Archive for the 'Laptop Hard Drives' Category

Correction: The LG Electronics representative told Laptoping.com authors that the reported R400 notebook does not feature hybrid hard drive. Also, the image published in this article is not the R400’s.

“LG considers to introduce a Hybrid HDD notebook but we haven’t decided when to release it. In conclusion, we do not provide the R400 with a Hybrid HDD,” the representative said.

LG R400, the first notebook with hybrid hard drive, will be available starting in the end of March, according to its product page at Canadian OnlineElectronics store.

LG R400 incorporates Samsung’s 2.5-inch MH80 hybrid HDD with 120GB of storage capacity. There are MH80 models with built-in 128MB or 256MB of flash memory used for data buffering. When compared to standard laptop hard drives which usually have 2MB, 4MB, or 8MB of buffer cache, hybrid HDDs offer benefits such as improved boot up times and faster application loading, as well as decreased power consumption and better reliability.

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Samsung Electronics has announced it has begun shipments of its hybrid hard drives. Samsung’s MH80 series hybrid HDDs are offered in 80GB, 120GB and 160GB capacities and with 128 or 256 megabytes of built-in flash memory, DigiTimes reports.

“Optimized to work in conjunction with Windows Vista capable notebook PCs, Samsung’s MH80 combines a hard disk drive with a cache comprised of Samsung’s OneNAND flash memory, and Microsoft’s ReadyDrive software, offering faster boot and resume times, increased battery life and greater reliability compared to traditional magnetic media technology,” the report says.

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Fujitsu today announced the development of the new MHW2 BJ series of world’s first 7,200rpm 2.5-inch hard disk drives with a serial ATA 3.0 Gb/s - also known as SATA2 - interface. Featuring the MHW2160BJ with “the world’s highest storage capacity of 160GB for a 2.5-inch HDD with 7,200rpm rotational speed”, the new series is targeted primarily at high-performance notebook computers.

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Samsung has introduced the world’s first 1.8-inch hard drive with a 60GB capacity on one HDD platter. It is designed for use in ultraportable computers and other consumer electronics products.

“Until now, two disks (platters) were required to reach a 60GB storage capacity in a 1.8-inch drive, which increased the height and size of the drive. Samsung’s N-series utilizes perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) technology to offer 60GBs on a single disk. As a result, Samsung is the first to offer a 60GB solution in the slimmest available 5-millimeter form factor. This makes the drive ideal for use in small portable media centers and mobile music devices,” the company says.

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SanDisk introduced a 32GB 1.8-inch solid state drive (SSD), based on NAND flash memory, as a drop-in replacement for the standard mechanical hard disk drive in laptop computers.

A notebook PC equipped with SanDisk SSD can boot Microsoft Windows Vista Enterprise in as little as 35 seconds, compared with 55 seconds for a laptop with a standard HDD, the company claims. Also, it can achieve an average file access rate of 0.12 milliseconds compared to hard disk’s 19 milliseconds.

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Fujitsu today announced the world’s first 300GB notebook-use 2.5-inch hard drive, as a part of the new MHX2300BT HDD series. The Fujitsu MHX2300BT 300GB and 250GB hard drives will begin shipping in the first quarter of 2007.

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Toshiba today announced MK1011GAH, a 100GB 1.8-inch hard drive. The company claims it is the largest capacity yet achieved in 1.8-inch HDD form factor.

Toshiba MK1011GAH, employs perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) technology and an improved error correction code, according to the report. Alongside capacity improvement, Toshiba has also improved power consumption to 0.003W/GB, the press release says.

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Seagate will begin volume production its laptop-use 2.5-inch hybrid hard disk drives in March 2007. The company expects to first introduce 2.5-inch hybrid HDDs with a 256MB buffer size with 512MB and 1GB versions to be introduced in the second half of 2007, Digi Times reports according to Brian Wickman, president of Seagate for the greater China region.

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Samsung today announced new M80 SATA, and M80 2.5-inch laptop hard drive series. Both series utilize Perpendicular Magnetic Recording (PMR) technology, an optional free-fall sensors and up to 160GB of storage capacity.

The M80 SATA Series features the 80GB HM080HI, the 120GB HM120II and 160GB HM160JI hard drives. The M80 (PATA) Series includes the 80GB HM080HC, the 120GB HM120IC and the 160GB HM160JC HDDs. The announced hard drives feature an 8MB of onboard data cache and 5,400rpm spindle speed.

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Hitachi has unveiled its laptop-use hard drive product strategy for 2007, announcing 200GB 2.5-inch TravelStar spinning at 7200rpm and a 250GB 5400rpm unit. Two Travelstars will become available in the first and second half of 2007, respectively.

Both Travelstar drives will use perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) technology and hard-drive-level data encryption as a new feature for added security.

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Seagate announced its forthcoming Momentus 5400 FDE.2 laptop-use hard drive with built-in full-disk encryption. Seagate says the Momentus 5400 FDE.2 2.5-inch 5,400rpm drive will transparently perform all cryptographic operations and access control within the drive itself, and that users will need only a password to self-authenticate for full-drive access.

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MCE announced OptiBay Hard Drive for the MacBook Pro and PowerBook G4 laptops. The OptiBay Hard Drive, aimed to expand HDD storage capacity on Apple’s notebooks to up to 320GB, is made to work along with the original internal hard disc, replacing the internal optical drive.

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Fujitsu will soon offer notebook computers that uses flash memory-based solid state disc (SSD) in place of the standard hard disk drive. The company will offer a Samsung-made 16GB or 32GB flash memory disk as an option with new LifeBook B laptops due on sale in late October and new LifeBook Q series that will be available from early November, both in Japan.

Fujitsu said LifeBook Q will run an extra 30 minutes on solid state disc compared to hard-disk drive, while the SSD in LifeBook B will save 15 minutes of laptop’s battery life.

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Seagate announced the availability of new Maxtor-branded MobileMax 2.5-inch laptop hard drives to the worldwide distribution channel. MobileMax drives will feature capacities from 40 to 80GB and a 5400rpm spin speed.

MobileMax hard drives have Ultra ATA/100 interface and 2MB of cache. The new Maxtor notebook drives come with a three-year warranty.

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TDK announced a laptop hard drive replacement based on NAND Flash memory. The solid-state disc (SSD), with 32GB of storage space, connects to the host across a standard IDE connector, Reg Hardware reports.

The TDK’s SSD is about 80% of the size of a standard 2.5-inch laptop hard drive, and it consumes less power than a standard notebook HDD. The unit’s controller supports data transfer of up to 33.3MBps, the manufacturer published.

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