History (1996): Smallest HDD Never Seen

Thin Spin LLC (Fremont, CA), a Californian start-up in the heart of Silicon Valley and incorporated in September 1995, virtually unheard of before now, has managed to design the smallest HDD ever seen, with a form factor of 1.1 inch, or the equivalent of a postage stamp.

In addition, the device is the thinnest ever designed, the same as the PCMCIA I card or 3.3mm.

The project was revealed to us by the president of the new company, Gib Springer, on the way out of the excellent Head/Media conference that takes place on the eve of each Comdex.

This name may stir the memories of storage industry veterans, who will recall Springer Technology, a firm acquired by Iomega in 1992.

The drive’s capacity at the outset will be 95MB on a platter read by a single head. Announced access time is 5ms, another record. The disk spins at 2,000rpm, due to an extraordinary motor, that is “integrated in the center of the magnetic platter and is thinner than a human hair,” Springer told us as he took the device out of his pocket. Furthermore, the drive consumes only 190 milliwatts.

The unit, not yet released, should cost around $100 with an ATA interface, and the first evaluation units should be available in the second quarter of next year.

“We’re not trying to compete with traditional hard disks,” Springer explained, “so much as with flash cards, specifically in applications such as digital cameras and automobile navigation.“

For now, Thin Spin has made initial overtures to Polaroid, who is apparently very impressed with the product.

Before this latest design, the smallest known disk was the KittyHawk, from Hewlett- Packard, with a 1.3-inch form factor, abandoned because it was too expensive.

Also of note is the fact that IBM has been showing, for the past 3 years, mainly to journalists and customers they want to impress, the prototype for a one-inch disk.

Yet another start-up, Pico Disk (Los Gatos, CA), founded by Jim Money, is also working on a HDD of minuscule proportions.

This article is an abstract of news published on the former paper version of Computer Data Storage Newsletter on issue 107, published on December 1996.

Note: Halo was founded in April 1998, when a round of venture funding allowed a group of investors to acquire the assets of Thin Spin.