The latest info about laptop data storage, including the announcements of new hard drives, hybrid HDDs and solid-state drives.
The Seagate Momentus XT ST750LX003 is the latest generation hybrid hard drive, combining traditional HDD platters with solid state drive storage.
The Momentus XT ST750LX003 SATA2 6Gbps drive spins at 7,200rpm and has 8GB of SLC type NAND Flash memory embedded. The faster than standard laptop HDD rotational speed and inclusion of SSD storage make the ST750LX003 a high-capacity alternative to costly Flash-only SSDs.
Toshiba has joined the 1-Terabyte laptop hard drive market with the MQ01ABD100.
Samsung and Western Digital are the first companies to offer 1TB 2.5-inch hard drives that fit in standard laptops.
Previously, if you wanted more than 750GB of storage in a laptop, you had to choose one of usually larger than average notebooks with dual HDD bays. Now it’s possible to get 1TB of capacity in a single-bay laptop, thanks to the Samsung Spinpoint M8 HN-M101MBB and WD Scorpio Blue WD10JPVT.
Hitachi has released the the Travelstar 5K750 and Travelstar 7K750 laptop hard drive families, featuring storage capacity of up to 750GB.
The new 2.5-inch HDDs have a standard 9.5mm height, a Serial ATA 3Gb/s interface, and 750GB, 640GB or 500GB of storage space. The Travelstar 5K750 has a 5,400rpm speed and 8MB of buffer memory, whereas the 7K750 spins at 7,200rpm. It has a 16MB buffer and optional self-encryption.
Seagate has announced the Momentus XT, a 2.5-inch laptop-use solid state hybrid drive which combines solid state memory with traditional hard disk.
The Momentus XT has a 7,200rpm spin speed, 4GB of solid state memory, and Seagate’s Adaptive Memory technology to deliver “world’s fastest” hard drive performance. According to the manufacturer, it boots the operating system “up to 100% faster” than standard 5,400rpm notebook HDDs and “sets new benchmarks for real-world system performance for notebooks and gaming systems”.
Samsung has announced the Spinpoint MP4 2.5-inch hard drives with 7,200rpm rotational speed and 250GB to 640GB capacity.
The Spinpoint MP4 series are highest-capacity 7200RPM hard drives available for notebooks and feature 16MB of cache and SATA 2 interface.
Western Digital (WD) had released the Scorpion Blue WD7500BPVT standard-height 2.5-inch laptop hard drive with 750GB of storage, “the industry’s highest capacity to date in this form factor”.
WD’s 750GB two-platter 9.5mm-high HDD has the SATA 3Gbps interface, 5,400rpm spin rate, and 8MB of cache. It uses Advanced Format Technology to enable such a large drive capacity.
Toshiba today announced the MK7559GSXP and MK1059GSM 2.5-inch hard drives featuring 750GB and 1GB “industry-leading storage capacities”, respectively.
The 750GB HDD has the laptop-standard 9.5-millimeter height and two platters, whereas the 1TB unit is 12.5mm high and includes three platters.
Seagate has announced this week that it is now shipping its new Momentus FDE self-encrypting laptop hard drives with “government-grade” AES encryption, up to 320GB of capacity, and SATA2 interface.
“Now shipping is the Momentus 5400 FDE.3 hard drive with capacities of 320GB and 160GB and 8MBs of cache, as is Momentus 7200 FDE, Seagate’s first high-performance (7200 RPM) self-encrypting notebook drive, with capacities of 320GB and 160GB and a 16MB cache. Seagate’s Momentus 5400 RPM and 7200 RPM self-encrypting hard drives in capacities up to 500GB are scheduled to begin shipping early next year,” the press release says.
Fujitsu today announced that it has developed MJA2 BH and MJA2 CH, two new 500GB 2.5-inch hard drive models that feature a rotational speed of 5,400rpm and “industry-leading levels of energy efficiency”.
The new HDDs are claimed to consume 1.4W of power when recording data, one-third less than previous models. The drives use SATA 2 interface and have 8MB of cache. Average seek times are 12ms (read) and 14ms (write).
Dell has added a 320GB 7,200rpm hard drive option to its XPS M1730 gaming notebook.
The new high performance 2.5-inch HDD in the M1730 is the latest Seagate Momentus 7200.3 with 16MB of cache and a SATA 2 3Gb/s interface.
Phoenix Technologies today announced it is working with Fujitsu to enable remote disk control and disk data protection for laptops equipped with Fujitsu’s new full disk encryption (FDE) 2.5″ 7,200rpm SATA hard disk drives.
With Phoenix FailSafe technology, the notebook owner can remotely disable the Fujitsu FDE drive in the laptop, thus ensuring “failsafe” protection against data theft and personal information loss, Phoenix says.
Fujitsu Computer Products of America has announced the MHZ2 BJ, its 2.5-inch SATA hard disk drive with 7,200rpm rotational speed and up to 320GB of storage capacity.
The new high performance HDD is designed for use in laptops and slim desktop PCs.
Hitachi has announced the availability of the Travelstar 5K320 2.5-inch notebook hard drives, featuring 320GB of storage capacity, a rotational speed of 5,400rpm, and the Serial ATA 2 3Gb/s interface.
“The Travelstar 5K320 elevates the standard for hard drive reliability with design enhancements that include altitude-sensing Thermal Fly-height Control (TFC), an improved actuator latch and fourth generation perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) head technology. These features combine to safeguard user data that might otherwise be compromised as a result of accidental falls, bumps and rough handling. The drives also include TrueTrack technology, which improves tracking accuracy in high shock or vibration environments,” the company’s press release says.
Fujitsu today announced the release of its new series of MHZ2 BT 2.5″ hard disk drives with data storage capacity of up to 500GB.
The Fujitsu MHZ2 BT HDDs use the Serial ATA 3GB/s interface and spin at 4,200rpm. These drives have 8MB of buffer memory.
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