Miniature hard disk drive system

Details Miniature hard disk drive system Miniature hard disk drive system

1995-08-03

1998-05-26

Wolff, John H.

Dynamic magnetic information storage or retrieval

Record transport with head stationary during transducing

Disk record

G11B 5012

Patent

active

057575827

DESCRIPTION:

BRIEF SUMMARY
The present invention relates to a miniature hard disk drive system whose physical dimensions are similar in area or `footprint` to a normal credit card but somewhat greater in thickness.


BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

An important impetus behind the invention is the increasing miniaturisation of portable personal computers coupled with the requirement by the computer industry to establish standards for the connectivity and usage of peripheral devices. Over recent years, the typical desktop PC has increased steadily in performance as both hardware and software have developed. The need for portability of the PC led to the introduction in the middle to late 1980s of the laptop PC, a significant milestone in the computer industry. Despite its initial attraction of portability, major problems with this machine were (and still are) its weight, size and power consumption. One factor, among several, contributing to its problems was the hard disk drive needed for the laptop. This was initially a `3.5 inch` drive weighing typically 1.8 lbs and consuming 15 Watts. This device alone precluded any serious claim that the computer was battery operated. Subsequent laptop developments have included the use of the smaller, lighter and less power consumptive 2.5 inch hard drive and have resulted in the introduction of notebook computers. These machines have a typical A4 footprint (8.times.11 inches) but weigh around 6 lbs which is still uncomfortably heavy. Battery operation and life have improved in parallel but are still generally unsatisfactory. Variants of these machines using pen-based input capability have been developed but for them the issue of weight is critical.
The most recent advances in this field centre around so-called `sub-notebook` computers. These are generally in the development stage at present. They are smaller again than notebooks, weigh perhaps only 21 lbs but are targetted to have the performance capability of notebooks, with full keyboard, back lit screen and full disk operating system. Longer battery life is an objective. Clearly for this type of computer it is important to provide a memory storage device that is physically small, very light, has very small power requirements but can store amounts of data comparable to those on a typical 2.5 inch disk drive, say greater than 60 MB (Megabytes). Semiconductor memory cards, such as `Flash` cards, meet certain of these requirements but critically fail to meet the storage capacity requirements. They are used in various related applications where mass storage is less important and they conform to certain standards of interchangeability, interface etc. In particular, PCMCIA (PCMCIA refers to Personal Computer Memory Card International Association) has established standards for memory card connectors, pin-out, interface protocol, physical size, sockets etc. To date, these fall within categories defined as Types I and II. Type I, for example, defines a 3.3 millimeter (mm) thick read-only memory card. Type II refers to a read-write card which is 5.0 mm thick. The latest PCMCIA standard is Type III which is specifically aimed at mass storage devices of thickness 10.5 mm. It is this standard which is increasingly being adopted by certain designers and potential manufacturers of sub-notebook computers and there is a need for a practical and economic device which can meet the physical constraints imposed by this standard whilst at the same time providing storage capacities of the order of that indicated above. Other attempts that have been made to reduce the size and in particular the thickness of hard disk drives to try to meet such standards have had to resort to expedients such as omitting a head flexure assembly so that only three out of the four surfaces of a two-disc hard drive can be used. Such an approach is quite unsatisfactory since it substantially reduces the maximum storage capacity of the disk drive which is particularly undesirable in the light of the relatively large size of much modern software and the increased use of large datafiles for a numb

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