Toshiba Introduces 320GB 2.5-inch HDD

Toshiba Introduces Industry-Leading 320GB 2.5-Inch HDD to Headline Broad Offerings in Three New Mobile HDD Families; High-end 200GB 7,200 RPM Family and Free-Fall Sensor Options Highlight Extensive 2.5-inch Technology Lineup

Toshiba Storage Device Division (SDD), the industry pioneer in small form factor hard disk drives (HDDs), today announced the world’s first 320GB(1) 2.5-inch HDD, as the lead product in a new series of 5,400 RPM notebook drives. The company also expanded into the high-end 7,200 RPM performance class with a family of products offering up to 200GB capacity.

Toshiba’s new 5,400 RPM 2.5-inch HDDs feature capacity points from 80GB to 320GB, using both 120GB-per-platter and 160GB-per-platter designs in the MK-46GSX and MK-52GSX families, respectively. The high-end 7,200 RPM MK-49GSY series features capacity points of 80GB to 200GB. All three families support the Serial ATA interface at a 3.0 Gbps data transfer rate, and free-fall sensor options are available on select models.

This broad lineup of storage solutions for information technology (IT) and consumer electronics (CE) OEMs is based on an extensible platform that incorporates a shared architectural base and common components. Leveraging this platform enabled Toshiba’s development teams in the United States and Japan to bring products to market quicker and provided more manufacturing flexibility to meet changing customer demands.

By utilizing the latest head and media technologies, the extensible platform architected by Toshiba will provide the fastest native transfer rates yet achieved in mobile 2.5-inch products – a key factor in overall drive performance.

“Our global collaboration and new architectural platform greatly accelerated our ability to deliver industry-leading 2.5-inch capacity, while introducing a broad array of 2.5-inch product offerings,” said Scott Maccabe, vice president and general manager of Toshiba Storage Device Division. “Toshiba’s engineering innovation has positioned us competitively for the future and demonstrates our long-term commitment to addressing the growing demand for capacity and feature-rich storage solutions for digital data, as end users continue to embrace video and multimedia applications.”

Toshiba successfully orchestrated a collaborative design effort with the company’s design teams at the Storage Design Center in Fremont, Calif., and the Ome, Japan, development center to bring this lineup to market. Using Toshiba’s innovative extensible platform approach, designs for these new product families feature commonality in fundamental HDD components such as heads, media, ASICs and firmware. In addition to accelerating the development schedule, extensibility increases manufacturing efficiencies and speeds up the OEM qualification process, giving Toshiba a solid foundation for future technology introductions.

The company’s 2.5-inch HDD lineup now spans from the ultra-power-conservative segment with the existing 200GB 4,200 RPM MK2035GSS, to the mainstream market with the new 5,400 RPM MK-GSX series and, finally, to the high-performance category with the new 7,200 RPM MK-GSY offering. Toshiba is well-positioned to deliver the right capacity and performance options to meet the needs of IT and CE manufacturers for mobile PCs, compact external storage devices, personal video recorders, gaming consoles, converged TVs, printers, point-of-sale terminals, media centers and audio/video editing systems.

According to Gartner, 2.5-inch mobile-class PATA/SATA-interface HDD shipments worldwide will increase from 112 million in 2006 to more than 280 million in 2011.(2)

“The mobile 2.5-inch/9.5mm-Z-height form factor will be servicing a wider and richer variety of applications,” said John Monroe, a research vice president at Gartner. “Increasing capacities at lower costs, coupled with enhanced performance and reliability metrics, will enable this class of product to further penetrate new consumer markets as well as expanding possibilities for integration in the traditional PC and blade server markets.”

As storage becomes imperative to a digitally driven and mobile world, IT and CE manufacturers need more features to protect data and improve HDD performance. To address these requirements, Toshiba has designed a state-of-the-art free-fall sensor option that enables the drive to respond to 10-inch or greater drops when integrated in OEM systems. Toshiba’s free-fall sensor option features Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology (SMART) events reporting and has been adopted by the industry for standardization as part of the upcoming ATA-8 interface specification.

Toshiba’s new HDD families are RoHS(3) compliant and will begin production in the fourth quarter of 2007. For more information about Toshiba’s line of 2.5-inch HDDs, visit http://www.toshibastorage.com.

Editor’s Note: Please see product specification tables for a complete list of capacity points in each family.

Product Specifications

About Toshiba Storage Device Division
Toshiba SDD, a division of Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc., leads the market in the development, design and manufacturing of small form factor 2.5-inch, 1.8-inch hard disk drives, as well as next-generation HD DVD storage products. Toshiba SDD markets high-quality peripherals to original equipment manufacturers, value-added resellers, value-added dealers, systems integrators and distributors in the United States. Inherent in the Toshiba storage family are the high-quality engineering and manufacturing capabilities that have established Toshiba products as worldwide leaders. For more information, visit http://www.toshibastorage.com.

About Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc. (TAIS)
Headquartered in Irvine, Calif., TAIS is comprised of four business units: Digital Products Division, Imaging Systems Division, Storage Device Division, and Telecommunication Systems Division. Together, these divisions provide mobile products and solutions, including industry leading portable computers; projectors; imaging products for the security, medical and manufacturing markets; storage products for automotive, computer and consumer electronics applications; and telephony equipment and associated applications.

TAIS provides sales, marketing and services for its wide range of information products in the United States and Latin America. TAIS is an independent operating company owned by Toshiba America, Inc., a subsidiary of Toshiba Corporation, which is a global leader in high technology and integrated manufacturing of electrical and electronic components, products and systems, as well as major infrastructure systems. Toshiba has more than 191,000 employees worldwide and annual sales of over U.S. $60 billion (FY2006). For more information on Toshiba’s leading innovations, visit the company’s Web site at http://www.toshiba.com.

(C) 2007 Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc. All product, service and company names are trademarks, registered trademarks or service marks of their respective owners. Information including without limitation product prices, specifications, availability, content of services, and contact information is subject to change without notice.

1. One Gigabyte (1 GB) means 10 = 1,000,000,000 bytes using powers of 10. A computer operating system, however, reports storage capacity using powers of 2 for the definition of 1 GB = 2 = 1,073,741,824 bytes, and therefore shows less storage capacity. Available storage capacity will also be less if the computer includes one or more pre-installed operating systems, pre-installed software applications, or media content. Actual formatted capacity may vary.

2. Gartner, Inc., “Dataquest Alert: History, Market Share and Forecast, Hard Disk Drives, Worldwide, 2002-2011” by John Monroe, May 15, 2007

3. The RoHS Directive is European Union legislation that eliminates the use of six hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment.