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The drive itself is a full-height 3.5" hard drive, which is three times the height of the hard drives that ship with most modern machines. Some people might even remember 5.25" full height hard drives that cost thousands or the external hard drives (usually 5.25" half height) that often sat under a Mac Plus. For about $1,000 you could get a 30 MB drive.
These days a movie trailer wouldn't even fit on there. It might be able to hold one album of MP3 files, if that.
That 30 MB drive also most likely wouldn't fit inside a new Power Mac, much less function correctly (though if you added a SCSI card, it could work). Considering that these days 30 GB is considered small, there wouldn't be much reason to install an old 30 MB drive in a G-series Mac anyway.
Nowadays the typical hard drives inside desktop computers are 3.5", half or 1/3 height. Notebook drives are even smaller, 2.5"!
How about the tiny little hard drives in the iPods? The ones in the first iPods aren't much bigger than the battery! I thought squeezing 5 GB into a device of that size was amazing….
The new iPod Mini however, represents a change from the more typical hard drive formats. The mini uses a Compact Flash size device, the 4 GB Hitachi MicroDrive. Interestingly enough, this drive retails for $479.95, so if you buy an iPod Mini and tear it apart for the drive, you can save money. (Why would you want to take apart a $250 iPod Mini when you can do the same to less expensive Creative MuVo MP3 player, I don't know)
Technology's really come down in size in the past few years. The 4 GB SCSI drive I have probably dates from about 1997. While it wasn't exactly the latest in terms of technology for 1997, it wasn't necessarily outdated, either, given that 4 GB drives were shipping with beige G3s.
Since the MicroDrive is the same size as a standard Compact Flash card, today you can have 4 GB of storage space in a digital camera. This, of course, allows for more pictures at higher resolutions. Switching Compact Flash cards would become a thing of the past. [Editor's note: There are 4 GB Compact Flash cards -- but at $1,500, who can afford them?]
The question that still exists, though, is how much smaller can hard drives get? A few years ago I probably would've said that a 2.5" notebook hard drive was about the smallest that could be made. Since we've seen that is clearly not the case, I have little doubt that we'll continue to see even smaller drives.
Eventually, though, it'll get to a point where the drive can no longer be made physically smaller. Perhaps we'll then turn to types of memory for storage. In fact, some of the old 286 and earlier laptop computers used a special type of memory as a drive.
The Outbound Laptop, a
Mac clone, also came with a built in RAM disk. It's clear that memory
can be used as storage; it's just a matter of time before we see the
hard drive becoming a thing of the past. 
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Recent Apple Archive articles
- iPods, notebooks, and other modern electronics more readily replaced than repaired, 12.07. Whether it's an intermittent failure or a broken display cable, more often than not it's cheaper to replace a broken electronics device than repair it.
- Options for replacing your older iPod, 11.19. Whether you've run out of space on your old iPod or want features it doesn't have, here are your options in new and used iPods.
- Could the $200 'green' PC with gOS Linux become a threat to Apple?, 11.14. The low cost, low power Everex desktop comes with a customized version of Ubuntu Linux, has a Mac-like Dock, and sells for $400 less than the Mac mini.
- Leopard different, a bit buggy, but worth the upgrade, 11.02. Leopard on a Power Mac G4 and a MacBook Pro: It runs well on both computers, but each has some odd bugs, and some of the changes are a step backwards.
- More in the Apple Archive index.
Links for the Day
- Mac of the Day: Mac mini Core Solo, Feb. 2006 - The only Mac to use a Core Solo CPU, this model ran at 1.5 GHz, has integrated graphics, and includes a Combo drive
- Group of the Day: SuperMacs is for those using Umax SuperMac clones.
