Hitachi Global Storage Technologies announced its new “Femto” slider technology that will make possible to manufacture 7200rmp hard disk drives for mobile computers as well as a number of new HDDs utilising this technology.

The femto slider – or the tiny flying wing supporting the read/write head above the surface of the disk – reduces power consumption and increases shock performance. Travelstar 7K60 60GB is not only the fastest mobile HDD, but is also the most capacious 7200rpm mobile hard drive.

Within the same family, Hitachi also announced today the Travelstar 5K80, which earns its rank among the Travelstar elite with the industry’s highest performance and highest capacity at 5400rpm. The 5K80 offers capacities ranging from 20 to 80GB.

Technical Specifications of the Travelstar 7K60 look as follows:

• 60GB;
• 9.5mm in height;
• 7200rpm;
• 50 billion bits per square inch maximum areal density;
• 2 glass disk platters;
• 4 GMR recording heads;
• 1000G/1ms non-operating shock;
• 200G/2ms operating shock;
• 4.2ms average latency;
• 10ms average seek time;
• Parallel ATA-100;
• Ultra DMA (mode-5);
• 91/91/95/95 weight in grams;
• 2.7 Bels typical idle acoustics;
• 3.3 Bels typical operating acoustics.

Technical Specifications of the Travelstar 5K80 are as follows:

• 20/40/60/80GB;
• 9.5mm in height;
• 5400rpm;
• 70 billion bits per square inch maximum areal density;
• 1/1/2/2 glass disk platter(s);
• 1/2/3/4 GMR recording head(s);
• 800G/1ms non-operating shock;
• 200G/2ms operating shock;
• 5.5ms average latency;
• 12ms average seek time;
• Parallel ATA-100;
• Ultra DMA (mode-5);
• 98/98/102/102 weight in grams;
• 2.2/2.2/2.5/2.5 Bels typical idle acoustics;
• 2.6/2.6/2.9/2.9 Bels typical operating acoustics;

Hitachi’s new mobile drives complement the 4200rpm Travelstar 80GN, shipped late last year, to offer customers the broadest portfolio of 2.5” mobile hard disk drive products on the market.

IBM is the first to support Hitachi's 7200rpm mobile drives and will be shipping them in new, more powerful ThinkPad systems later this Summer. In addition, IBM plans to incorporate the Travelstar 5K80 in several ThinkPad notebook models next month. Both the 5K80 and 7K60 are shipping in volume this month.