Hitachi slips past Fujitsu with speedy 320GB laptop drive
Print7,200rpm, 2.5-inch drive out-firsts 'world's first'
Posted in Storage, 8th May 2008 19:49 GMT
Free whitepaper – Avoiding costs from oversizing data center and network room infrastructure
Hitachi is updating its TravelStar laptop hard drive range with a more capacious 320GB disk that spins at 7,200rpm.
The refresh follows Fujitsu's announcement of its own 320GB, 7,200rpm notebook disk drive, for which the company staked a "world's first" claim back in March.
As we pointed out then - the timing left an opening for a rival hard drive makers to swoop in and beat Fujisu to market. Here's that prophesy fulfilled on cue. Fujitsu says its MHZ2 BJ 320GB will go on sale at the end of June. Hitachi is shipping its version now.
The 2.5-inch Travelstar 7K320 beats its year-old 7,200rpm predecessor by an additional 120GB capacity. Hitachi also claims an application performance gain of 12 per cent, and reduced power consumption by 22 per cent. Power specs are: 1.8W read/write power and 0.2W standby power.
The drive connects across a SATA 3Gb/s interface, or alternatively 1.5Gb/s in models featuring on-board automatic data encryption technology.
Hitachi's drive is gunning for notebook builders, compact desktops, gaming systems, video surveillance systems, and blade servers. For the latter segment Hitachi plans to ship "enhanced-availability" models, specifically designed for low-duty cycle, 24x7 applications. Customers will need to wait until the third quarter of 2008 for the EA models to ship.
The Travelstar 7k320 will be available for around $220 (~£113). ®
Free whitepaper – Fundamental Principles of Air Conditioners for Information Technology
Enabling the Agile Data Center
Straight Talk with Dell: Sending out an SaaS
New storage architectures make SSDs more cost-effective
Dell PowerEdge R710 solution vs. Dell PowerEdge 2850 solution
Analyst Keynote: The Register Agile Data Center Summit
Vint Cerf mods Android for interplanetary interwebs
Adaptec CEO on the ropes after dreadful results
Boffins working on biodegradable flexi LED implants
Nvidia taps Transmeta team for x86 chip, claims analyst