Shane McGlaun03 September 2009, 11:45 AM
Toshiba's new 5400 rpm 640GB HDD is aimed at netbooks, notebooks, and small form factor compteurs.
Yesterday Western Digital unveiled a couple new
3.5-inch 2TB HDDs for consumers and enterprise users. Today Toshiba has announced that it is introducing a new
640GB HDD (PDF) for notebooks and other small computers. The HDD spins at 5400 rpm and offers low power consumption.
The drive is part of the MKxx65GSX series and it has two 320GB platters. The energy efficient design means that notebooks using the drive will have better battery life and produce less heat. Toshiba reports that the power consumption and heat output of the drive is 80% less than similar capacity 3.5-inch HDDs.
The maximum areal density of the platters is 528.5 Gbits/in square and the line also includes drives in 500GB, 320GB, and 160GB capacities. The 640GB HDD is capable of storing 182,000 photos, 168,000 music files, and 520 digital films in HD resolution. The drive is also equipped with a free-fall sensor to protect the drive in the event the system it is part of is dropped.
Toshiba says that the drive will ship in Q4 2009 to distributors and PC makers. I guess that means that this drive won’t be sold via retail channels for upgrades. The buffer is 8MB and the drive uses the SATA 3GB/sec interface. Average seek time for the drive is 12ms.