Hitachi To Debut 500-GB Laptop DrivesHitachi To Debut 500-GB Laptop Drives

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies has announced the February rollout of a half-terabyte 2.5-inch mobile hard drive that will dramatically expand the capacity possible in today's notebook PC designs.According to PC World, the $400 Travelstar 5K500 will sport a three-platter design, optional Bulk Data Encryption (BDE) for hard drive level data security, plus Hitachi's Rotational Vibration Safeguard technology, which prevents disk errors that occur when multiple drives are placed together. From a power-consumption standpoint, the 5K500 is on par with Hitachi?s two-platter 5K250 drive.

"We did not want consumers to sacrifice battery power in exchange for the increased capacity,? says Larry Swezey, director of consumer and commercial hard disk drive marketing at Hitachi, which will also unveil a second version of the 5K500 that?s optimized for DRV applications.

Hitachi?s announcement coincides with a new report out of Lehman Brothers that forecasts a 25-plus percent increase in notebook shipments this year over 2007; by 2009, the number of notebooks shipped is expected to surpass desktop PC shipments.PC World, EETimes