Industry News Briefs Summary

Toshiba is the first HDD supplier to launch a 1.8 inch drive with a spindle speed of 5400 RPM. They are also the first to Launch a 1.8 inch drive with a SATA interface using a Micro-SATA connector. Capacities are 80GB and 120GB. This product clearly targets PC platforms, more specifically ultra –mobile PCs by boosting performance with a higher spindle speed, larger cache, and native command queuing (NCQ) feature of Serial-ATA. The 1.8 inch form factor with its smaller footprint and lower power consumption has always been an advantage in ultra-mobile PCs however performance has been an issue with their spindle speeds limited to 4200 RPMs. This new 1.8 inch platform coupled with the features of Serial ATA will boost performance and help close the performance gap to 5400 RPM, 2.5 inch hard disk drive in standard size notebooks.