Toshiba has developed a hard drive for notebook computers that can hold 100GB of data. The company expects to begin selling it later this year, it says.
The new hard drive offers a quarter more storage space than the company's current highest capacity notebook drive and is the first 2.5-inch drive from any manufacturer to store 100GB, according to Toshiba.
The company employed a new thin-film technology on both the head and platter to make the drive. That film increased the head's sensitivity and allowed engineers to increase the areal density to 80 gigabits per square inch, from the 65 gigabits per square inch on Toshiba's current 80GB notebook drives, says Midori Suzuki, a spokesperson for Toshiba in Tokyo.
Making Changes
The company also changed the slider that keeps the drive's read/write head at the correct distance above the disk surface. The new slider is 35 percent smaller and much lighter than the old one. Its reduced size means the head assembly can get closer to the outer edge of each platter thus freeing up more space for data storage, Suzuki says.
The drive contains two 2.5-inch platters to bring the total capacity to 100GB.
Operating shock resistance has also been increased to 325G, which is 50 percent higher than Toshiba's 80GB drive, and power consumption is 20 percent lower on average, the company says. The drive has an ATA-6 interface and speed of 4200 revolutions per minute.
Toshiba plans to begin sample production of the new drive in May and expects commercial production to start during the third quarter of this year. Drives manufactured during sampling, when Toshiba produces small quantities of the device for customer evaluation, will cost $1096. The company has no estimate for the final price when mass production begins.
