Microsoft and Samsung showed off a prototype hard drive Monday that can record data while idling, a twist that has the potential to significantly cut power consumption in notebooks. The trick is that the hard drive contains a 1Gb flash memory chip from Samsung’s OneNAND family. Incoming data is directly recorded to the chip. When the chip is about full, the hard drive wakes up, takes the data, records it and goes back into idle. Typically, hard drives rotate. Hard drive motors, along with LCD screens, are two of the largest consumers of power inside a laptop.