Toshiba to Launch 320GB Laptop Hard Drive

Toshiba MK3252GSX (320GB) and MK2049GSYToshiba Corporation today announced nine new 2.5-inch laptop-use hard disk drives, including the model with 320GB of storage capacity, as well as the 200GB model at 7200rpm rotational speed.

Toshiba’s MK3252GSX notebook hard drive uses an improved read-write head and enhanced magnetic layer to achieve “an industry-leading capacity of 320GB”. The MK3252GSX spins at 5,400rpm and has 8MB of buffer memory.

On the other side, the MK2049GSY 200GB 2.5-inch HDD provides a rotational speed of 7200rpm and 16MB of buffer cache. According to Toshiba, this hard drive improves the maximum internal data transfer rate by approximately 46% and increases the average random access time by some 8%, when compared to current MK1637GSX model.

Both the MK3252GSX and the MK2049GSY use 3Gbps SATA2 interface and support an optional Free Fall Sensor, which detects falling HDD and parks the read-write head before the drive crashes.

The mass production of these notebook hard drives will start in November, the press release says.

Currently, the laptop hard drive with the largest storage space is Fujitsu’s MHX2300BT, spinning at 4200rpm, while the 7200rpm notebook HDDs with 16MB of cache are already present in the market.