Toshiba Corporation announced the highest-capacity 2.5” hard disk drive that will serve laptops and other small form-factor applications. For the first time ever 100GB of data may be stored in a box that is smaller than a pack of cigarettes.

Toshiba’s new MK1031GAS hard disk drive is a 100GB device with 8MB cache and 4200rpm motor. The world’s first 100GB 2.5” HDD was achieved by using 2 advanced platters with 80Gb of data per square inch areal density. The key to achieving this was replacing the Pico Sliders attached to the drive’s heads, and which maintain the appropriate distance from the disk during read and write operations, with Femto Sliders that are 35% smaller and much lighter. Advances were also achieved in the thin-film technology for both the head and the platter, according to Toshiba.

The new drive’s shock resistance of 3,185 m/s2 (325G, 2msec) is 50% higher than in Toshiba’s current 2.5” HDD, due to employment of the smaller, lighter Femto Sliders in combination with a lighter head-suspension and head arm.

Power consumption of the “MK1031GAS” is approximately 20% lower on average than the company’s current drive due to pulse width modulation (PWM) that controls disk rotation speed by switching the power supply to the spindle motor on and off at a certain frequency. A DC-DC converter is also used in the power unit. Low noise operation, as low as 21dB in an idle state, is achieved by an optimized sinusoidal waveform to control the operational current of the spindle motor.

Samples of the MK1031GAS will be available in May.