Toshiba's new 100GB 2.5-inch HDD offers world's highest capacity.

Toshiba Corporation has confirmed its leadership in the fast growing market for 2.5-inch hard disk drives (HDD) with the announcement of the MK1031GAS, the highest capacity drive yet achieved in this increasingly important form factor. Making full use of Toshiba's latest advances in HDD technologies, including the highest areal density yet commercialized, the new HDD delivers 100GB of storage capacity and does so in a drive only 9.5mm high. The MK1031GAS is ideally suited for integration into portable PCs, especially those with advanced audio-visual capabilities that need the capacity to handle large video sources.

"We are delighted to announce the world's highest capacity 2.5-inch HDD," said Amy Dalphy, manager, HDD business unit, Toshiba SDD. "We made improvements to push the capacity, increase shock resistance and lower power consumption and noise. The resulting drive is perfect for integration in high spec portable PCs and other portable devices. Our strategy is to create the technologies and products that make a reality of ubiquitous computing and we are sure the MK1031GAS makes a valuable contribution to that."

Toshiba achieved the world's first 100GB 2.5-inch HDD by establishing a new benchmark for areal density: 80-gigabits of data per square inch. The key to achieving this was replacing the Pico Sliders attached to the drive's heads, which maintain the appropriate distance from the disk during read and write operations, with Femto Sliders that are 35 percent smaller and much lighter. Advances were also achieved in the thin-film technology for both the head and media.

The new drive's operating shock resistance of 325G (2msec) is 50 percent higher than in Toshiba's current 2.5-inch HDD(a), due to the employment of smaller, lighter Femto Sliders in combination with a lighter head-suspension and head arm.

Power consumption of the MK1031GAS is approximately 20 percent lower on average than the company's current drive(a) due to pulse width modulation (PWM) that controls disk rotation speed by switching the power supply to the spindle motor on and off at a controlled frequency. A DC-DC converter is also used in the power unit.

The new drive is the latest addition to Toshiba's full line of mobile hard disk drives, providing customers with every key capacity point. Toshiba's line of drives include 2.5-inch HDDs available in 15GB/20GB/30GB/40GB/60GB/80GB and 100GB capacities and 1.8-inch HDDs available in 10GB/15GB/20GB/30GB and 40GB capacities. Toshiba is also currently developing 0.85-inch HDDs in 2GB and 4GB capacities.

Toshiba SDD, a division of Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc., leads the market in the development, design and manufacturing of combination DVD/CD recordable drives and small form factor 0.85-inch, 1.8-inch and 2.5-inch hard disk drives. Toshiba SDD markets high-quality peripherals to original equipment manufacturers, value-added resellers, value-added dealers, systems integrators and distributors in the United States. Inherent in the Toshiba storage family are the high-quality engineering and manufacturing capabilities that have established Toshiba products as worldwide leaders.