Rugged, Reliable Storage Designed for Handheld Consumer Electronics Devices

RUGGED, RELIABLE STORAGE DESIGNED FOR HANDHELD CONSUMER ELECTRONICS DEVICESStorage has become a crucial element contributing to the growing power of handheld consumer electronics devices, enabling thesedevices to support more functions and applications and to store more content. Storage for handheld devices has evolved from flashmemory embedded in PDAs to removable flash-memory cards of digital cameras to tiny hard disc drives (HDDs) in MP3 players.In fact, HDD-based music players are one of the fastest-growing segments in the consumer electronics marketplace. Today, HDDsare beginning to replace flash memory in portable music players and are also a viable storage alternative for digital cameras. But notany HDD can be put into a portable handheld device. The drive must be able to withstand the environment to which portable devicesare often exposed; for example, an MP3 player strapped onto a jogger can skip because of vibrations caused by the jogger'smotions. The storage also must support the consumers' need for higher capacities to store data-rich multimedia files--at anaffordable price.Seagate®has taken the unique requirements of the portable market and developed the ST1 Series, a family of embedded one-inchHDDs for handheld music players, digital still and video cameras, PDAs, handheld video players and other handheld consumerelectronics devices. ST1 drives enable OEMs to enhance their products with high-capacity, high-reliability storage that provides theperformance demanded by today's sophisticated consumers.Outstanding storage value for handheld devicesAs storage for portable devices, the ST1 Series is designed to deliver more value than flash memory and other HDDs in terms ofcapacity, reliability and robustness. Large capacity at an affordable price. Compared to flashmemory, the ST1 Series delivers a much lower cost permegabyte--up to ten times the capacity at similar pricepoints--making it a very cost-effective storage alternative.The ST1 Series is available in sizes of 2.5 Gbytes and 5Gbytes--the largest capacity available for one-inch HDDscurrently on the market. For users with large media librariesand for those who encode files at high bit rates, such ahigh-capacity drive is greatly desirable. At a 5-Gbytecapacity, the ST1 drive can store 2,500 high-quality songs,or approximately 5,000 1-Mbyte photos. The cost-effectiveness of ST1 drives allows OEMs to pass on the costsavings to their customers.TP-527 * From: Seagate Global Product Marketing * June 2004Technology Paper

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Reliability under high-vibration conditions. People often strap an MP3 player onto their hip or arm during running or otherphysical activities. The resulting motion can introduce harmonic frequencies into the drive, which may cause the read heads to go offtrack. This can result in the music skipping or even stopping completely, depending on the amount of buffer space in the system. ST1 drives differ from other HDDs because they were designed to account for the harmonic distortion caused by high-vibrationmovements. The drive incorporates Seagate RunOn technology, which enables the drive to detect when these unwanted harmonicfrequencies occur and automatically compensate by keeping the read heads on track. Consequently, the RunOn technology canincrease the reliability--and customer satisfaction--of an OEM's handheld consumer electronics device. Protection against shocks from mishandling. When many HDD-based devices are dropped, the read/write heads remain over themedia. These hard drops create a shock that can cause the heads to slap against the media so that pieces of the head are scatteredin the drive and a microscopic dent is left in the media.Knowing that drops happen, Seagate built theST1 Series with G-Force Protection, whichprotects the drive against shock by moving theheads off the media when the device is poweredoff. Thus, during a drop, no parts make contactwith each other inside the drive. G-ForceProtection makes any handheld device using ST1drives more robust and more reliable as well.World-class support for ST1drive integrationConsumer electronics OEMs require a partnerthat can help transform their innovative productideas into reliable storage-driven products. As theworld's leading HDD company, Seagate providesthe global scale, supply and support that OEMsrequire. Seagate Design Service Centers (DSC) inColorado and Singapore provide design and testing expertise for OEMs that are developing new one-inch HDD applications, helpingto design products that are rugged, reliable and high-performing.Optimized system performance through extensive testing. The system reliability of a new HDD-based device affects themanufacturer's bottom line in terms of fewer returns and increased customer satisfaction. With state-of-the-art testing facilities andindustry-leading engineers, DSC labs provide the ideal setting for reliability testing. Before a product goes to market, DSC engineerscan help find potential problems in the mechanical design, data