Hard disk drive companies don't plan to launch even smaller HDDs

While consumers have gone bonkers for music players and other sleek devices sporting tiny hard drives, disk drive companies say there's little room, and even less desire, for further reducing the size of the drive platters--the silver disks that spin around and hold data.

Since the platters constitute a substantial portion of the overall volume of the drive, this means a ceiling looms for shrinking drive sizes and potential increased competition from flash memory.