Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/03/hitachi_tips_500gb_laptop_drive/
Hitachi hypes 'world's most capacious' laptop hard drive
500GB drive coming to Asus laptops
Posted in Hardware, 3rd January 2008 11:17 GMT
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Hitachi's Global Storage Technologies group has rolled out what it claims is the world's most capacious laptop-friendly hard drive - a 500GB monster that notebook maker Asus has already said it will build into future machines.
The 2.5in Travelstar 5K500 spins at 5400rpm and contains three disc platters and six read/write heads. Hitachi quoted an average latency of 5.5ms and an average read time of 12ms. It connects to the host across a 1.5Gb/s or 3Gb/s SATA interface. The new drives consume 1.9W of power during read and write operations, falling to 0.7W during idle time.
Hitachi said a second version of the 12.5mm-high drive will be offered, this time with integrated automatic data encryption. However, this is limited to a 1.5Gb/s SATA link.
For its part, Asus said it would use the 5K500 in its upcoming M50 and M70 notebooks - the latter with a pair of the drives for a full 1TB of unformatted storage capacity.
The Travelstar 5K500 will be available around the world in February, not only at 500GB but also in a 400GB model.
That's the same timeframe rival drive maker Fujitsu is expecting to get its 320GB 2.5in drive out the door [1]. Western Digital, for one, has been offering 320GB hard drives for laptops since October 2007 [2].