14 DAY TRIAL // Some may say that 2.5-inch hard disk drive units with 7mm thickness are very, very slim, and we would agree, but there are those who feel they aren't thin enough for their needs.
Makers of particularly skinny ultrabooks are the most avid advocates of storage devices that are thinner than thin.
They were a large part of why 5mm drives were made, and it so happens that Western Digital has one such HDD ready to serve.
With a capacity of 500 GB, it uses the 2.5-inch form factor and is just a bit thicker than a sheet of cardboard.
This truly is a sign that hardware is, consciously or otherwise, using credit cards as a size reference.
"With the launch of our new WD Blue 5 mm ultra slim hard drives and our WD Black SSHD products, currently shipping to OEMs, WD is delivering to our customers a variety of solutions that maximize storage capacity and volumetric efficiency, as well as performance and system responsiveness, for consumers," said Matt Rutledge, vice president of WD's client computing business unit.
"Our engineering team took a clean-sheet approach with 5 mm to deliver an ultra-thin hard drive that enables a world of possibilities and applications for mobile computing and beyond."
The Western Digital Blue UltraSlim hard drive uses tiny edge connectors that merge the SATA and power interface together.
That is why there is still enough room for the drive machinery (the motor that spins the platter, the needle that reads and writes the info).
In addition to ultrabooks, set-top boxes and other media devices, or small PCs (HTPCs), may eventually call on the Blue UltraSlim, though it will take a while for any widespread adoption.
The price of the storage unit is $89 / €68. Quite a low figure, all things considered.