Seagate announced that it has begun shipping a 1-inch hard disk drive with a 6G-byte capacity, the same day that rival drive maker Hitachi announced a similar product.

Seagate's drive is shipping to selected device makers, said Joyce See, a spokeswoman for Seagate in Singapore. In addition to the 6G-byte model, Seagate offers 1-inch drives with capacities of 5G bytes and 2.5G bytes.

See declined to reveal pricing for the 6G-byte ST-1 hard disk drive, saying the product is being sold only to device makers and will not be made directly available to consumers. However, HGST yesterday said its 6G-byte 1-inch Microdrive hard disk will cost US$299, a 40-percent reduction compared to the $499 price tag the company has previously put on all of its 1-inch hard drive products when first released.

These small hard disk drives are principally designed for use in portable consumer electronics devices, such as MP3 players. The 6G-byte ST-1 can hold 150 hours of music, or roughly 3,000 songs, encoded at a bit rate of 128K bps (bits per second), Seagate said in a statement.

Seagate's customers for 1-inch hard drives include Creative Technology Ltd., Olympus Corp., Sanyo Electric Co. Ltd., Virgin Electronics LLC and others, according to the company.

The introduction of 6G-byte hard drives came on the same day that Apple Computer Inc. introduced a 6G-byte version of its iPod Mini MP3 player, which retails for $249.

From Storage.itworld (IDG News Service)