Modern Hard Disk Drives - Hitachi Travelstar 1.8” and 2.5”
1.8” Hard Disk Drives represent the smallest mass produced form factor of a traditional Hard Disk Drive to-date and are used in thin-and-light notebook computers and consumer electronics devices.
Only the Microdrive form factor is smaller but these have remained niche products, mainly for use in digital cameras, PDA or industrial electronics.
This 2005 example from Hitachi Storage, a Travelstar C4K60 with 30 gigabytes capacity shows how far technology has come to reduce the size of hard disks from the 1986 Fujitsu example. The entire Hard Disk Drive is smaller than the spindle hub on the Fujitsu drive !
Excluding the fingerprints, there is visible damage to the disk platter. Of significance are the power requirements for this particular drive
- 0.08 watts in standby mode
- 0.25 watts when the drive is idle
- 1.4 watts when the drive is powering up
The power consumption of drives in this form factor is alike to a typical microprocessor in a consumer device and ten times less than a typical desktop 3.5” Hard Disk Drive.
A more common example of an Hitachi Travelstar 80GN with 60GB capacity is an example in the 2.5” form factor from 2003.
This particular drive, model IC25N060A was sourced from an Apple Macintosh computer as evident by the logo marking on the drive label which is present on all OEM drives supplied to Apple Computer so that company can validate a drive for warranty purposes.
Users who have had some experience with a failing disk drive may have had a similar experience to the issues that affect this drive in the question which does not pass its self tests on start-up and makes itself ready for use , due to faulty disk drive heads.
The beveled grooves in the drive lid are to maintain airflow when the drive is operation and also of note is how close the platter are to edge of the hard disk chassis, there is not much separation which is why smaller form factor disk drives require more shock protection in systems which they are used , typically notebook computers.