14 DAY TRIAL // Storage specialist Fujitsu Limited announced a new series of MHZ2 BT 2.5-inch hard disk drives that offer 500 GB of storage space. The new series of enhanced-capacity hard-disk drives is the company's response to the users' increased demand in storage space, while preserving the system's mobility.
The new hard-disk drives are energy-efficient and draw only 1.8 watts of power during the read and write operations, which situates them among the most power-efficient drives in the 2.5-inch form factor. The new hard-disk drives have been built with Fujitsu's energy-efficient technology that is part of the Green Policy Innovation program.
Fujitsu has come up with the new size by combining three platters in a single hard-disk drive. Each magnetically-coated platter can offer a total capacity of 170 GB. Fujitsu seems to be quite late with the model, given the fact that both Hitachi and Samsung Electronics have long since introduced three-platter models.
Just like Hitachi's drive, the MHZ2 BT is slightly taller than the 2.5-inch standard. The 12.5-millimeter drive will surely be a pain for the notebook users that just won't accept anything but standard, 9.5-millimeter designs. This means that the disk from Fujitsu will follow into Hitachi's footsteps: it won't get widely adopted because of the height limitations. Samsung was the only competitor to deliver standard, 9.5-millimeter drives with 500 GB of data crammed on three 166 GB platters.
Fujitsu will start shipping its first "bulky" 2.5-inch drives in early May this year. The disk will come with a SATA-II interface and will allow data transfer rates of up to 300MB/s. Fujitsu did not disclose the estimated retail price for the unit, but the drives will arrive right after the competitors have launched their own products. Hitachi announced that it would ship its 2.5-inch drive until the end of February, while Samsung estimated that it will start shipping its drives in March.