Toshiba today brought the wide ranging capabilities of HD DVD to the desktop PC with the announcement of a standard height HD DVD drive able to read and write to HD DVD and to standard DVD and CD discs. Sample shipments of the new drive, SD-H903A, are scheduled to start this month. The new SD-H903A integrates a blue-violet laser diode that can read and write to HD DVD-R discs and that offers support for high-density HD DVD-ROM discs, including high definition movie and video images. The drive also offers all the functionality of a super multi-drive, with high performance, high-speed read and write to all flavors of standard DVD and CD discs. It comes with SATA interface and 8MB buffer. Toshiba will feature the new drive at the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2007.

Toshiba, manufacturer of a number of electrical goods, has announced a new 100GB hard drive only 1.8 inches in size. This enormous capacity gives it the largest storage of its class, with a low power consumption of 0.003 Watts per gigabyte. The drive manages to store an impressive 155.3 gigabits per square inch, spining at 4,200rpm with transfer speeds of up to 100MB/s. It is expected to begin shipping in the second half of 2007.