Berlin, 24 August 2006 – This is the year that the hard disk will be marking its jubilee. 50 years ago the first hard disk came on the market. In 1956 the first generation of magnetic mass storage media arrived, capable of storing five megabytes and costing 50,000 dollars. Nowadays small devices storing 5 gigabytes, a thousand times as much, can be bought for very little. Storage capability has increased vastly, and several hundred gigabytes are almost commonplace.
Along with increases in storage the number of possible applications has risen too. Initially, use of hard disks was confined to computers. With notebooks becoming ever more popular the demand for miniaturisation grew. This in turn made it possible for hard disks to be used as storage on MP3 players and camcorders. A device that is probably the smallest hard disk currently available has a diameter barely equal to that of a 2 euro coin, and is capable of storing four gigabytes.
As a storage medium hard disks are also taking over in the video arena. For video fans their use on DVD recorders offers an ideal combination. However, one of the most convenient solutions is a hard disk built into a TV set, thus dispensing with both wiring and extra remote controls. Both applications enable time shifted viewing, whereby users can pause and restart a film at random, while the hard disk continues to record. Due to its ease of use this new storage method will soon be used in every home.
Market researchers have worked out that since 1956 some two billion hard disks have been sold. In the near term, due to the ever-rising demand for data storage this figure will rise sharply. For the foreseeable future technology experts do not see hard disks being replaced by any other type of mass storage. The market trends for CE end devices with built-in hard disks are also pointing upwards. In 2006 the German Consumer Electronics Association gfu expects sales in Germany to exceed one million DVD recorders with hard disks, and around 350,000 MP3 players with hard disks.
Correspondingly, the range of consumer electronics devices with built-in hard disks on display at the IFA 2006, the world’s leading CE show from 1to 6 September in Berlin, is amply large. Here consumers will find and be able to try out the latest innovations.