Hewlett-Packard Co sprung a surprise yesterday by revealing that it hopes to set a new small form-factor standard for disk drives by unveiling the world’s first 1.3 Winchester. The Kittyhawk Personal Storage Module stores 21.4Mb, but measures 2 by 1.44 by 0.4 thick and weighs under an ounce. It is claimed to withstand shocks of 100G when working, 225G when not being used, which means that it can survive being dropped three feet. The shock tolerance is claimed to be about 10 times better than that of 1.8 and 2.5 drives – and is achieved by virtue of a chip designed by the company that applies the same technology that is used to sense collisions and trigger air bags in cars, so that the drive can sense and brace for a shock. It offers 18mS average seek time and offers active, idle, standby and sleep modes. It is designed to be removable, meeting the challenge from Flash memory cards that still cost four times as much Hewlett-Packard is pricing the Kittyhawk at some $12 per megabyte, $260 or so for the drive. No word on when it will be out in volume.
