History 2004: Samsung into 0.85-Inch HDD

According to an internal source at Samsung Electronics, the giant Korean company is designing a 0.85-inch HDD at 2 or 4GB that will go into production in 4Q05.

It is aimed at the cell phone market.

Samsung is now the 3rd firm to announce its intention of entering the smallest form factor, after Toshiba and GS Magicstor.

Samsung was already the first to launch a mobile phone integrating a 1.5GB HDD, although not of its own design.

Since it embarked on its HDD venture in 1988, Samsung has been considered a relatively minor player, offering only 3.5-inch desktop units, not always with the most up to date technology, but usually at a lower price.

It’s ambitions, however, have gained momentum recently, first with a new line of 2.5-inch units from 30 to 80GB, with a strong emphasis on low operating noise, and current production capacity of 400,000 per month, followed soon after by the announcement of these 0.85-inch devices.

The company expects next year to ramp its 2.5-inch drive production line from the current 40GB per platter units to 60GB per platter.

Current OEMs for the notebook drives are Apple, Dell, HP and NEC.

The same source told us that Samsung will produce a total of 30 million HDDs in 2004 and that the company is shooting for 40 million in 2005, 50 million in 2006 and 60 million in 2007.

All of Samsung’s HDDs are manufactured in a single plant, highly automated, in Gumi, 150 miles from Seoul, in which Samsung has invested over $190 million, with an R&D center in San Jose, CA, and a staff of 300 engineers and technicians.

It remains to be seen whether the company’s renewed ambitions will pay off – we’ve heard similar noises from the firm in the past, not always backed up by reality.

On the optical and DVD side, Samsung is a substantial global player, through its 49%-51% joint venture, dating from 2003, with Toshiba: Toshiba Samsung Storage Technology, headquartered in Kanagawa, Japan, with a subsidiary in Korea.

This article is an abstract of news published on issue 201 on October 2004 from the former paper version of Computer Data  Storage Newsletter.