Toshiba sent out a press release this morning, announcing its new line of high-performance 1.8-inch hard drives. Available in 120GB, 160GB and 250GB capacities, these new drives feature a 15msec seek time, 5,400 RPM rotation speed and a SATA 3.0Gb/s interface.

toshiba 1.8-inch sata hdd.png

Toshiba Corporation, the industry pioneer in small form factor hard disk drives (HDDs), today announced expansion of its market-leading 1.8-inch lineup with three new high-capacity, high-performance Serial ATA HDDs for mobile PC applications, including the industry's first 250GB1) 1.8-inch HDD.

Toshiba's third-generation 5,400 RPM SATA 1.8 HDD family also features 120GB and 160GB capacities, along with the throughput power of the SATA 3.0Gb/s interface. In addition, the new series includes Toshiba's state-of-the-art free fall sensor option, which enhances protection from external shock and vibration events by responding to drops as low as five inches in height.

This powerful, high-capacity family further broadens Toshiba's full line of 1.8-inch HDDs to meet the diversified storage needs of both PC and CE manufacturers with products suited to the specific capacity, performance and configuration requirements of each application. Building on Toshiba's recent introduction of PATA 1.8-inch HDDs with up to 240GB capacities, this new SATA 1.8-inch HDD series enables PC manufacturers to further miniaturize notebook designs without sacrificing functionality.

Toshiba's concentration on the 1.8-inch HDD platform and leadership in advanced recording technologies have enabled the company to continually push areal densities, to 378.8Gb/in2 in the new series, and to deliver storage capacities that were previously available only from larger form factor HDDs, while decreasing the power consumption required by the storage device. The new 250GB 1.8-inch HDD ( MK2529GSG) achieves a new low of 0.0016 watts-per-GB in energy consumption efficiency2). In addition, incorporation of high-performance features, such as SATA 3.0Gb/s and 5,400RPM disc rotation, will bring to all mobile PCs the benefits of a mature, field-proven storage platform supporting longer battery life, increased shock.