Hitachi Mini Technology Takes Giant Leap in Notebook Hard Drives.Business Editors/High-Tech Writers SAN JOSE San Jose, city, United States San Jose (sănəzā`, săn hōzā`), city (1990 pop. 782,248), seat of Santa Clara co., W central Calif.; founded 1777, inc. 1850. , Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 14, 2003 www.hgst.com-- First 7200 RPM Mobile Drive Lets Users "Unplug" From Desktop; New 5400 RPM Drive Combines Top Capacity and Performance Hitachi Global Storage Technologies Hitachi Global Storage Technologies is a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd. Summary Hitachi purchased IBM's hard disk drive division, integrated their own HDD operations, and launched the company in 2003. made hard drive history today by introducing new advances in miniaturization min·i·a·tur·ize tr.v. min·i·a·tur·ized, min·i·a·tur·iz·ing, min·i·a·tur·iz·es To plan or make on a greatly reduced scale. min technology to create a giant of a drive: The industry's first 7200 RPM mobile hard drive with breakthrough "femto" slider A block of material that holds the read/write head of a magnetic disk. See flying head. technology. These developments give new-found mobility to users who were previously "plugged-in" to their desktops for the performance advantage. But users of the new Travelstar 7K60 mobile drive will not have to give up battery life for the additional speed. The new 7200 RPM drive offers power-consumption parity with its 5400 RPM counterpart, due to Hitachi's newly miniaturized femto slider. The femto slider -- or the tiny flying wing supporting the read/write head A device that reads (senses) and writes (records) data on a magnetic disk or tape. For writing, the surface of the disk or tape is moved past the read/write head. By discharging electrical impulses at the appropriate times, bits are recorded as tiny, magnetized spots of positive or above the surface of the disk -- reduces power consumption and increases shock performance, adding to the overall superior mobile experience of the Travelstar 7K60. At 60 gigabytes (GB) of storage, the 7K60 is also the industry's most capacious ca·pa·cious adj. Capable of containing a large quantity; spacious or roomy. See Synonyms at spacious. [From Latin cap 7200 RPM mobile hard drive. "The 7K60 changes the landscape for powerful mobility," said Bill Healy, general manager, Mobile Business Unit, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies. "With desktop-equivalent performance, the 7K60 represents the pinnacle of mobile hard drive innovation; it gives notebook manufacturers the key component they've been looking for Looking for In the context of general equities, this describing a buy interest in which a dealer is asked to offer stock, often involving a capital commitment. Antithesis of in touch with. to develop a compelling desktop-replacement system." IBM (International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY, www.ibm.com) The world's largest computer company. IBM's product lines include the S/390 mainframes (zSeries), AS/400 midrange business systems (iSeries), RS/6000 workstations and servers (pSeries), Intel-based servers (xSeries) is the first to support Hitachi's 7200 RPM mobile drives and will be shipping them in new, more powerful ThinkPad systems later this summer. "Travelstar drives have been a staple component of the IBM ThinkPad line, and a consistent contributor to our leadership features and innovative mobile technology," said Peter Hortensius, general manager, Think products, IBM Personal Computing Refers to users working on their own computers rather than a terminal to a mainframe. Sometimes, the term refers to using computers at home for work and/or entertainment in contrast to business use only. See personal computer. Division. "Our customers demand the best technology, and Hitachi's new 7200 RPM notebook drive delivers, helping to continue the ThinkPad tradition of excellence." Within the same family, Hitachi also announced today the Travelstar 5K80, which earns its rank among the Travelstar elite with the industry's highest performance and highest capacity at 5400 RPM. The 5K80 offers capacities ranging from 20 to 80 GB. IBM plans to incorporate the Travelstar 5K80 in several ThinkPad notebook models next month. Nano, Pico, Femto Hitachi underscores its mobile technology leadership with the industry's first implementation of the femto slider, which represents a 30-percent reduction in size over the previous-generation slider, called "pico." The new femto slider is less than 1 mm by 1 mm in dimension, which is roughly the size of the ball on a standard ballpoint pen. "The tremendous revolution in hard disk drive storage technology over the past half century was led by miniaturization of every component in the system," said John Best, chief technologist, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies. "That trend continues with the introduction of the femto slider, which will enable significant improvements in manufacturing productivity, disk storage capacity and mechanical performance." Hitachi's new femto slider significantly improves the following hard drive functions: -- Reduces power consumption by 11 percent -- Increases shock performance by 25 percent -- Increases surface area available for recording by 3.5 percent In addition, more efficient manufacturing can be achieved with the femto slider: when fully utilized, there can be up to a 65-percent increase in the number of femto sliders sliders a species of tortoise kept as pets. They have a black shell and a red stripe behind the eye. Called also Chrysemys scripta elegans, red-eared sliders. produced per wafer as compared to pico. "Unplugged" Performance Hitachi Travelstar The Travelstar is a portable computer hard drive manufactured by Hitachi Global Storage Technologies. Models are available in 20GB to 250GB, 3600RPM to 7200RPM, 1.8" or 2.5", with PATA or SATA interface. External links
