ReviewToshiba is the first manufacturer to deliver a 2.5in laptop hard drive that packs more than 500GB of storage. Its new MK6465GSX sports 640GB on two platters, and while we are aware that the Western Digital Scorpio Blue and Seagate Momentus 5400.7 are also available in 640GB models we haven’t seen either drive to date. Toshiba …

If you're looking for an external hard drive that offers something more than the usual half-a-terabyte of storage in a grey plastic case, Germany's Brinell believes it has what you're after. You see, the Understated and Elegant series of 1.8in Purestorage XS and 2.5in Purestorage 2 drives are wrapped in, respectively, Macassar …

ReviewWe approve of the ongoing miniaturisation of external hard drives, but the process has its limits. Western Digital's latest My Passport Essential is among the smallest drives of its class, but WD's choice of a tiny connector could be the product's downfall. WD My Passport Essential WD's My Passport Essential: quirky, …

ReviewFreecom appears to be taking a leap out of LaCie's book. Once known for cheap but plain looking storage products, Freecom has been bitten by the design bug. Freecom XS Freecom's XS: do hard drives really need clothing-style labels? Take the XS, claimed by its maker to be the world's smallest external 3.5in hard drive. This …

ReviewThe 2TB Caviar Black is the second hard drive we have seen with a capacity of two terabytes. Glance back to our 2008 round-up of 1TB drives, which used three or four platters, and you can see that this is pretty much a doubling of areal density. Western Digital Caviar Black 2TB Western Digital's Caviar Black 2TB: covered up …

IFASamsung is to ramp its Story Station external hard drive to 2TB early next year, part of the South Korean giant's plan to become a major name in the storage biz. Revealing its plan at the IFA show in Berlin today, Samsung said it will first up the capacity of its stylish S2 2.5in external hard drive to 640GB later this month …

Not to be outdone by Hitachi's new 7200rpm, 500GB 2.5in hard drive, rival disk maker Toshiba has announced a 640GB model, though it only spins at 5400rpm. The full capacity is delivered on just two storage platters thanks to a data density of 528.5Gb per square inch. It means the capacity can be delivered without upping the …

Hitachi's hard drive division has begun shipping - in "limited quantities", mind - a notebook-oriented 3Gb/s Sata HDD with a raw capacity of 500GB and a spin speed of 7200rpm. Like past TravelStar drives, the new 7K500 incorporates automatic data encryption. Hitachi said the drive is one of the first mobile drives to be …

Hitachi Global Storage's SimpleTech subsidiary has rolled out a pair of portable USB hard drives - and a wee adaptor that turns them into basic Nas boxes. Hitachi claims the SimpleTough drive is "one of the world’s most rugged drives for protecting data in harsh environments", taking in its stride "more falls, knocks and …

Samsung has canned the development of 1.8in hard disks in favour of a focus on solid-state drives, it has been claimed. The allegation was made by Taiwanese notebook-maker moles who say the move will mean there are fewer 1.8in drives available for thin'n'light laptops, currently being keenly promoted by the likes of Intel as …

Hard drives could experience a massive increase in capacity next year now that a "major" HDD maker has placed an order for equipment to mass-produce 'patterned media' drives. Earlier this week, Malmö, Sweden-based fabrication-equipment maker Obducat announced it had reached an agreement with "a major player in th HDD industry …

Seagate's CEO said he believes manufacturers of solid-state drives are treading on his company's technological toes. But in an interview, Bill Watkins hinted that Seagate won't sue unless SSDs become more popular. Speaking to Fortune magazine, Watkins said that right now laptops with SSDs are just too expensive and deliver too …

Western Digital has begun churning out its dual-platter 640GB 3.5in Caviar SE16 hard drive in volume, the hard drive manufacturer said today, though buyers will be keener to hear when it'll ship drives with four or more platters. The desktop-oriented SE16 line currently runs to 750GB, the top-of-the-line drive being a model …

Western Digital has claimed to have created the world's highest density hard drive platter, a unit that packs in 520Gb per inch squared - more than double the highest density products on the market today. They typically offer an data density of 200Gbpi² - just not enough to yield the 640GB-per-platter storage capacity needed …

Hot on the heels of Samsung's 3.5in SpinPoint hard disk drive launch last week comes a pair of new 2.5in models, one pitched at servers, the other at notebooks and consumer electronics kit like DVRs. Samsung SpinPoint 2.5in mobile HDD The 5,400rpm SpinPoint M5 line will come in 60-160GB versions, with models that extend …