Just as the capacity of flash memory is starting to infringe on hard drive territory, Seagate has unveiled a 12GB disc drive which is only 1 inch across. The company has even made it smaller than existing 1 inch drives by removing the connector and packaging, so we now have a 12GB drive that is smaller than its 8GB predecessor.

The drive is intended for use in mobile phones and portable music players. It uses perpendicular recording technology to cram more data onto the same size platter. Normal hard drives store data by placing charges horizontally on the disc. Perpendicular drives place the charges `upright` meaning that more can be placed into the same area. The new ST1.3 Series also has 30% less power consumption than previous models.

``Portable, on-demand video is driving the next wave of revenue opportunity for the mobile phone and entertainment communities. As consumer adoption drives the demand for the availability of video content anytime and anywhere, the need for tiny, high-capacity hard drives becomes more apparent,`` said Brodie Keast, Seagate`s general manager of consumer electronics.

However, at the same time as Seagate was trumpeting the ST1.3 at 3GSM in Barcelona, rival firm Cornice was unveiling 8GB and 10GB versions of its Dragon Series drives, which although smaller in capacity than the Seagate offering, have an even smaller form factor.

Look out flash ROM...hard disc technology isn`t quite dead yet.