Seagate announced a 500 GB HDD, the 'Ultra Mobile HDD', that has the approximate footprint of a credit card for mobile computers:
While not specifically designed for surveillance, the size and low power requirements would appear to be a match for cameras featuring storage at the edge. While the drive claims (rather pedestrian) speeds of 5400 RPM, that would prove more than adequate for a single camera, or even a small gang of cameras, to write/rewrite upon.
The drive's specsheet also claims to consume only 1.4W, which is within the typical parameters of other integrated options (ie: IR LEDs) and is certainly powerable within Class2/3 PoE parameters.
No word on pricing, but an interesting potential for edge storage in a market infatuated with SD storage currently limited to ~64GB.
What do you think? Are magnetic disks at the edge a step forward or a step backward?