Posted on Thursday, January 03 2008 @ 15:28 CET by Thomas De Maesschalck
Next week CES will start in Las Vegas and lots of firms in the computer and technology industry are already pumping out press releases about the things they will show off in Vegas. One of the more interesting things I spotted today is that Hitachi is going to unveil a 500GB 2.5" hard drive for notebooks and other mobile devices.
With the Travelstar 5K500, Hitachi GST has effectively eliminated the “capacity compromise” by offering consumers all the storage capacity of a desktop with the portability and convenience of a notebook. Moreover, the new drives are well-suited for use in “slim” desktops, where users are seeking high-capacities in a space-saving, small form factor enclosure. These new sleek PC designs are highly desirable among today’s consumers who are often placing computers in multiple rooms throughout the home.
The Travelstar 5K500, available in either a 400GB or 500GB model, is the fourth-generation Hitachi mobile drive to use perpendicular magnetic recording technology to deliver breakthrough capacity and reliability. The half-terabyte drives can store up to 500 hours of digital video, 178 feature length movies, 250 games or 125,000 four-minute songs. Travelstar 5K500 drives are available with a 3.0Gb/s Serial ATA (SATA) interface for enhanced system performance.
The Traverstar 5K00 is available in 400GB and 500GB capacities and is rated at 5400RPM. According to the specifications the drive has an average latency of 5.5ms and an average read time of 12ms. Unfortunately Hitachi don't make a big improvement in storage technology, they just added another platter to this drive which slightly increased its thickness. The drives will be available in February with prices starting at $399.
