They will be made with manufacturing equipment acquired from Western Digital

Aug 8, 2012 06:41 GMT  ·  By

The new series of hard drive units that Toshiba Corporation has formally released is one that can serve as part of digital video drives and TVs with integrated recording functions, in addition to PCs.

Toshiba places emphasis on the storage capacity of 3TB in its press announcement, but the new HDD range is composed of many units besides those who offer that much space.

There are 12 variants in fact, only four of which have 3 TB and the rest come in 2 TB and 1.5 TB capacities.

3TB is described as a good capacity level for satisfying the “growing demand for storage of multiple HD video sources.”

The SATA III 6.0 Gbps interface is a given, as is compliance with environmental specifications such as RoHS (design free of hazardous substances).

What isn't all that necessary for magnetic drives, but which Toshiba did its best to include anyway, is silent operation through the “silent seek mode,” which reduces noise by 1 dB and 2 dB compared to normal mode for three- and four-disk products, respectively.

“This feature is highly suited to viewing music with noise reduction in quiet environments,” Toshiba explains.

There is one last asset that Toshiba included in the list of relevant features: an optional rotation speed reduction mode that can lessen idle energy draw by up to 54%.

The three 3TB HDDs HDD are called DT01ACA 300, DT01ACA 300V, DT01ABA 300 and DT01ABA 300V. You'll find their specifications, and those of their smaller siblings, in the screenshots on the left.

That said, Toshiba's new HDD range is the first to be produced with the manufacturing equipment bought from Western Digital.

Volume shipments will commence at the end of the month, but we don't have any prices to impart since the public release did not include them and we have yet to stumble upon online store listings.

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