A Solid Drive to Add More Data to Devices

First there was the PC era, then the Web era. Now consumers are in a hard-drive era, at least when it comes to digital media.

Instead of storing their growing collections of digital photos, music and video online, consumers are buying millions of iPods, TiVos and other hard-drive-based devices to store it all at home.

Portable music players have become one of the best-selling consumer electronic devices in history, and a wave of new models will be introduced this week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

IBM pioneered disk storage systems in the 1950s.

Five years ago, the company helped usher in the iPod craze by developing the Microdrive, a matchbook-size hard drive that can now store up to 4 gigabytes on its 1-inch platter. That's enough room for 4,000 minutes of music or 4,000 high-resolution photos.

IBM and Hitachi, which bought IBM's drive business in 2003, have sold 5 million Microdrives in five years, many as the primary component in Apple's iPod "mini" music player.

Toshiba produces the larger, 1.8-inch drive used in the standard iPod.

About 20 percent of Hitachi's drives are now built for consumer electronics devices instead of computers.