Cornice has announced its fifth generation small form factor (SFF) hard disk. Only measuring an inch in length, it holds twelve gigabytes and has a wide variety of potential applications. Not only does this drive have a spectacular capacity for its size, it also has low power consumption and will only use 5% of the battery in the average MP3 player. Now, now, I know what you’re all thinking: what happens if you drop it, shake it, or just plain out abuse it. Well Cornice technicians have thought about this, and designed an active latch mechanism that will lock the head in place when the drive is under stress, hopefully preventing any crashes. The suggested price for this gizmo is $85 and will appear in Q3 of 2006.

Cornice’s New One Inch 12GB Drive [Dailytech]