14 DAY TRIAL // Toshiba have announced the expansion of their small-form, 1.8-inch hard-disk drive line. The five new disk drives are aiming at the PC and at the consumer electronics applications market. The new models include a 120GB for notebook PCs and a single-platter, 80 GB version to be used with ultra-mobile PCs as well as with portable handheld devices.
The new small-form factor disk drives include the 120GB MK1214GAH, the 60GB MK6028GAL and the lightweight 80GB MK8025GAL. The disks come equipped with a PATA interface only and feature 2MB buffer and 512 byte-per-sector format. In the handheld sector, Toshiba releases two 60 GB disk drives featuring a single platter only.
These models feature only 5 millimeter height and have special attributes that make them suitable for the handheld sector. The CE HDDs are manufactured using long data sector technology with 1K byte-per-sector formats optimized for CE systems.
"Long data sector technology brings advantages in drive format efficiency, improved error correction capability and enhanced storage capacity", said Dr. Michael A. Russak, executive director of IDEMA-US, the international trade association of the HDD industry. "Clearly, Toshiba is a leader in taking advantage of these benefits and will be delivering more robust, highly efficient storage solutions to its customers. IDEMA has been working to support member companies in migrating from the traditional 512 byte data sector format to larger formats as Toshiba has done in these products."
The new models are addressing different markets and the high-capacity 80GB drive is especially suitable for use within highly portable, thin and light PCs as well as mobile Internet devices. The 60 GB products in the CE family are to be used in camcorders, digital cameras and other handheld devices.
"We are the only HDD manufacturer with a proven track record of success in the 1.8-inch HDD category, and we see healthy opportunity for continued growth and adoption of this form factor", said Maciek Brzeski, vice president of marketing at Toshiba SDD. "With increasing capacities and better features for mobility, 1.8-inch HDDs are driving new markets and finding their way into traditional storage-hungry applications such as mobile PCs."