Toshiba gets over the 80GB mark for laptops with their new hard drive. It's a mere 2.5 inches high, and o­nly 9.5mm thick. Don't ask me why they use both metric and imperial measurements for these though. Seriously, I just had "inch" and "mm" in the same sentence!

Toshiba Corporation will begin OEM shipments in May of their 9.5mm thick 2.5 inch HD with a capacity of 100GB, called the "MK1031GAS."

With a 35% miniturization of the Femto Slider in the head unit, and an improvement of the thin film technology of the media, a recording density of 124MBit/mm² has been achieved - making for a larger overall capacity. This is the highest recording density in the world for a 2.5" HD.

The disk rotation speed is 4,200rpm, and there are two platter, four heads, and the average seek time is 12msec. The supported interface is Ultra ATA/100. The main body size is 70 x 100 x 9.5mm, and the weight is 99g.

Apart from the capacity, however, there have been other improvements to the drive. First of all, the spindle motor rotation control system has been changed, a lower power consumption has been accomplished with the use of a DC/DC converter o­n the power component, allowing for a decrease of 20% versus previous models.

Also, the shock protection is about 1.5x that of previous models, with 325G(2msec) while operating, and 850G(1msec) while not operating. The operational sounds while the drive is idle has also been pushed down to 21dB.



Inspired by:
http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2004/0422/toshiba.htm

Press Release (Japanese):
http://www.toshiba.co.jp/about/press/2004_04/pr_j2201.htm

Press Release (English):
http://www.toshiba.co.jp/about/press/2004_04/pr2201.htm