Hard Disk Drive Technology Fuels The Growth Of Emerging Consumer Technology Products

The explosive demand for next-generation consumer devices such as game consoles, digital video recorders (DVRs), MP3 players and digital cameras is creating new market potential for the industry’s most well-established storage technology, the hard disk drive (HDD). Offering greater capacity, smaller form factors and more features than ever before, HDDs are at the heart of a growing number of today’s popular consumer devices. This white paper examines the benefits of HDDs for emerging consumer applications, discusses the opportunities associated with a variety of specific applications and describes Toshiba Storage Device Division’s role in driving and enabling this market trend.

As HDD capacities increase and price points decline, market segments beyond the PC are beginning to look at HDDs as the storage medium of choice. Industry experts forecast that drive capacities will continue to grow and reach 60GB on two disks by 2002. In addition, smaller form factors, 1.8-inch and sub-9.5mm drives, which are ideal for compact consumer devices, are now coming to market. Storage manufacturers are also enhancing the features of hard drives with faster interfaces such as ATA-100, better acoustics and greater portability. For many emerging applications, HDDs offer the ideal mix of performance, cost and functionality.

Historically, while disk drives have been integral components to PCs, they have not crossed into general consumer product applications. With the explosion of non-PC computing applications and other handheld technologies such as MP3s, the landscape is changing dramatically. Burgeoning storage-hungry applications are giving new prominence to HDDs and creating a powerful need for the functionality that bigger and better storage provides to consumers.

Industry experts believe that consumer devices could supplant PCs as the primary market for HDDs by 2010. According to TRENDFOCUS, a market intelligence firm, the market for HDDs in consumer devices reached more than 2 million units in 2000. TRENDFOCUS projects 79 percent growth through 2005, when the market will reach 100 million HDDs annually.

Industry analyst firm IDC also projects robust growth for consumer HDD use in applications including digital video, smart handhelds, commercial, automotive, digital cameras and digital audio. The following charts illustrate the market potential for 2.5-inch and 1.8-inch HDDs in a few of these emerging applications.

Digital video applications are a key growth area for HDDs and the largest non-traditional HDD market, according to IDC. This category includes Digital Video Recorders (DVRs), set-top boxes and information appliances.

DVRs, such as TiVoÔ and ReplayTV^®, have garnered a great deal of attention during the past year. Appealing features, such as live pause and intelligent recording capability, are bolstering the growth of this market segment. Because of these features, industry experts predict that DVR functionality will soon be integrated into most homes that currently use VCRs.

Compared with traditional videotape, disk storage enables longer recording time, higher recording quality and a variety of interactive features. Virtually all storage manufacturers are shipping 10GB drives today, which provide recording capabilities of five to 10 hours of video. It is easy to see how digitally broadcast content could consume tens and hundreds of gigabytes and why this market segment will require the largest-capacity HDDs.

HDDs provide the ideal combination of cost, capacity and performance for DVR devices. In the short-term, drives used in DVR appliances will be based on desktop PC drive designs and can therefore leverage the high-volume manufacturing of this market to continually reduce costs. HDDs offer substantial capacity for these devices to support "personal TVs," so that multiple individuals in a household can save their preferred programs automatically. Also, the performance of HDDs is more than adequate for DVR devices to handle such functions as simultaneous recording and playback, live broadcast pausing and the ability to skip through commercials on pre-recorded content.

Storage is a critical element of smart handheld devices (SHDs), which include PDAs, smart phones and wearable PCs. These devices are beginning to incorporate more complex functionality such as MP3 and streaming video capabilities, and their storage requirements are expanding as a result. In addition, smart wireless phones with wireless application protocol (WAP) capability need to cache and store data locally to support their Internet functionality. As Internet surfing on handheld devices continues to grow in popularity, so will the need for higher storage capacities – a need that’s most easily met by HDDs.

