Hard Disk Drives Go Mobile

We all rely on and use data storage. When you think of storage, large data centers and disks come to mind. Storage certainly is not considered sexy or exciting like wireless or RFID (radio frequency identification) technologies, but it undergirds all IT applications. Now, with the popularity of mobile applications rising, data storage is breaking out of the data centers and other large devices, and it's going mobile.

The use of mobile computers by companies in all vertical markets has increased dramatically in the past few years. Consequently, there is growing demand for high-performance, secure disk drives for use in mobile devices. In response, storage vendors are expanding their product lines to include disk drives specifically designed for laptops and notebook computers.

New Storage Drives Are More Secure
The new hard drives address many of the shortcomings of older disk drives, which were slow performing and lacked areal density. (Areal density, which is also called bit density, refers to the amount of data that can be packed onto a storage medium.) The older drives were noisy and used a lot of power, which would quickly drain a laptop's battery. The other problem with older disk drives was their complete lack of security. "Stolen notebooks cost companies millions of dollars in lost or stolen trade secrets and intellectual property. These thefts also placed individual consumers at risk of identity theft and the high costs associated with restoring their credit," states Jennifer Bradfield, director of Americas channel marketing for Seagate Technology.

New hard disk drives have greater areal density, which provides more capacity in the same footprint. "In response to the demand for high-performance storage for laptops, drives are now available with spindle speeds of 7200 RPM and capacities as high as 120 GB. People can work anywhere they choose without sacrificing performance," explains Deborah D'Amico, worldwide channel development manager at Hitachi Global Storage Technologies. These drives, which have fewer platters and heads, also draw less power.

Another advance that promises to increase areal density is perpendicular recording. On traditional disk drives, data bits are magnetized lying in the disk's plane. With perpendicular recording, the magnetization of the disk stands on end, perpendicular to the plane of the disk. The data bits are then represented as regions of upward- or downward-directed magnetization. Drives with this technology should begin shipping in 2006.

Drive manufacturers are also addressing users' concerns about mobile device security. VARs can expect to see notebooks with encrypted disk drives shipping in the next six to nine months. With these drives, the encryption algorithm performed on the physical drive is separate for the operating system, and the encryption key is stored in a separate partition in a chip on the drive. If the laptop is lost or stolen, the data on the hard drive is physically inaccessible to anyone else. The other advantage is the user's access code is entered before the operating system can load, avoiding the possibility that spyware could gain visibility of the key. With these security enhancements, losing a laptop no longer means the valuable data and intellectual property stored on it is at risk.

Another feature of hard disk drives that is helping fuel demand is the lower cost. "As areal density increases, the cost per gigabyte of storage drops and form factors shrink, enabling the use of hard disk storage in more applications," continues Bradfield. Adoption of hard drive storage in the consumer electronics marketplace is driving the demand for smaller footprint storage, such as 1.8-inch hard disk drives. This size makes the drives more compatible with the smaller laptops and other mobile devices on the market.

VARs should take advantage of the trend by many companies to replace their aging desktop PCs with notebook computers that offer desktop PC performance and capacity. The new laptop drives can deliver true desktop PC performance and capacity while being stingy with power. This allows users to work longer between battery charges, as well as offering increased bandwidth to move and store more content. As notebook drives continue to enhance their capacities and spin speeds, companies will continue to invest in laptops. Markets that are leading this trend include print on demand and digital media centers. Bradfield is seeing increased demand in the automotive industry, as people are installing laptops in their vehicles so they can have an office on the road.

Include Storage As A Complement To Your Other Solutions
Now that storage is an integral ingredient of all applications, any VAR in the IT or consumer electronics industry has the opportunity to sell storage. While the new hard disk drives are obviously a natural fit for system builders and whitebook builders, they are also an opportunity for VARs that specialize in security systems and digital home systems. The key is being educated on what is available and what the storage capacity or performance parameters can mean to the customer. "Stating that a device has 500 GB of storage is not a selling feature in and of itself. A selling factor is knowing that you can record X hours of uncompressed video or store Y volume of medical documentation with that device," illustrates D'Amico. VARs need to take advantage of the education vendors can provide to help them sell unexpected storage value, not just storage.

VARs considering adding storage disk drives to their product lines should have some knowledge of storage. You'll need a basic understanding of specifications, such as reliability, environmental, interface, and performance, and how they affect a drive's suitability for the customers' applications. Even though storage is routinely treated as a commodity, it is one of the more complex technological devices commercially available. To better understand how to match drives to customers' needs, VARs considering selling storage disk drives should look into educational support and programs from vendors.