HiFi Blog: digital audio goodness

Happy news for the miniature hard drive camp. Cornice said they’ll be releasing 8GB and 10GB 1-inch drives under the Dragon series later in Q1. The drives, which are ~40% smaller than the previous 4GB incarnation at 30×40x3.5mm, are mainly to be used in mobile phones. As is the case with most microdrives, care has been taken so they’re durable and as resistant to abuse as possible. From the official product page:

The new Dragon series drives are protected by Cornice’s ruggedness design, Crash Guard^TM, and can withstand excessive shaking, extreme drops, and other abuse without skipping, stopping, or crashing. Crash Guard^TM consists of:

• Active Latch—When dropped, the most common damage to a hard drive occurs when the head scrapes across the surface of the disk (not unlike the needle scratching across an old vinyl LP record when the turntable was bumped). Cornice securely locks the head in place with an active latch mechanism.


• Skip Control—Hard drives are going places they have never been before—jogging, 4-wheel driving, skydiving—and are expected to operate even with excessive and repetitive motion. Cornice designed the Dragon series drives from the ground up to withstand the most extreme conditions while providing continuous playback without skipping or restarting.


• Drop Safe—This feature in the Crash Guard family allows the drive to actually sense being dropped. This means that even if the drive is in the middle of reading or writing data to the disk, it can immediately react and place the head safety under the active latch well before the unit actually strikes the ground.