Hitachi Ships Latest Mobile Hard Drive

Hitachi on Wednesday shipped its fourth-generation high-speed notebook hard drive, which has 60% more capacity than its predecessor.

The Travelstar 7K320 also offers 12% better application performance and uses 22% less power. The 2.5-inch drive, which runs at 7,200 revolutions per minute, is available with optional data encryption technology.

Besides notebooks, the 7K320 can be used in compact desktops, gaming systems, blade servers, and video surveillance systems, Hitachi said. The drive can withstand an operating shock of 400Gs and uses as much power and makes as much noise as a 5,400-RPM drive.

The hard disk drive stores 320 GB of data, which is equal to 80 hours of high-definition video, 320 hours of standard video, or 80,000 four-minute MP3 music files, according to Hitachi. The drive has a 3-Gbps interface and a fast media transfer rate for quicker file copying and document retrieval and better graphics and game performance.

Hitachi is shipping the new drive to computer makers. The company plans to ship in the third quarter an enhanced-availability model of the 7K320. Those versions will provide high-capacity storage for low-duty-cycle applications that run day and night.

Hitachi is not the only HDD maker with high-speed notebook drives. Rival Fujitsu unveiled in March the MHZ2 BJ series of 2.5-inch drives that also feature speeds of 7,200 RPM and up to 320 GB of storage. The new series, which is also aimed at high-end notebooks and compact desktops, is scheduled to ship at the end of June.

Fujitsu currently offers 7,200-RPM notebook drives with up to 160 GB of storage. The drives consume a maximum of 2.3 watts. The MHZ2 BJ drive will be available at twice the capacity while consuming the same amount of power for read and write operations.