In order for a tech company or hardware developer to stay in business in the tech-world, they must always be focusing on the future –more so than any other industry. Technology and devices are always changing and new things being invented. If a company produces the same old devices and never evolves, they will simply be left in the dust.

That’s why it’s never a surprise when someone puts together some new device or invents something that works differently. This always happens. But, it’s pretty impressive when companies take a device that really hasn’t changed much over the years and vamps it up.

Two new types of hard drives are currently in the works. They are still pretty simple devices, but most devices simply can’t function without a hard drive. But with everyone wanting devices that look sleek and expensive and do almost anything, the hard drive logically needs to change to fit into the smaller devices and manage data better.

Hitachi introduced a new powerful hard drive that will be added to smaller devices that need more power. This sleek disk drive is only 7mm thick and about 2.5 inches long. But despite its size, it operates almost silently and only has one platter instead of two. The single platter doesn’t slow it down though – it still works at about 7,200rpm and offers up to 500 GB of storage! Like I said — pretty impressive for a little guy.

On top of the new Hitachi hard drive, other companies are also developing hybrid drives, which are aimed to better fit into smaller products, operate smoothly and bring down the overall price of the device. The hybrid hard drives are a combination of a typical hard disk and a solid-state disk drive. The solid-state drive does not move, but works with the typical hard disk to store data.

While the hybrid disk drives aren’t exactly considered top of the line, they do work well and are pretty small. They are usually integrated into ultrabooks and other small devices. Because these devices are usually pretty popular, mostly due to their looks and portability, installing a hybrid disk drive helps bring down the price to a more reasonable level.

So, it’s evident that tech companies need to keep up with the times of change, and obviously projects and devices are in the works. It’s always interesting to see the new changes that come with updated hardware and the way they will change our world.