Toshiba releases faster 160GB 1.8-inch hard drive

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

Opinion and Analysis

Still, a 160GB drive might have a price advantage today, but with 512GB SSD drives due out next year, by Toshiba itself, and with volume producer Samsung ready to ship 256GB SSD’s later this year, how long before the economics of hard disk production simply cost too much?

It is, of course, hard to say.

We know that adding a measly 1.8-inch 64GB SSD to the MacBook Air, to replace the standard 1.8-inch 80GB hard drive option, adds a whopping US $1000 to the cost price.

The benefits are less heat and faster speed, but now that the speed of Toshiba’s latest 1.8-inch hard drives has been boosted to 5400 RPM, from the 4200 RPM speed in the drive used by the MacBook Air, the SSD’s speed advantage is smaller.

Ultimately, it’s clear that SSDs will rule the roost, whether in smaller or larger drive sizes, but it will clearly still take a few years before the cost of manufacturing SSDs can truly compete with much cheaper hard disk pricing.

After all, 512GB SSDs are only due in 2009, when 1TB hard disks are on sale, in Australia at any rate, for around AUD $230 – no doubt the price is less than USD $200 in the US for such a capacious drive.

Surely 2TB hard drives will arrive soon, perhaps when 512GB SSDs hit the market, with the pricing gap as wide as ever.

So, while solid state is making incredible gains, but the ol’ mechanical magnetic hard disk ain’t dead yet!