Seagate Technology today announced the newest member of its diverse CE product portfolio, the Seagate ST1.3 Series 12GB 1-inch hard drive. With a footprint 23% smaller, 50% more storage capacity, and 30% less power consumption than Seagate's current 1-inch hard drive, the ST1.3 Series also offers a new optional drop sensor for increased robustness, delivering the features most requested by handheld device manufacturers. The ST1.3 Series hard drive is Seagate's second hard drive with perpendicular recording and the company's first drive utilizing perpendicular technology in the 1-inch category.

By offering a whopping 12GB of storage in a smaller footprint, the ST1.3 Series hard drive is a powerful solution for increasingly sophisticated media devices such as digital audio players, portable media players, and mobile phones. According to IDC, the worldwide mobile phone market is expected to grow 7% in 2006 to 857.9 million units. IDC forecasts that the worldwide converged mobile device market will reach 181 million units by the end of 20091 and worldwide portable multimedia player shipments are expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 95% between 2005-20092.

The new ST1.3 Series hard drive delivers new features specifically targeted at mobile media consumers. The drive's new size, 40 x 30 x 5 mm, allows for more streamlined media players product designs and fits nicely into current clamshell and candy-bar style mobile handsets.

As part of its G-Force Protection feature set enabling skip-free, reliable media storage and playback, Seagate also includes an optional drop sensor. This will increase operational shock resistance 33% up to 2000Gs, enabling the drive to survive a 1.5-meter drop onto hard concrete or ceramic surfaces when properly mounted in a handheld device.

RunOn Technology: Reliability Under High-Motion Conditions

People often bring their mobile phones, PDAs and PMPs with them when walking, running or during other physical activities. Seagate's ST1.3 Series differs from other hard drives because it is designed to compensate for the issues caused by such high-motion activities. The drive incorporates Seagate RunOn technology, which enables the drive to automatically keep the read heads on track while the device is in motion. Consequently, the RunOn technology can increase the reliability - and customer satisfaction - of a handheld consumer electronics device.

G-Force Protection: Designed to Protect Against Everyday Bumps

When many hard drive-based devices face the trauma of everyday use, the read/write heads remain over the media and a hard drop could lead to a microscopic dent on the internal components and can suffer additional damage if it's still running when the device is dropped. Seagate understands that accidents can happen with handheld gadgets, and has built the ST1.3 Series hard drive with G-Force Protection, which protects the hard drive against shock by sensing when the system is in a free-fall situation, moving the heads off the platter, and turning the motor off - all within 3/10 of a second. Thus, during the day-to-day mishaps of using your favorite portable device, no parts make contact with each other inside the drive.

The Seagate ST1.3 Series will begin shipping in the third calendar quarter of 2006.