יצרני הכוננים הקשיחים מחפשים דרכים להוזיל את עלויות הייצור, בתגובה לבקשתם של יצרני ה-netbooks לכוננים זולים יותר.

HDD vendors to offer low-cost 2.5-inch HDDs for netbooks in 2009, say Taiwan makers

Seagate Technology, Western Digital and Hitachi Global Storage Technologies, in response to the calls for cost reductions from PC vendors, are developing low-cost 2.5-inch hard disk drives (HDDs) for use in netbooks and other low-cost PCs. The HDDs are targeted to be 40-50% less expensive than existing 2.5-inch entry-level HDD models. Availability could start as early as the second half of 2009, according to industry sources in Taiwan.

As the consensus among PC vendors is that low-cost PCs will dominate the global market in 2009, they are under pressure to reduce production costs by all means possible, the sources indicated. For netbooks, the cost of key components including CPUs, LCD panels, optical disc drives and batteries mostly fall between US$20 and US$25 each while a 2.5-inch HDD can cost as high as US$43-45, thus making them the target for cost reduction, the sources pointed out.

The three HDD vendors will focus on minimizing the cost of drive ICs, magnetic platters, and pick-up heads, the sources pointed out. The storage capacity of such HDDs will be 80GB based on a single platter initially and may be increased to 100GB or 120GB if cost control proves effective, the sources indicated.

The availability of low-cost 2.5-inch HDDs is expected to have a negative impact on the promotion of SSDs by companies such as Samsung Electronics, Toshiba and Intel, the sources analyzed.

http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20081216PD200.html