Briefly: Foxconn to build 1.5m MBPs; 100GB iPod drive
Apple Computer manufacturing partner Foxconn is reported to have landed a contract to deliver 1.5 million of the Mac maker's MacBook Pro notebooks in calendar year 2007. Meanwhile, Toshiba has introduced a "short" 1.8-inch form factor hard disk drive that may pave the way for a 100GB iPod.
Foxconn to build 1.5m MacBook Pros
Foxconn Electronics, the registered trade name of Hon Hai Precision Industry, is expected to ship 3.2 million notebooks in 2007 after recently adding Apple Computer and Lenovo to its list of notebook clients.
According to the Taiwan-based Topology Research Institute (TRI), Foxconn will start building notebooks for Apple in 2007, with the total shipments expected to come in at 1.5 million for the calendar year.
Based on a recent series of reports, it's believed the orders to Foxconn are for Apple's 15-inch MacBook Pro notebooks.
Following the resounding success of its consumer-oriented 13-inch MacBook line, rumors are abound that Apple is looking to push sales of its professional 15.4-inch widescreen models in the new year.
In August, the Mac maker began shopping around for a third notebook manufacturer after facing some supply issues a bit earlier in the year. It was reported that Foxconn answered the company's call, expressing a willingness to help build its 15.4-inch MacBook Pro models.
Toshiba's new 100GB iPod-compatible drive
Meanwhile, Toshiba on Tuesday introduced what it calls "the world's highest-capacity 1.8-inch hard disk drive" -- the same make of drives currently employed by Apple in its fifth-generation video iPods.
Toshiba said the new 100GB two-platter HDD is based on perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) and was designed in the "short" 1.8-inch form factor.
The drive offers a footprint that is 10 percent smaller than first-generation 1.8-inch drives, making ideal for thin and light mobile computers with an 8MB cache.
"Toshiba's technology innovation is setting the bar for mobile HDDs, and our first-to-market position in PMR is clearly helping us define the possibilities for pushing capacity limits in the mobile sector with more than two million mobile PMR HDDs shipped and over a year in commercialization," said Scott Maccabe, vice president and general manager, Toshiba Storage Device Division.
The new 100GB 1.8-inch HDD also integrates a low insertion force (LIF) connector that will enables mobile PC manufacturers to easily transition to higher capacities in smaller footprint HDDs.
Foxconn to build 1.5m MacBook Pros
Foxconn Electronics, the registered trade name of Hon Hai Precision Industry, is expected to ship 3.2 million notebooks in 2007 after recently adding Apple Computer and Lenovo to its list of notebook clients.
According to the Taiwan-based Topology Research Institute (TRI), Foxconn will start building notebooks for Apple in 2007, with the total shipments expected to come in at 1.5 million for the calendar year.
Based on a recent series of reports, it's believed the orders to Foxconn are for Apple's 15-inch MacBook Pro notebooks.
Following the resounding success of its consumer-oriented 13-inch MacBook line, rumors are abound that Apple is looking to push sales of its professional 15.4-inch widescreen models in the new year.
In August, the Mac maker began shopping around for a third notebook manufacturer after facing some supply issues a bit earlier in the year. It was reported that Foxconn answered the company's call, expressing a willingness to help build its 15.4-inch MacBook Pro models.
Toshiba's new 100GB iPod-compatible drive
Meanwhile, Toshiba on Tuesday introduced what it calls "the world's highest-capacity 1.8-inch hard disk drive" -- the same make of drives currently employed by Apple in its fifth-generation video iPods.
Toshiba said the new 100GB two-platter HDD is based on perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) and was designed in the "short" 1.8-inch form factor.
The drive offers a footprint that is 10 percent smaller than first-generation 1.8-inch drives, making ideal for thin and light mobile computers with an 8MB cache.
"Toshiba's technology innovation is setting the bar for mobile HDDs, and our first-to-market position in PMR is clearly helping us define the possibilities for pushing capacity limits in the mobile sector with more than two million mobile PMR HDDs shipped and over a year in commercialization," said Scott Maccabe, vice president and general manager, Toshiba Storage Device Division.
The new 100GB 1.8-inch HDD also integrates a low insertion force (LIF) connector that will enables mobile PC manufacturers to easily transition to higher capacities in smaller footprint HDDs.