Industry analyst firm IDC believes that vertical application devices and printers are significant opportunities for HDDs in industrial and commercial applications. Vertical application devices are used in a variety of environments in industries ranging from transportation to hospitality to medical. Popular devices include pen tablets, pen notepads and keypad handhelds. To date, their storage needs have generally been met by internal drives, but as the applications become more robust, capacity requirements may be more fully satisfied by external drives. In the printing and copying market, many products include HDDs as an option for professional users. Already an integral component of many printers, HDDs will continue to be a key option for high-end printing applications.

Global positioning systems (GPS) and AutoPCs are other fast-growing markets for storage devices. GPS systems use satellite signals to track location information and can be integrated into AutoPCs or sold as standalone systems. AutoPCs can perform a host of functions ranging from playing music to checking e-mail to monitoring the car’s diagnostics. As these devices become more popular and increase in functionality, they will need hundreds of megabytes of storage – a need easily met by today’s HDDs.

Flash memory has been the primary storage medium used in digital cameras and audio players to date, particularly in the consumer segment of the market. However, 1.8-inch drives are a key part of professional digital cameras due to their capacity and performance requirements.

According to IDC, worldwide shipments of compressed audio players will surpass 25 million units by 2005. The explosion in popularity of MP3 music has made storage a key issue for a new generation of consumers. A single song in MP3 format, even when compressed, consumes 4MB of space. With HDD technology, consumers can store an entire music collection on a hard drive using an MP3 player’s jukebox function. For avid digital music listeners, high-capacity disk drives have become an essential enabling technology.

Next-generation gaming consoles that use HDDs for game storage, on-line playing and Internet access are coming to market this year. The market for HDDs in gaming platforms is now in its infancy, but is expected to reach more than $5 billion by 2005, according to analyst firm TRENDFOCUS.

For example, Sony plans to offer several models of its Playstation^® game platform with different HDD sizes to fit user needs. Options will range from a standard model with a 10GB hard drive to a top-of-the-line model with a 40GB hard drive. Expected to debut in fall 2001, the Microsoft Xbox™ incorporates a 10GB hard drive for storing game information. As new consoles begin to adopt PC-like features, the use of HDDs will continue to rise.

Toshiba America Electronic Components Storage Device Division is a world-class provider of storage solutions for emerging consumer markets. The company offers two industry-leading product families targeted for these applications:

Toshiba’s 2.5-inch HDD family provides high-capacity storage for a variety of applications. Available in 6GB, 10GB, 15GB, 20GB and 30GB capacities, the company’s 2.5-inch lineup offers the industry’s highest areal density per platter at 26.7 gigabits per square inch. The super-slim drives feature fast data transfer rates of 100 megabytes per second and are ideal for printers, copiers, GPS systems and MP3 players.
Toshiba’s 1.8-inch HDD family opens the door to a range of new applications. The 1.8-inch Type II PC Card HDD offers 2GB and 5GB capacities, weighs less than two ounces, and its credit
	card-sized design is ideal for mobile users. Offering 5GB capacity, the 1.8-inch ATA-interface HDD boasts the industry’s highest areal density per platter at 22.38 gigabits per inch and offers an ideal combination of low power consumption, high shock tolerance and a compact footprint.

These 1.8-inch HDDs are ideal for a variety of mobile and handheld products that require high capacity and reliability, including PDAs, inboard computing systems, eBooks, tablet computers, MP3s and other non-PC applications. Based on the advanced technology platform of Toshiba’s proven 2.5-inch HDDs, the new 1.8-inch drives have a smaller footprint than a credit card and are lighter than a traditional pager.

Toshiba achieved its industry-leading per-platter areal densities using proprietary technology that provides greater capability for reading information on the drive. This rugged design and reliability has enabled Toshiba to deliver the right capacities to meet today’s diverse range of storage needs for commercial and consumer PC applications, as well as a full range of non-PC applications.

As a key enabler of popular new consumer technologies and emerging applications, HDD technology is poised for continued growth. Toshiba is leveraging its established leadership in mobile HDD technology to provide pioneering storage technologies that are at the heart of a new class of storage-hungry consumer devices. With the ideal HDD portfolio for a wide array of consumer applications, Toshiba is committed to continuing its history of innovation in HDD technologies and to working closely with product manufacturers to meet the needs of this exploding market.