Western Digital to enter minidrive arena

Hard drive maker Western Digital announced Wednesday that it will be entering the mini hard drive market in the second quarter, when it begins shipping a one-inch product. Western Digital's one-inch drives will be available as CompactFlash Type II cards and will be integrated into products and will reach capacities up to 6GB. The company has yet to determine pricing for its drives.

Western Digital joins a growing list of companies, including Hitachi, Seagate and Toshiba, that are addressing the growing market as portable devices, such as digital audio players and cameras, begin to incorporate hard drives.