Comments
Hopefully Toshiba will continue with small drives, once HD comes out it would be nice to carry around multiple full res movies and possibly connect the iPod as the central hub for an HD or Bluray set-up... Now that would be slick.
What are the chances these 1.8" drives being used in utlra-portable notebooks? Are any companies using this drive in that way?
Good news for that rumored 12" Macbook Pro, maybe? Hmm.
The only reason I'm holding off on buying an iPod is the hard drive space. I have about 52+ GB of music on my Macbook (and that almost half of my CD collection-never mind vinyl!!).
My 1st generation Nano comes in handy as it's portable, but I want to carry most of music with me.
(wonder if this will come in handy for the 'true' video Ipod?)
this could also mean 100GB orange zune.
this could also mean 100GB orange zune.
Well we do gotta be careful, Microsoft might be eyeing these drives to and they may try to pursue Toshiba to be their main purchaser.
this could also mean 100GB orange zune.
ROTFL That's a great one!
I remember a couple years ago 30gb was nuts.
But damn toshiba is moving on up. it seems like Toshiba and Samsung are both posied to become the new Sony.
Toshiba said the new 100GB two-platter HDD is based on perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) and was designed in the "short" 1.8-inch form factor.
The drive offers a footprint that is 10 percent smaller than first-generation 1.8-inch drives, making ideal for thin and light mobile computers with an 8MB cache.
what's the feasibility of using two of those drives in a macbook or MBP? are they slower than 2.5" drives? could two of them be included in a notebook and facilitate a smaller form factor?
I would love to think those 1.8" drives would last in an ultra portable but I bet the life span would be short if you used OS X on a daily or 3 times per week basis. 1 year at most? What do you guys think?
Why should they last shorter? Only because inside an iPod without any cooling and very close to a hot battery they are believed to last not as long when stressed a lot does not mean they will not last long in a laptop setting. And there are PC laptops with 1.8" drives.
Put two of these in a laptop, make a RAID 0 and you have a superfast 200 GB drive. (Yes, that RAID array will fail a bit earlier. I do not care, I have upgraded my harddrive almost every year to get a bigger/faster one. It is very unlikely that such an array would fail within a year.)
Put two of these in a laptop, make a RAID 0 and you have a superfast 200 GB drive. (Yes, that RAID array will fail a bit earlier. I do not care, I have upgraded my harddrive almost every year to get a bigger/faster one. It is very unlikely that such an array would fail within a year.)
Why do you think it would be faster?
If you wanted to stripe and don't mind making the optical drive an external one, MCE Tech has an Optibay product.
Drives can and do fail. You can assume that it won't happen to you, but it might happen anyway. I haven't had a drive die in ten years, but a three month old drive died on me last month. Just keep backups. I'm glad I did.
I would love to think those 1.8" drives would last in an ultra portable but I bet the life span would be short if you used OS X on a daily or 3 times per week basis. 1 year at most? What do you guys think?
No, that's not true. They are built to withhold greater forces (shaking in the iPod when jogging, for example) and they are generally just built better. Because of that - and the production volume - they're much more expensive than the average 2.5" drive.
I have a 40 GB one in my Thoshiba Portégé R100 that is now two years old, I've been using it for that period about 8 hours a day for 5 days a week, and there is no problem whatsoever with it.
2.5" drives are getting cheaper and cheaper - and are manufactured cheaper every day. No wonder three of those failed in notebook computers in my family alone. But no problem with any 1.8" drive in any iPod my family owns - or as said above, my R100.
Why do you think it would be faster?
RAID 0 should be not too far away from twice as fast. A 1.8" drive is maybe only 30% slower than a 2.5" drive. Therefore, a RAID 0 of two 1.8" drives should be at least 50% faster than a single 2.5" drive.
Just keep backups.
Exactly. Just keep backups.
make it happen S.Jobs.
RAID 0 should be not too far away from twice as fast. A 1.8" drive is maybe only 30% slower than a 2.5" drive. Therefore, a RAID 0 of two 1.8" drives should be at least 50% faster than a single 2.5" drive.
My question is how you know that it's nearly as fast. The drive in my iPod is dirt slow, even with striping, I wouldn't want to use it to replace my notebook's drive if it has space for the larger drive. The drives tend to be very expensive too.