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Toshiba is giving IBM and Hitachi with their Microdrive a run for the money with the announcement today at the Consumer Electronics Show of a new 0.85-inch hard disk drive, the first hard drive to deliver multi-gigabyte data storage to a sub-one-inch form factor. The considerably larger Microdrive is a CompactFlash Type II device.

The new Toshiba drive, only a quarter the size of a 1.8-inch drive, will have an initial capacity of 2 to 4 GB, and is aimed at delivering enhanced data storage to products that include mobile phones, digital camcorders, digital cameras, PDAs and more. Toshiba said it anticipates achieving higher densities in the near future for even larger storage capacities.

At a little less than 1-inch, the 3,600 rpm drive is about the same size as an SD card. Since it won’t be solid state, it should cost a lot less. However, it’ll have a larger access time (how long it takes to retrieve data from storage) and a higher power consumption because it has moveable parts.

Toshiba expects to start sampling the new drive in summer 2004 and to start mass production in the fall.