Who Made/Makes the World Smallest Harddrive

From: Ethan Dicks <ethan.dicks_at_gmail.com>
Date: Wed Jan 5 20:12:04 2005

On Sat, 18 Dec 2004 19:44:03 -0500, Joe R. <rigdonj_at_cfl.rr.com> wrote:
> HP built some 1.3" drives. They were the Kittyhawk series.

I have a couple of these - they are physically the length of a
standard 44-pin laptop IDE connector and about 1/2 as wide. Mine are
20MB, there was also a 40MB version.

In terms of size and capacity, the Kittyhawks hold no records
presently, but for a time, they were the smallest drives made, and
gave acceptable capacity for their volume. ISTR they were intended
for palmtop-like devices and similar things. Mine is attached to a
C-64 with an IDE interface.

In terms of PC technology, 5MB would be the lowest capacity I am aware
of (ST-506), and CF 'microdrives' would be the smallest physical size.
 If the boundaries extend to disks of all ages, I am unaware of any
disk with less capacity than the DF-32 (as someone else mentioned) -
20 fixed heads (16 data, 4 timing including spares) for 32768 words of
12 bits (plus parity)... yes... a 32K disk. Several list members here
have one or more.

-ethan
Received on Wed Jan 05 2005 - 20:12:04 GMT