14 DAY TRIAL // Tablets usually employ embedded solid state memory chips or very small MSATA solid-state drives for storage, but laptops still use HDDs mostly, which is why Seagate, Western Digital and Toshiba worked hard on super-thin models.
After all, regular 2.5-inch mobile drives of 9 mm and 7 mm thickness may be fine for regular notebooks, but the same cannot be said about ultrabooks.
Especially when there are some ultrabooks which, even closed, are actually thinner than tablets.
Obviously, makers of platter spinners had to create high-capacity platters and then miniaturize the motor and reading mechanisms as well.
First came the move from 9 mm to 7 mm, and lately we've been seeing definite activity on the small 5 mm drive industry.
Western Digital was first, one might say, but Seagate has launched one as well, with a capacity of 500 GB.
"When we originally demonstrated this solution last September, we knew we had a truly innovative product that would empower our partners to reimagine mobile applications," said Steve Luczo, president, CEO and chairman of Seagate.
"The strong support from our OEM partners indicates we have delivered on our vision and look forward to a new wave of innovative solutions enabled by this revolutionary product."
The drive has a price of $89 / €89 and has, so far, been used in ASUS and Dell laptops. Or soon will be included in them. Computex 2013 (June 4-8) will act as staging ground for them.
"The new Seagate Laptop Ultrathin truly raises the bar, enabling us to finally create high-capacity, thin and light laptops that consumers crave at mass-market price points they can afford," said S.Y. Shian, corporate vice president and general manager of Asus' notebook business unit.
"The drive's capacity, coupled with its ultra-slim, lightweight footprint, empowers our engineers to think out of the box and create truly ground-breaking, innovative system designs- it's a win- win for both us and the consumer."