ITWire

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi GST) has shipped more than 25 million Travelstar Z-series, 7mm-high, 2.5inch hard disk drives. These drives are used in ultrabooks and other thin portable computers, mobile devices and industrial systems.

The combination of a Z-series drive and a SSD cache helps hardware designers meet Intel's Ultrabook specification for performance and startup times. The 7mm drives can also act as a direct replacement for previous 9mm drives.

The company also announced that it is about to begin shipping its 500GB Travelstar Z7K500 drive, which officials claim to be the industry's fastest and highest capacity, one-disk, 7200 RPM HDD. The range includes self-encrypting and enhanced-availability models.

"We are proud to report that all major PC OEMs have qualified our previous generation 7mm drives for a variety notebooks, Ultrabooks and CE devices, confirming that the industry continues to recognise the value and benefits of this new form factor," said Brendan Collins, vice president of product marketing at Hitachi GST. "By adding the first 500GB, high-performance 7mm drive to our portfolio, Hitachi GST now offers the market's broadest 7mm 2.5-inch hard drive portfolio to meet the needs of a diverse mobile computing and storage segment."