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Toshiba Pushes Notebook Drives to 750 GB, 1 TB

Geoff Duncan
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Sure, solid-state drives (SSDs) might be the hip thing for notebooks, what with their battery-sipping superpower and no-moving-parts durability… butToshiba America Storage Device Division is doing everything it can to make sure traditional notebook hard drives still lead the way for storage capacity. The company has announced two new 2.5-inch SATA drives for notebook computers: a 9.5mm model that boasts a 750 GB capacity, and a taller 12.5mm model that pushes all the way out to 1 TB. The new drives were developed in part through Toshiba’s acquisition of Fujitsu’s hard drive operations and feature 4K byte-per-sector formatting and improved error correction technologies. And, the 9.5mm drive not only boasts more capacity than its 640 GB predecessors…it uses less power too.

“Since the introduction of our first 4K byte-per-sector offering on a 1.8-inch HDD in 2007, we have leveraged our miniaturization expertise to perfect this technology, balancing storage advancements and reliability with solid performance,” said Toshiba Storage Device Division VP Maciek Brzeski, in a statement. “As a result, Toshiba can deliver performance benefits with high capacity drives using the 4K byte-per-sector implementation by working with product manufacturers to maintain compatibility with the host device’s operating system and software packages.”

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The 5,400 rpm MK7559GSXP Hard Disk Drive features a two-platter design with a 750 GB capacity, 9.5mm height (so it’ll fit into most standard notebook hard drive bays), and an SATA interface with a 3 Gb/s transfer rate. The MKxx59GSM Series Hard Disk Drives push capacities up to 1 TB with a three-platter design, and are designed more for gaming notebooks, mobile workstations, and other storage-hungry systems. Both drives feature a “silent seek” mechanism that claims to make every seek as quiet as an idling hard drive.

The 9.5mm and 12.5mm drives should get to PC makers in the second and third quarters respectively, although design samples are getting out the door this month and next. No word yet on pricing.

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Geoff Duncan
Geoff Duncan
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Geoff Duncan writes, programs, edits, plays music, and delights in making software misbehave. He's probably the only member…
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