is worse than NAND, and that gap will increase even more so when we get stacked NAND and further process shrinks.
    - The physical packaging limits the mechanical drive to a very specific size (after all, its a spinning platter).
    Those two factors will see a larger part of your precious internal real estate being occupied by the storage subsystem when compared to an ssd. Essentially this will leave device manufacturers with the choice between smaller battery or bulkier design. I don't see the first one happening, although for niche products, the second one might be viable. Wouldn't be too surprised to see Archos or someone with roots in the portable video player market releasing a bulkier media tablet based on this drive
  • garadante - Monday, September 9, 2013 - link

    For the people criticizing the longevity and durability of these potential drives, you're forgetting that mechanical drives have long been used in portable electronic devices.

    For my own personal anecdote, I've been using a 160 GB iPod Classic for years (and it's still the only Apple device I genuinely like and don't consider overpriced, overhyped toys). I believe the iPod Classic has been using 1.8" HDDs during it's entire, not inconsiderable lifespan. MP3 players are subject to the same harsh environments that any smartphone would be subjected to and likely much harsher than most tablets, and barring any seriously negligent damage, isn't really a weak link. I'd imagine the scenarios that would break the mechanical drive are similar or even rarer than scenarios which crack/break tablet and smartphone screens.

    It'll be a considerably long time before non-volatile flash memory can compete with mechanical storage in terms of both density -and- economy. Until then, I think mechanical drives with proper SSD caching are the best thing the market could do, from a practical and technical standpoint. But we all know these smartphone and tablet companies ~love~ being able to charge $100+ for an extra 16-32 GB of extra storage which only cost them a matter of dollars in NAND.
  • smartthanyou - Monday, September 9, 2013 - link

    One of the reasons for the current success of modern day tablets and smartphones is because they don't rely on mechanical storage, which can deliver a poor user experience for random (or pseudo-random) accesses that are common in client workloads


    LOL, no, that has never been one of the reasons that those devices became successful.
  • mkozakewich - Monday, September 9, 2013 - link

    You ended up missing an interesting concept: What if we could swap 5mm SSDs into such devices? Look at how those numbers compare with the speed and cost-per-GB of common eMMC. We're usually paying far more than $1/GB for extra eMMC in today's tablets, for very little performance.
  • alexvoda - Monday, September 9, 2013 - link

    There is some interesting potential for these drives.
    Since they are 5mm tall you can almost fit two of them in the space of a normal 2.5" laptop drive.
    With these you could have RAID 1 redundancy in the space usually occupied by a single drive.
    But I don't think we might see such a laptop.
  • nerd1 - Monday, September 9, 2013 - link

    I'd rather carry a portable NAS (there are a lot available now ) rather than carrying a device around with fragile mechanical drive.

    OR most android devices support OTG so you can just connect the HDD via usb directly.
  • Hubb1e - Monday, September 9, 2013 - link

    The people that don't understand this move are clearly not forward looking people. As tablets gain performance and quickly become the go-to device for computing, a tablet with a decent sized hard drive becomes increasingly appealing. In the next 5 years you're going to see people completely ditch their traditional PCs in favor of tablets with either a dock and external screen, or at least a detachable keyboard. The tablet will become the primary computing device for a large portion of the population and with that comes the need to store local images and videos. Cloud storage may work for some, but others want that content with them locally due to slow internet connections, privacy, complexity, or peace of mind.

