Hitachi launches 500GB laptop drive

Author: Gareth Halfacree
Published: 3rd January 2008
Comments (11) Stumble
The new 500GB drive in all its naked glory. A worthwhile upgrade, providing it'll fit.

The new 500GB drive in all its naked glory. A worthwhile upgrade, providing it'll fit.

Good news for those of you hankering for a little more storage in your laptop: Hitachi has announced a new 500GB 2.5” hard drive. Bad news: it probably won't fit in your current laptop, and Hitachi wouldn't currently sell it to you if it did.

The new TravelStar drive is available in two models: the standard 5K500 for laptops and an 'enhanced-availability' version dubbed the E5K500, featuring bulk data encryption in hardware and designed for 24/7 use in blade servers and CCTV DVR systems. Both versions are OEM only, meaning Hitachi currently has no plans to sell them to end users at a retail level.

Although this marks the first mass-produced 2.5” drive to reach half a terabyte of storage, the additional space does come at a cost: additional space. Because manufacturers haven't been able to scale the new perpendicular recording technology as fast as they would have liked, Hitachi has decided to beat its competitors to the 500GB mark by cramming a third platter into the drive. Although it has done all it can to keep the size down, the new drive is 12.5mm thick compared to the more usual 9.5mm of a standard laptop drive.

It's not all bad news, though. The drives feature a 3.0Gb/s SATA interface for nippy data transfer, a 'Rotational Vibration Safeguard' system which Hitachi claims will detect rough handling and park the heads before damage can occur, non-operating shock protection at up to 400G, and it has managed to keep the power usage down to similar levels as previous two-platter designs: 1.9W during reading and writing and just 0.7W when idle.

The first company to use the drives, available from February 2008, will be Asus in its M50 and M70 notebooks: the company is even going so far as to use two to make a laptop computer with 1TB of storage.

Tempted by the thought of so much storage in such a tiny space, or are you capable of leaving some media files at home when you take your laptop out on the road? Give us your thoughts over in the forums.
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Quote Bauul 3rd January 2008, 10:16
That's quite impressive! There seems to be a real trend at the moment that to increase capacity/capability, just stick in another one! Works for CPUs, Graphics Cards and now Harddrives it seems.
Quote ralph.pickering 3rd January 2008, 10:35
Not sure I'd want it in my laptop just yet - I get by just fine with the 40Gb drive that's in there. But a pocket sized usb drive with 500Gb storage - now that would be sweet. The 320Gb Seagate drive, power brick and mains cable that I currently haul about when I have to take large files someplace, well that takes up most of my bag. Of course I'd probably lose a pocket sized one knowing my luck.
Quote Awoken 3rd January 2008, 11:08
I'll wait for perpendicular technology to arrive from Samsung but good work Hitachi!
Quote CanadianViking 3rd January 2008, 11:59
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bauul
That's quite impressive! There seems to be a real trend at the moment that to increase capacity/capability, just stick in another one! Works for CPUs, Graphics Cards and now Harddrives it seems.

Although that makes for better tech faster, I can't help but feel that that's a problem. Instead of researching on how they could make more storage in the same amount of space, they're just shoving more platters in, and not really advancing much at all.

I could stand to wait a little longer for the drive that does more with less.
Quote koola 3rd January 2008, 12:02
Impressive.
Quote DXR_13KE 3rd January 2008, 12:36
impressive but not enough, i was waiting for perpendicular technology on this one.....
Quote ssj12 3rd January 2008, 15:35
hmm.. awesome that means the 250GB HDD will be cheaper so I can put one in my PS3, maybe.
Quote TGImages 3rd January 2008, 17:51
Nice... but as already said, I'd prefer it in an external case. My next laptop drive will be solid state rather than platter based. The future, as soon as the prices get competitive, for most laptop users will be SS. Although I can see the day with a 32 or 64GB SS drive in one bay and a 500GB in a second bay that is only spun up when necessary.
Quote HourBeforeDawn 3rd January 2008, 18:41
wow I want I want >_< but I would prefer it in a an external model that runs off of USB power only now that would be ab awesome portable drive. ^_^
Quote rhuitron 4th January 2008, 09:52
Sweetness.
Quote Redbeaver 4th January 2008, 14:21
wait... would that draw even more power than regular drive? and Asus wanna put 2 in them? thats.... kinda beat the purpose of a laptop isnt it? not to mention the weight...

ah, maybe im just a minimalist kinda guy when it comes to laptop :)
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