- November 24 in LEM history: 98: Microsoft's heavy hand - 00: Looking at the iMac - 04: The best Mac for the holidays - Picking the right replacement for a dead mouse - Better battery for 15" AlBook
- Support Low End Mac
Recent Content on Low End Mac
- Google Calendar with iPhone or iTouch Is Great for Scheduling, John Hatchett, Recycled Computing, 11.24. Web-based Google Calendar allows access and updates from any computing platform, including Mac, Windows, Linux, and iPhone OS.
- Why Spaces is My Favorite Leopard (and Snow Leopard) Feature, Charles W. Moore, Miscellaneous Ramblings, 11.23. Spaces, a feature introduced with OS X 10.5, is like having several monitors on your Mac without the cost and space of using multiple displays.
- i5 iMac Benchmarked, Mac mini 'Shouldn't Be Overlooked', Twitter Client for Classic Mac OS, and More, Mac News Review, 11.20. Also why Apple leaves the low end to others, 10.6.2 fixes video playback problem in 27" iMac, 3D Leopard and Snow Leopard performance, and more.
- Apple's Tablet an End Run Beyond Netbooks, Frank Fox, Stop the Noiz, 11.20. Whatever Apple has planned will leverage existing technologies while going beyond what its competitors can offer.
- Apple #4 in Reliability, Apple Tablet a Gadget for All?, HP's i7 Notebook Outdoes Mac Rivals, and More, The 'Book Review, 11.20. Also Flash 10.1 improves video on Hackintosh netbooks, thin-and-light notebooks impress, Windows XP finally on the way out, and more.
- NASA Chemical Sensor for iPhone, Smartphone Death Match, iPhone Earrings, and More, Ian R Campbell, 11.20. Also mobile phone dangers, new apps, GPS solution for iPod touch, new iPod and iPhone cases, and more.
- More links in our archive.
Recent Deals
- Best G4 iMac Deals, 11.24. Used 15" 700 MHz CD-RW, $150; 800 MHz Combo, $229; 1 GHz, $289; 17" 1.25 GHz, $200; 20" 1.25 GHz, $509.
- Best MacBook Air Deals, 11.24. Used from $899; refurb from $1,099; new 1.6 GHz/120 HD, $1,150 after rebate; 1.8/64 SSD, $1,150 a/r; 1.86/128 SSD, $1,350 a/r; 2.13/128 SSD, $1,694 a/r.
- Best PowerBook G3 Deals, 11.24. Used 233 MHz WallStreet, $75; 266 MHz, $160; 400 MHz Lombard, $199; 400 MHz Pismo, $289; 500 MHz, $350.
- Best 12" PowerBook G4 Deals, 11.23. Used 867 MHz SuperDrive, $348; 1 GHz Combo, $379; SD, $519; 1.33 GHz, $529; 1.5 GHz Combo, $549; SuperDrive, $609.
- Best Mac Pro Deals, 11.23. Used 2.66 GHz 4-core, $1,300; 3.0 4-core. $1,919; refurb 2.66 4-core Nehalem, $2,149; 2.93, $2,549; 2.93 8-core, $4,999; new 2.26 8-core, $2,290.
- Best Time Capsule and AirPort Deals, 11.23. Used 802.11g AirPort Extreme, $49; 500 GB Time Capsule, $150; new, $190; 1 TB dual-band, $280; 2 TB, $469; 802.11n AirPort Extreme, $170.
- Best eMac Deals, 11.18. Used 1 GHz Combo, $100; SuperDrive, $269; 1.25 GHz Combo, $119; SD, $319; 1.42 GHz Combo, $289; SD, $498.
- Best Mac OS X 10.6 and Mac Box Set Deals, 11.18. "Snow Leopard", single user, $25; 5 users, $45; Mac Box Set, single user, $139; 5 users, $180; Server, $414. Shipping included.
- Best Xserve Deals, 11.18. Used 1 GHz dual G4, $649; 2.3 dual G5, $795; 3.0 4-core Xeon, $1,899; refurb 2.26 4-core, $2,499; new, $2,888; refurb 8-core, $2,999; new, $3,449; more.
- More deals in our archive.
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