Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (HGST) issued a statement yesterday promising that the 4GB Microdrive, first announced in January 2003, will ship this November at a suggested retail price of US$499. Sample units of the card have already been circulated to Kodak, Minolta, Nikon, Olympus, Pentax, Sigma and Sony, says an HGST press release.

A 2GB version is planned for release before the end of the year as well, at an unspecified price.

The company has posted a white paper entitled The Mobile Market and the Hitachi 4GB Microdrive that provides additional information about the upcoming high-capacity CompactFlash card.