Tokyo, April 22 2004 -Toshiba Corporation today confirmed its leadership in the fast growing market for 2.5-inch hard-disk drives (HDD) with the announcement of the "MK1031GAS," the highest capacity drive yet achieved in this increasingly important form factor. Making full use of Toshiba's latest advances in HDD technologies, including the highest areal density yet commercialized, the new HDD delivers a 100GB storage capacity, and does so in a drive only 9.5mm high. "MK1031GAS" is ideally suited for integration into portable PC’s, especially those with advanced audio-visual capabilities that need the capacity to handle large video sources.
"We are delighted to announce the world's highest capacity 2.5-inch HDD," said Seiji Kawagoe, Senior Manager of the HDD Product Planning Department, Storage Device Division, in Toshiba's Digital Media Network Company. "We made improvements to push the capacity, increase shock resistance and to lower power consumption and noise. The resulting drive is perfect for integration in high spec portable PC’s and other portable devices. Our strategy is to create the technologies and products that make a reality of ubiquitous computing, and we are sure the "MK1031GAS" makes a valuable contribution to that."
Toshiba achieved the world's first 100GB 2.5-inch HDD by establishing a new benchmark for areal density: 80-gigabits of data per square inch. The key to achieving this was replacing the Pico Sliders attached to the drive's heads, and which maintain the appropriate distance from the disk during read and write operations, with Femto Sliders that are 35% smaller and much lighter. Advances were also achieved in the thin-film technology for both the head and the platter. The new drive's shock resistance of 3,185 m/s2 (325G, 2msec) is 50% higher than in Toshiba's current 2.5-inch HDD (MK8025GAS), due to employment of the smaller, lighter Femto Sliders in combination with a lighter head-suspension and head arm.
Power consumption of the "MK1031GAS" is approximately 20% lower on average than the company's current 2.5-inch 80GB HDD drive due to pulse width modulation (PWM) that controls disk rotation speed by switching the power supply to the spindle motor on and off at a certain frequency. A DC-DC converter is also used in the power unit. Low noise operation, as low as 21dB in an idle state, is achieved by an optimized sinusoidal waveform to control the operational current of the spindle motor. Samples of the MK1031GAS will be available in May.
Main Specifications
Model name:
MK1031GAS
Capacity:
100GB
Number of platters:
2
Number of heads:
4
Average seek time:
12 msec
Data transfer rate:
Ultra DMA/100
Rotational speed:
4,200 rpm
Buffer memory:
8 MB
External dimensions(WxDxH; mm)
70 x 100 x 9.5
Weight:
99g
Energy consumption efficiency:
0.005W/GB
Shcok resistence:
Operating: 3,185m/s2 (325G, 2msec)
Non-operating:
8,330m/s2 (850G, 1msec)
Over Toshiba
Toshiba Information Systems Benelux is een dochteronderneming van de Computer Systems Division van Toshiba Europe GmbH, een leverancier van portable computers. Naast notebooks levert de organisatie mobiele en draadloze Pocket PC’s, accessoires en mobiele server oplossingen voor de zakelijke en consumentenmarkt. Voor meer informatie zie www.computers.toshiba.nl
De Computer Systems Division van Toshiba streeft bij de ontwikkeling van haar geavanceerde notebooks, PDA’s en servers naar de ultieme vrijheid van werken. Toshiba is toonaangevend fabrikant van mobiele producten uitgerust met WiFi- en Bluetooth-connectiviteit; dé wereldstandaarden voor draadloze systemen op kantoor, thuis en onderweg.
Het moederbedrijf, Toshiba Corporation ontwikkelt informatie- en communicatiesystemen, elektronische componenten en consumentenelektronica voor uiteenlopende markten. Het bedrijf heeft een positie verworven als innovator op het gebied van geavanceerde componenten, producten en systemen. Toshiba heeft wereldwijd 166.000 medewerkers en de jaaromzet bedraagt ruim 47 miljard US$ (2003).