A new 2.5cm hard drive will be unveiled early next year that has built-in protection against drops and other shocks, which could have massive implications for the use of hard drives in mobile phones and other devices

Finally, a miniature hard drive you can drop on the pavement.

Minidrive specialist Cornice will unveil a new 3GB, 2.5cm-diameter hard drive at next month's Consumer Electronics Show (CES) offers more shock resistance and uses less battery life than its predecessors. The drive is due out in 2005.

The company, which has landed its drives in Sony music players and a Samsung mobile phone, will distinguish itself in an increasingly crowded field in 2005 by emphasising price and durability rather than capacity.

At 3GB, the drive -- which Cornice calls a "storage element" -- will hold less data than high-end drives from competitors such as Hitachi. The drive, however, will come with a "crash guard" latch that physically locks the drive arm in place when not in use. Locking the arm is designed to cut down failures associated with dropping.

Even with the arm unlocked, an MP3 player containing the upcoming drive can be dropped from about 1.5m without damage -- higher than in the past, noted David Feller, vice-president of marketing.

"You want to make sure that it if falls off your belt and onto the concrete, it won't die," he said.

Batteries on some devices containing the company's drives will last 20 hours, he added.

Manufacturers will offer players with the 3GB drive for $159 to $199 next year. Players with 2.5cm drives currently cost about $200 to $250. Price declines are related in part to cutting out additional parts from the drive.

Competition in the minidrive market will likely increase next year as more competitors, such as Toshiba and Samsung, enter the market.

More music players are actually based around flash memory, but the percentage of players containing 4.6cm or 2.5cm drives is growing fast. Hard-drive players also generally sell for more than flash-based ones.

Toshiba and Hitachi are both set to make announcements at CES, which takes place from 6 January to 10 January in Las Vegas.

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