Free WiFi Hotspot Locator from TechNewsWorldHitachi's Global Storage Technologies division announced Monday that, "driven by exponential increase in demand" for its one-inch Microdrive, the company is upgrading and expanding its Thailand facility to produce up to double the number of hard drives it presently manufactures.
According to the company, Hitachi GST plans to increase the production of its Microdrives, along with production of its 2.5-inch Travelstar and 3.5-inch Deskstar drives, from 30 million to 60 million annually.
The Thailand Board of Investment, which oversees GST's manufacturing plant, recently approved Hitachi's request to double its hard drive output. Hitachi will spend approximately US$200 million for the expansion.
Ramping Up
"The growth of consumer electronics devices that require high-capacity, miniaturized storage 
is accelerating the pace of Microdrive adoption beyond our expectations," Bill Healy, senior vice president of consumer and commercial hard-disk drives at Hitachi GST, said. "We are validated in seeing the tremendous opportunity that now exists for the one-inch and other small-form-factor drives."
According to Hitachi spokesperson Jim Pascoe, the GST division produced 200,000 Microdrives during the first quarter of 2004. He went on to tell MacNewsWorld that the division expects to ramp up production of the 4-GB Microdrives to several million per quarter by the end of 2004 or early 2005.
While Pascoe said he could not comment publicly on whether Hitachi supplied the hard drives for the iPod Mini, an article in the June issue of Mac Addict has photos of an exposed iPod with an Hitachi drive clearly in evidence.
Pascoe did say, however, that the 4-GB Microdrive is used in competing products, such as Creative Lab's Muvo 2.
Good News for Apple
JupiterResearch analyst Joe Wilcox called the announcement good news for Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) 
and the people clamoring for an iPod Mini because the increased drive production should help make more of the candy-colored digital jukeboxes available.
"Any company's worst nightmare is to have a hot new product but not enough inventory to sell," Wilcox told MacNewsWorld. "JupiterResearch surveys show the iPod is the right capacity for most consumers, who typically have less than 1,000 songs on their computers."
During the interview, Wilcox disclosed that his wife was one of the people clamoring for an iPod Mini and had asked him to get her one as a Mother's Day gift. When he tried to purchase it at his local Apple reseller, he was told the wait-time would be about four-to-six weeks.
"In the end my wife got her iPod, because a new Apple retail store opened nearby with a small supply of iPod minis for the grand opening," Wilcox reported, adding that he was able to find her a green one as she had requested.
Presently, the wait-time to buy an iPod Mini on the Apple Store online is about six weeks. 
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