    As soon as tablets can match the speed of a core 2 duo at 2ghz, then average users can do everything they want to do on their tablet, and whether this is on a surface pro 2 running the full x86 version of windows 8 or 9, on a Atom based x86 tablet, on windows RT, or on a traditional tablet OS, there's certainly a market for being able to store all your content locally and I think this combined with 8GB of flash is a great solution to that problem. And traditional harddrives have proven reliable in plenty of HD based iPods such as the Classic so there's little need to worry about smashing the platters unless you're throwing it against a wall.
  • meacupla - Monday, September 9, 2013 - link

    but tablets already do beat C2D 2ghz easily.
    For reference, i5-3317u is about equal in performance to a core2quad.
  • Hubb1e - Tuesday, September 10, 2013 - link

    Obviously I'm talking about mass market ARM based tablets except where I specifically reference the Surface pro. I just did a test between my old Athlon64 single core at 2.4ghz and a Samsung S4 with the snapdragon 600 at 1.9ghz and the single core Athlon was still about 2X faster than that quad core.
  • meacupla - Monday, September 9, 2013 - link

    I think these drives would be ideal inside a NUC or BRIX, if there was a provision to fit them at all.
  • BrazenRain - Monday, September 9, 2013 - link

    Couldn't an accelerometer be used as the drop sensor instead?
  • nerd1 - Monday, September 9, 2013 - link

    Drop sensors ARE accellerometers and has been used for years already.
  • Azethoth - Monday, September 9, 2013 - link

    The thing I was missing most in my tablet experience is the insane slowness of an HDD. Way to cover my needs for a retro computing experience!
  • Paul Tarnowski - Tuesday, September 10, 2013 - link

    I can see one problem with these that no one has addressed. That's the fact that these drives are likely going to have higher mass per volume than the rest of any device's internals. That means any design is going to be limited by the need to balance it properly against everything else, which is going to severely curtail design choices.

    That of course doesn't mean it won't be used, but I'd be leery of buying any tablet with one of these before trying it out in a store.
  • CLBrown - Friday, May 9, 2014 - link

    Well, I'm "the market" for this device. I've been a user of the 500GB Archos 5 for quite a few years now. I've replaced the internal battery on it once already, and am now facing another cycle of "swollen battery syndrome" and am debating a replacement.

    I'd LOVE to have a more modern (faster, lighter, more capable) device which provides me with the functionality that my current device does.

    Yes, I've heard all the BS about "streaming replacing local storage," but the world is just FULL of places where streaming is an absolute none-starter. If you live your entire life in an office building or apartment building, well... yeah, you can stream everything (I have a Synology DiskStation 1512+ NAS with everything on it and can stream throughout my home or to external sites, so don't play the "you're a luddite" game, please.)

    The thing is, I travel. Sometimes extensively. Sometimes spending sixteen hours or more on an aircraft at a time. Sometimes in places where there IS no "infrastructure" whatsoever. Not only no "high speed wireless," but NO TELEPHONES to speak of.

    And so, I want to be able to carry everything I want with me. And to do so in a small enough package that I can carry it in a pocket or, at worst, in a belt-pouch. And, aged as it is, the Archos 5 500GB device has served me exceptionally well.

    Now, what I'd really, really like is a Samsung Galaxy in a 5"-ish form factor with one of these drives installed (in lieu of the SD card). The same capacity as I have today, but a far, far more capable device.

    "Streaming" is only a replacement for "local storage" when you're living the pampered life way too many of you are apparently getting accustomed to.

    Right now, the best option is a Seagate Wireless Plus paired to a Samsung Galaxy 4 Mini. But that's TWO devices... and thus is not quite what I want. I want a Galaxy 5 Mini with one of these installed, basically. (And yes, I know the 5 mini isn't "real" yet anyway... so yes, this is theoretically possible.)

    Now, there are some Samsung SSDs (the 840 EVOs) in the scale I want. And if someone used the guts from one of THOSE in something... yeah, that would be even better. If someone can provide a 2TB NAND storage in a Galaxy-mini scale, I'd buy it tomorrow.

    The problem, right now, is that NO ONE is making what I want to buy. They're all reciting the nonsense some of you are... that "streaming is the future."

    Set up a totally stable, totally reliable, totally GLOBAL (with no "dead spots" whatsoever) wireless high-speed network... and then, and not before, will "streaming" be a valid replacement for local storage.

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