Toshiba Introduces Industry's Largest-Capacity, 320GB 1.8-inch HDD

[btarunr]

Toshiba Corporation, the industry pioneer in small form factor hard disk drives (HDDs), today introduced a new line up of 1.8-inch HDDs with a maximum capacity of 320GB, the highest yet announced by the industry, targeted at thin and light mobile PCs and portable external hard disk drives. The new series delivers three models in 160GB, 250GB and 320GB capacities, and will start mass production from December.

Improvement of the MK3233GSG family's perpendicular magnetic recording head and the disk's magnetic layer secure an areal density of 801 Mbit/mm² (516Gbpsi), the industry's highest for 1.8-inch HDDs. The new drives position Toshiba to provide manufacturers of PCs and peripheral equipment with thin and light solutions offering the industry's largest storage density in a 1.8-inch form factor. They also deliver highly efficient power consumption, high-level durability and quiet seek operation.



Equipped with a serial ATA interface, 5,400 RPM rotational speed and a large capacity 16 MB buffer memory, Toshiba's MK3233GSG HDDs are ideal for notebook PC applications that require high storage capacity and high speed processing. The areal density improvement allows MK3233GSG to boost internal data transfer rates by 15% from the MK2529GSG, the company's earlier 250GB 1.8-inch HDD.

The new 250 and 320GB drives, the MK 2533GSG and MK3233GSG, cut acoustic noise during seek to 19dB, a 4dB decrease from the MK2529GSG, the top-end drive in Toshiba's previous generation of 5,400RPM 1.8-inch HDD.

Leveraging Toshiba's long history of expertise in miniaturization and the 1.8-inch HDD form factor, the MK3233GSG family delivers significant environmentally friendly performance improvements from the MK2529GSG generation of 1.8-inch drives, including a 19% improvement in energy consumption efficiency. The MK3233GSG family is also compliant with the European Union's RoHS directive, halogen-free and antimony free.



View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[Mussels]

this will make a very large capacity ipod

 

[ov2rey]

this will make a very large capacity ipod

but more expensive then 3.5 or 2.5 inch right?

 

[DaveK]

this will make a very large capacity ipod

Too bad Apple don't really care what we want. I loved my 160GB classic, but when the 250GB 1.8" drives came out what did they do? Ditched the 160GB and went down to 120GB.

I'd love to see an iPod Touch that used a mechanical drive instead of flash memory, a few extra MM in thickness isn't going to hurt as it's really wide and tall, besides I'd rather a slightly thicker iPod for what would be 250GB or 320GB, I always preferred the extra capacity, I got the 80GB 5.5G and the 160GB Classic and never had a problem with the extra thickness.

Oh well, I can dream...

160GB wasn't enough for me, I actually had videos on my iPod unlike most people I know and seeing that the iPod Touch has a larger, higher resolution screen there's all the more reason for higher quality bit rates to be used but it's half the capacity of the Classic.

 

[pantherx12]

That is an awesome amount of space.

Reckon you could mount 6 of these in the same space you'd normally mount 1 standard HDD?

Could get some insane HDD raid set up going on ha ha

 

[Flyordie]

Well, the Ipod Touch can't handle high bit rates... so why have high capacity?

 

[DaveK]

Well, the Ipod Touch can't handle high bit rates... so why have high capacity?

I've read it can handle up to 4800kbps which is more than enough, on a screen that size and resolution 1000kbps is a good bitrate, higher capacity = more movies and tv shows.

 

[Mussels]

I've read it can handle up to 4800kbps which is more than enough, on a screen that size and resolution 1000kbps is a good bitrate, higher capacity = more movies and tv shows.

while its enough for the platform, it kinda sucks to be forced to re-encode your entire collection - likely for only a single viewing on a trip, for example.

 

[danwat1234]

So, when will 500GB 1.8" drives come out? It's been 18 months or so since this 320GB drive has come out.. From what I have seen, 1.8" platters typically have 50% of the capacity of the same-generation 2.5" platter. So, since we are on the verge of having 500GB/platter 2.5" disks @ 5400RPM (1TB for 2 platters), this means that 1.8" platters will soon be 250GB/platter. Sometime before the end of the year, I'll bet.

 

[danwat1234]

That is an awesome amount of space.

Reckon you could mount 6 of these in the same space you'd normally mount 1 standard HDD?

Could get some insane HDD raid set up going on ha ha

The latency would suck big time! These drives are slow!

 

[xBruce88x]

i think it's safe to say this is no longer news...

500GB 1.8in drives in a Tegra2 smartphone/tablet would be nice though!