Tokyo (Japan) - Fujitsu announced that it will be expanding its portfolio of 2.5" hard disk and entering the 1.8" drive business to take advantage of the fastest growing segment of the market. Among the announced products are high-end desktop drives, a 120 GB 1.8" hard disk and a 200 GB 2.5" version.

2006 promises to become for the hard drive industry one of the more exciting years in some time. With perpendicular recording technology slowly but surely arriving, a substantial jump in storage space is expected to be announced first in the mobile hard drive space and later - most likely in 2007 - also for desktop and 3.5" consumer electronics devices.

Fujitsu is the first company to provide an outlook of what to expect for this year. According to a press release, the company will try to tackle Seagate's dominance in multiple markets. By 2008, Fujitsu aims to become the world's third largest hard disk supplier, the release stated.

Until now, Fujitsu has been focusing on 2.5" and 3.5" hard disks, but will be putting a greater focus on mobile and portable hard drives in the near future in order to be able to take advantage of the growing notebook segment and the quickly growing popularity of portable consumer electronics such as portable media players. The company promised to be offering a 120 GB version of a 1.8" hard drive - a product class that currently tops out at 80 GB. The new storage device will be jointly developed by Fujitsu and Cornice and is scheduled to be launched in the first half of 2007.

2.5" hard disks for notebooks and portable storage applications will make an even bigger jump from currently 120 GB to 200 GB in fiscal 2006, Fujitsu said. The company plans to also enter the automotive hard drive storage and has set the ambitious goal to capture 30% of the 2.5" market.

News can also be expected from Fujitsu in the high-end hard disk arena. The company said it will be introducing enterprise-class hard drives 2.5" and 3.5" models that offer 147 GB and 300 GB and integrate platters spinning at 10,000 rpm.