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Disk drives shrink for mobile multimedia

A Toshiba Europe Storage Device Division product story

Edited by the Electronicstalk editorial team Sep 19, 2006

Small form hard disk drives are developed specifically for ultra-portable notebook computers and portable devices such as mobile multimedia players and personal video recorders.

Toshiba Europe Storage Device Division (SDD) has announced the availability of two new 1.8in small form hard disk drives (HDDs).

The drives have been developed specifically for ultra-portable notebook computers and the burgeoning market for portable devices such as mp3 and mobile multimedia players and personal video recorders (PVRs).

Incorporating perpendicular magnetic recording, the new dual-platter 80Gbyte MK8009GAH and single-platter 40Gbyte MK4009GAL drives are 7mm shorter than Toshiba's current market leading notebook hard disk drives.

This decrease in size allows product designers to continue the trend of ever shrinking mobile devices and the ability incorporate additional features and functionalities into increasingly smaller form factors.

The shrink in height has been achieved through the use of a new low insertion force connector (LIF) that will be utilised across all of Toshiba SDDs 1.8in PMR drives.

Both new drives incorporate the ATA-6 interface and offer 8Mbyte buffer memory.

This helps position both drives as the perfect storage solutions for multimedia-intensive applications such as digital content archiving and video playback on the move.

Perpendicular recording refers to the method of placing the bits vertically on the magnetic layer of the drive rather than conventional methods, where the data is stored in linear alignment.

With perpendicular recording, Toshiba SDD has been able to dramatically increase the storage capacity of the 1.8in form factor and overcome the problems associated with higher recording densities.

"Mobile devices have fast become the consumer electronic of choice for consumers looking to store large amounts of very personal data such as their favourite movies and music or documents and presentations for work", explained Martin Larsson, General Manager, Toshiba Europe Storage.

"With our new perpendicular drive we have overcome the current limitations of data storage to help our customers deliver increased storage capacities in ever decreasing form factors".