The Seagate ST1 is a miniature 1-inch

hard drive A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating platters coated with magnet ...

with the

CompactFlash CompactFlash (CF) is a flash memory mass storage device used mainly in portable electronic devices. The format was specified and the devices were first manufactured by SanDisk in 1994. CompactFlash became one of the most successful of the e ...

Type II form factor, much like IBM's

Microdrive The Microdrive is a registered trademark for miniature, 1-inch hard disks produced by IBM and Hitachi. These rotational media storage devices were designed to fit in CompactFlash (CF) Type II slots. The release of similar drives by other ...

. Unlike

Sony , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...

and

Hitachi () is a Japanese multinational corporation, multinational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate corporation headquartered in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. It is the parent company of the Hitachi Group (''Hitachi Gurūpu'') and had formed part of the Ni ...

and allegedly GS Magicstor branded drives, Seagate developed their technology from scratch. As of 2005 most 5 gigabyte

MP3 player A portable media player (PMP) (also including the related digital audio player (DAP)) is a portable consumer electronics device capable of storing and playing digital media such as audio, images, and video files. The data is typically stored o ...

s in production had ST1 drives embedded in them. Notable improvements over IBM's design include *2-

megabyte The megabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information. Its recommended unit symbol is MB. The unit prefix ''mega'' is a multiplier of (106) in the International System of Units (SI). Therefore, one megabyte is one million bytes o ...

data buffer *A mechanism to hold the

read-write head A disk read-and-write head is the small part of a disk drive which moves above the disk platter and transforms the platter's magnetic field into electrical current (reads the disk) or, vice versa, transforms electrical current into magnetic f ...

in place when the drive is not in use *Some level of internal diagnostics, possibly the earliest form of S.M.A.R.T Inside a 1-inch Seagate ST1 Micro HDD

All ST1 drives have "For Embedded Application Only" printed on the back of them, which has led some people to think that the CF mode required for use in

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s is disabled. This is in fact not true and was most likely put there to remind the user that the drive was not designed for continuous use in a desktop computer.

ST1 Models

ST1 Series: *ST625211CF/FX (2.5GB) (2004) *ST650211CF/FX (5GB) (2004) ST1.2 Series: *ST64022CF/FX (4GB) (2005) *ST66022CF/FX (6GB) (2005) *ST68022CF/FX (8GB) (2005) ST1.3 Series: *ST660712DE/DEG (6GB) (2006) *ST680712DE/DEG (8GB) (2006) *ST610712DE/DEG (10GB) (2006) *ST612712DE/DEG (12GB) (2006) The CF, DE, DEG, FX suffixes are for CompactFlash+ Type II, ZIF, (zero insertion force) IDE interface, Flex (IDE interface) interfaces respectively. DEG models also include an additional free-fall sensor for robust drop performance. Unlike most hard disk drives produced at that time, ST1.2 drives have physical sector size of 1024 bytes.

References

External links

*Seagate ST1 Series datasheets
ST1.2ST1.3
Portable hard drives {{product-stub