Gadgets and Gizmos

Hitachi’s 500GB drive laptop

Hitachi has developed a 500GB hard-disk drive for laptop computers, due to be announced Thursday. The Travelstar 5K500, which is the highest capacity drive yet developed for portable PCs, is due to begin shipping in February and should go some way towards quenching user thirst for storage space.

According to the sources, the new Travelstar 5K500 disk drives can hold up to 125 hours of high-definition (HG) video, 500 hours of standard digital video, 178 feature-length non-HD movies or 125,000 four-minute songs. The 12.5 millimeter storage device can operate at speeds of up to 5,400 rpm and includes rotational vibration safeguards and a 3Gbit/sec. Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) interface.

The company says the Travelstar 5K500 model is available with either 400GB or 500GB capacity and uses a 3.0Gbps SATA interface. The company claims the unit is the world’s highest capacity mobile internal hard drive.

Perpendicular recording has made it possible to fit more data onto a single drive platter, and portable hard drives recently reached 320GB in size. But to beat that mark, Hitachi’s new 5K500 doesn’t rely on new technology; instead, it simply adds an extra platter. As a result, the 500GB drive is also larger in physical size.

Rather than being 9.5mm thick, Hitachi’s drive is 12.5mm, which limits its use in current laptop form factors. That means it won’t be sold to consumers, and likely will only appear in notebooks designed specifically to accommodate the larger drive. As of now, Taiwan-based ASUStek Computer will be the first to make use of the newly announced Hitachi drives to create the world’s first laptop with a combined monster capacity of 1TB.

Hitachi did not announce any price on the new hard drive for laptops but did state that it was going to be released in February 2008. They stated that it will have versions available in the 400GB and 500GB storage capacities. The drive has a Serial ATA interface and will also come in an “Enhanced Availability” version for server situations. The Travelstar 5K500 measures in at 12.5 mm tall and spins at 5400 RPM.