Fujitsu has unveiled what it claims is the world's first 2.5in, notebook-oriented SATA hard drive with a "second-generation perpendicular recording"-boosted capacity of 300GB.

The part's called the MHX2300BT and will also be offered with a 250GB storage capacity. Fujitsu claimed the drives a not only "exceptionally quiet" but consume just 1.6W of power during read and write operations.

The downside is that the drive won't become commercially available until the end of February 2007, which while may be inconvenient for laptop owners keen to install a new, significantly more capacious hard drive, is nonetheless perfectly timed for notebook manufacturers gearing up to launch 'Santa Rosa' Centrino machines. ®