HP Intros the Kitty Hawk

Disk drives continue to drop in size, rise in capacity

What’s claimed as the world’s first 20 megabyte, 1.3-inch hard disk drive has been announced by Hewlett-Packard. The storage device measures 2×1.4×0.4 inches (LxWxH) in size, making it about the size of a small matchbox, and weighs about 1 ounce. The drive, which HP calls the “Kittyhawk Personal Storage Module (PSM),” will come in both 14 and 20 megabyte versions. The PSM, which has a less-than-18 millisecond average seek time with a data transfer rate of 0.9 Mbytes per second, supports both the AT and PCMCIA interface. The PCMCIA interface support means that the disk drive could be mounted onto a memory card and inserted into a PCMCIA computer slot.

Of particular significance to portable computer users is that the drive is designed to withstand a drop of about 3 feet during read/write operations without damage or loss of data. This is possible via a unique HP-developed collision sensor which detects an impending impact and causes the drive to revert to a mode that protects against data loss. Of equal importance to portable computer users is the drive’s low power consumption. At startup, the drive draws an average of 2.2 Watts and only 1.6 Watts during read/write operations. During “sleep” periods, the drive uses only 15 milliwatts of power. An advanced 7-chip controller developed jointly by HP and AT&T (most drives require up to 30 chips) contributes to the low power consumption as well as low weight. The drive will be manufactured for HP by Citizen Watch (Japan) using glass-based media that enables a bit density of 51,000 bits per inch.

Production units are expected to ship this Fall, so it will probably be at least 6 months before these drives begin appearing in commercial products. Volume prices are expected to be about $250 to OEMs, which translates to about $500 to the consumer, making the Kitty Hawk a pretty expensive storage device (over $20 per megabyte). The Kitty Hawk may see some stiff competition from flash memory devices such as SunDisk (see our article in the May 1992 issue on hard disks versus flash memory).

Hewlett-Packard
Direct Marketing
P.O. Box 58059
MS511L-SJ
Santa Clara, CA 95051-8059
1-800-637-7740