News

posted on 17 July 2008 13:23

Toshiba has announced a 400GB, 2-platter, 2.5-inch hard disk drive spinning a 5.400rpm plus a 320GB one spinning at 7,200rpm.

The 400GB one is the world's first commercially available 200GB/platter 2.5-inch drive (SFF - small form factor) and comes in a standard 9.5mm-high package fitting into existing 2.5-inch drive slots. Toshiba previously manufactured 160GB platters and its areal density has now increased to 308Gbit/sq in (477Mbit/mm²). Both drives use a 3Gbit/s SATA II interface.

Fujitsu announced a 500GB 2.5-inch drive in February but it relied on a 3-platter design with a 166GB/platter rating or thereabouts. Hitachi and Samsung (Spinpoint M6) also have 3-platter 500GB 2.5-inch drives. Seagate expects to be shipping a 500GB 2.5-inch drive by Christmas.

Westrn Digital's Scorpio Black drive holds 320GB and spins at 7,200ropm, so too does the Seagate Momentus 7200.3. Toshiba is catching up in this area.

Toshiba's new MK4058GSX 5,400rpm drive is nearly inaudible during seek operations through new acoustic masking techniques. It is positioned for video and audio playback applications. The more responsive MKxx54GSY 320GB, 7,200rpm model is positioned for image processing, video editing, multimedia and gaming.

Both drives have free fall sensors available.

The 7,200rpm model will begin shipping in August with the 400GB model entering high-volume production in September. No pricing information is available.

1.8-inch Drives

Toshiba has also announced an expanded 1.8-inch hard disk drive line with one and 2-platter 5,400prpm models offering 80GB and 160GB respectively and using a SATA I 1.5Gbit/s interface and micro-SATA connector. Toshiba is using a shared architecture between its 1.8-inch and 2.5-inch drives. These drives are for sub-notebook computers such as the Asus Eeee product. Toshiba is the number one shipper worldwide of 1.8-inch HDDs. Both new models will ship in August. Again no pricing information was available.

^{[Martin Edwards, news writer.]}