Toshiba Reveals 2.5" HDD with 1 TB Capacity
Toshiba will begin manufacturing its MQ01ABD 2.5-inch HDD later this month which will offer capacities up to 1 TB in a 9.5-mm high form factor.
Tuesday Toshiba said that it will begin mass production of its new MQ01ABD 2.5-inch HDD starting the middle of August. This new line will feature the company's 500 GB/platter technology using an "industry-leading" areal density of 744 Gb/in2, thus increasing the quantity of data stored per square inch by over 37-percent compared to prior 2.5-inch models. For consumers, this means drive capacities up to 1 TB.
"The creation of rich content by consumers and businesses continues to push the demand for storage capacity," said Joel Hagberg, vice president of product marketing, Storage Device Division of TAIS. "The Toshiba MQ01ABD series provides not only the capacity and performance required by notebook and PC manufacturers, multimedia professionals, multi-room set-top-box and other power users, but also the benefits of a low-power, environmentally friendly drive."
The MQ01ABD line will arrive in five capacities: 250 GB, 320 GB and 500 GB using one platter, and 750 GB and 1 TB using two platters. All five will have a rotational speed of 5400 RPM and connect via a Serial ATA 3 Gb/s interface. The maximum media transfer rate will be 1288.6 Mbps and the average seek time will be 12 ms. Each drive will sport an 8 MB buffer memory.
"Toshiba’s MQ01ABD series HDDs have been engineered for superior energy efficiency — the series HDDs consume only 0.55watts during idle mode," the company said. "The MQ01ABD drives also offer improved acoustic performance, emitting a maximum of 19dB at idle and 24dB during seek operations. This combination of areal density, power utilization, and acoustic performance enables PC and consumer electronics makers to build differentiated systems based on capacity, performance, heat dissipation, and power efficiency."
So far info on pricing and actual availability is available, so stay tuned.
Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox.
Kevin Parrish has over a decade of experience as a writer, editor, and product tester. His work focused on computer hardware, networking equipment, smartphones, tablets, gaming consoles, and other internet-connected devices. His work has appeared in Tom's Hardware, Tom's Guide, Maximum PC, Digital Trends, Android Authority, How-To Geek, Lifewire, and others.
-
Toshiba HDD are awesome. I had a 80GB for 6 years from my laptop. Still going strong as a backup drive for my desktop.Reply
These will no doubt be reliable too. -
JamesSneed Assume 1288.6 Mbps is refering to megabits per second. Haven't seen the "M" capitalized for megabits before and I haven't seen that metric used for hard drive transfer rates either although it does sound faster. In another words 161 MBps or if we are really trying to make it seem super fast 1,288,600,000 bps. Sorry that struck me odd.Reply -
palladin9479 Umm 5400RPM isn't gonna cut it in enterprise or home environments. It'll be ok for some ultra low power scenario, but otherwise we want 7200, 10K and 15K speeds.Reply -
danwat1234 JamesSneedAssume 1288.6 Mbps is refering to megabits per second. Haven't seen the "M" capitalized for megabits before and I haven't seen that metric used for hard drive transfer rates either although it does sound faster. In another words 161 MBps or if we are really trying to make it seem super fast 1,288,600,000 bps. Sorry that struck me odd.Reply
What matters is if the 'b' is'B' or 'b'. The 'm' doesn't matter I don't think.
PS: Now that Toshiba is up to 500GB/platter in the 2.5" segment, this means that it is ready for 250GB/platter in the 1.8" segment right? 500GB 1.8" drives here we go.
-
jrharbort And don't forget the improved read/write speeds that come with the increased data density. That's always a nice plus.Reply -
stonedatheist JamesSneedAssume 1288.6 Mbps is refering to megabits per second. Haven't seen the "M" capitalized for megabits before and I haven't seen that metric used for hard drive transfer rates either although it does sound faster. In another words 161 MBps or if we are really trying to make it seem super fast 1,288,600,000 bps. Sorry that struck me odd.Reply
danwat1234What matters is if the 'b' is'B' or 'b'. The 'm' doesn't matter I don't think.PS: Now that Toshiba is up to 500GB/platter in the 2.5" segment, this means that it is ready for 250GB/platter in the 1.8" segment right? 500GB 1.8" drives here we go.
The "M" does matter because it refers to the prefix mega whereas "m" refers to the prefix milli. Of course it would be silly to measure storage in millibytes/millibits and most people will know what you mean even if you make that mistake but it is an important distinction. -
LuckyDucky7 Sorry, Toshiba (and Toms)...Reply
But where was/is the news that Western Digital already beat Toshiba to the punch with a 1 TB 2.5" drive?
They have a Scorpio Blue 1 TB drive, and it's already out for purchase, while this one is still gearing up to get out there.
(But, I hear these drives have better speed than 500 GB 7200 RPM drives- so newsworthy anyways I suppose.) -
dragonsqrrl JamesSneedAssume 1288.6 Mbps is refering to megabits per second. Haven't seen the "M" capitalized for megabits before and I haven't seen that metric used for hard drive transfer rates either although it does sound faster. In another words 161 MBps or if we are really trying to make it seem super fast 1,288,600,000 bps. Sorry that struck me odd.It's a typo... which doesn't surprise me.Reply
There's no way a 5400 RPM 2.5" drive has sequential transfer speeds similar to a 10000 RPM Veloci Raptor, even if the density has gone up significantly. I'm assuming he meant 128 MBps, and even then that's pretty damn impressive for a 5400 RPM 2.5" drive.
Actually it looks like the 1288.6Mbps figure is accurate. I confirmed this in the official press release. If it's true, then this drive is able to achieve sequential transfer speeds of 161 MBps, which is simply insane for this class of storage device. I'm speechless. I can't wait for this density to be applied to 7200 RPM 3.5" drives. Anyone else want a 4TB HD? -
danwat1234 Western Digital and Samsung already have 1TB 2 platter 2.5" drives out, both spin at 5400RPM.Reply