New IBM Chips for laptops

[Coroner]

"Two new models of ThinkPad notebook computers, unveiled this week by IBM Corp., come with a chip that can detect when the laptop is accelerating — such as when it has been accidentally nudged off a table and is plunging to the floor.

If the hard drive happens to be reading or writing data at the time, the chip tells the drive to temporarily stop. Hard drives are at their most vulnerable when reading and writing data, so IBM believes the crash-protection chip will help guard against such losses of important information.

The crash chips are found in IBM's new ThinkPad R50 and T41 models, which start at $1,529 and $1,649 respectively. " -- AP

Sounds good but just how fast will they actually respond?

 

[spfd]

i think it sucks

 

[g5orbust]

what if youre carrying your laptop and you hand it to some one considerably shorter than you?

I doubt the response is very fast, as something faling from a table is pretty quick. Ive seen how long it takes a hard drive to stop moving after the POWER has been shut off and I know a laptop falling from a table would take a shorter amount of time to hit the ground.

 

[ekÆsine]

well g5orbust the disks are still spinning due to momentum but that doesn't mean the read/write heads are still operating.

this just sounds like vehicle airbag technology. hard disk read/ write heads move pretty damn quick so this isn't that impossible.

 

[g5orbust]

well g5orbust the disks are still spinning due to momentum but that doesn't mean the read/write heads are still operating.

this just sounds like vehicle airbag technology. hard disk read/ write heads move pretty damn quick so this isn't that impossible.

wouldnt a heavy jolt, such as a drop, send the hard drive platters into the read-write head regardless?