Toshiba releases faster 160GB 1.8-inch hard drive

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Friday, 13 June 2008 18:12

Opinion and Analysis

The announcement of a 160GB 1.8-inch hard drive isn’t new – the iPod Classic 160GB has one. But what is new is a faster 5400RPM speed that makes the drive much more suitable for notebooks and ‘mobile Internet devices’, and it’s coming in August at a price likely to be much cheaper than SSD.

Yes, Samsung is bringing a 1.8-inch 256GB SSD to market later this year  at an unknown cost, and Toshiba plans a 512GB SSD for 2009, but hard disks are still much cheaper, with Toshiba set to launch the “world’s fastest” 160GB 1.8-inch hard disk in August.

Computerworld has the details of an 80B single platter 1.8-inch drive, the MK8017GSG and a dual platter 160GB model, the MK1617GSG, running at speeds of 5400 RPM, with a seek time of 15ms, 8MB of cache and a 3Gbit/sec SATA interface.

It weighs but 60 grams in the 80GB model and sports a single head – the previous model had two heads and weighed 62 grams, so the Japanese fascination with miniaturisation shows no signs of slowing down whatsoever!

The Computerworld article says that analyst firm IDC “predicts advances in mobile processor and wireless connectivity technologies over the next few years will significantly boost demand for thinner and lighter mobile PCs”.

IDC believes there will be more than 26m ‘thin and light’ mobile PCs shipped in 2012 – providing we have enough money left over from buying petrol for our cars, I suppose.

Toshiba previously announced a 160GB 1.8-inch drive in 2007, which is used in the current 160GB iPod Classic.

The previous model also had a 15ms seek time but only spun at 3600 RPM.

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