Until now, technical obstacles prevented 7200 RPM performance in a mobile hard drive. In the Travelstar 7K60, Hitachi overcame technical challenges associated with faster spinning drives without sacrificing any of the desirable attributes of leading-edge mobile drives: quiet acoustics acoustics (ək  `stĭks) [Gr.,=the facts about hearing], the science of sound, including its production, propagation, and effects. , low power consumption, and excellent performance in high-vibration environments. At 7200 RPM, the 7K60 spins 33 percent faster than its 5400 RPM counterpart, resulting in the following improvements: -- Faster data transfer rate of 15 percent (rate at which data is read and written) -- Lower rotational latency rotational latency - The time for the start of the required sector on a disk to appear underneath the read/write head. The worst case is where it has just passed the head when the request is received. of 20 percent (time it takes disk to get data under the read/write head) The 7K60 also shows a 20-percent improvement in average seek time (time it takes the read/write arm to arrive at the desired data track). The industry-leading 7200 RPM Travelstar defines a new mobile HDD (Hard Disk Drive) See hard disk and HDD caddy. HDD - hard disk drive category aimed at satisfying the needs of the most demanding mobile users. The Travelstar's new performance speed also helps to support an industry trend toward using notebooks as a desktop replacement. 5400 Performance, Capacity Leader The Travelstar 5K80 offers the only 80 GB 5400 RPM mobile drive in the industry, boasting 30 percent more storage capacity than its closest competitor. In benchmark testing, the 5K80 performs, on average, 10 percent faster than competing 5400 RPM mobile drives currently on the market. The 5K80 has the lowest acoustics in a mobile drive and comes in 20, 40, 60 and 80 GB capacities. The 5K80 represents a combination of sophisticated hard disk drive design and technology leadership to support the notebook industry trend toward standardization on 5400 RPM performance. Both the 5K80 and 7K60 are shipping in volume this month. Hitachi's new mobile drives complement the 4200 RPM Travelstar 80GN, shipped late last year, to offer customers the broadest portfolio of 2.5-inch mobile hard disk drive products on the market. Additional information on the new Travelstar hard drives and femto slider technology can be found at http://www.hgst.com/travelstar. Technical Specifications Travelstar 7K60 60 GB 9.5 mm in height 7,200 rpm 50 billion bits per square inch maximum areal density The number of bits per square inch of storage surface. It typically refers to disk drives, where the number of bits per inch (bpi) times the number of tracks per inch (tpi) yields the areal density. 2 glass disk platters 4 GMR (Giant Magnetoresistance) See magnetoresistance. recording heads 1000 G/1 ms non-operating shock, 200 G/2 ms operating shock 4.2 ms average latency 10 ms average seek time ATA-6 (IDE) 100 MB/sec maximum interface transfer rate Ultra DMA Same as Ultra ATA. Ultra DMA - ATA-4 (mode-5) 91/91/95/95 weight in grams 2.7 Bels typical idle acoustics 3.3 Bels typical operating acoustics Technical Specifications Travelstar 5K80 20/40/60/80 GB 9.5 mm in height 5,400 rpm 70 billion bits per square inch maximum areal density 1/1/2/2 glass disk platter One of the disks in a hard disk drive. Each platter provides a top and bottom recording surface. There may be only one or several platters in a drive with each platter having its own pair of read/write heads. See magnetic disk. (s) 1/2/3/4 GMR recording head(s) 800 G/1 ms non-operating shock, 200 G/2 ms operating shock 5.5 ms average latency 12 ms average seek time ATA-6 100 MB/sec maximum interface transfer rate Ultra DMA (mode-5) 98/98/102/102 weight in grams 2.2/2.2/2.5/2.5 Bels typical idle acoustics 2.6/2.6/2.9/2.9 Bels typical operating acoustics About Hitachi Global Storage Technologies Hitachi Global Storage Technologies was founded in 2003 as a result of the strategic combination of Hitachi's and IBM's storage technology businesses. The company's vision is to enable users to fully engage in the digital lifestyle by providing access to large amounts of storage capacity in formats suitable for the office, on the road and in the home. The company offers customers worldwide a comprehensive range of storage products for desktop computers, high-performance servers and mobile devices. For more information on Hitachi Global Storage Technologies, please visit the company's Web site at http://www.hgst.com. About Hitachi, Ltd. Hitachi, Ltd. (NYSE NYSE See: New York Stock Exchange :HIT), headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, is a leading global electronics company, with approximately 340,000 employees worldwide. Fiscal 2002 (ended March 31, 2003) consolidated sales totaled 8,191.7 billion yen ($68.3 billion). The company offers a wide range of systems, products and services in market sectors, including information systems, electronic devices, power and industrial systems, consumer products, materials and financial services The examples and perspective in this article or section may not represent a worldwide view of the subject. Please [ improve this article] or discuss the issue on the talk page. . For more information on Hitachi, please visit the company's Web site at http://global.hitachi.com. |
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