Toshiba Corp.’s storage device division on Tuesday unveiled the world’s highest capacity hard disk drive (HDD) in 1.8” form-factor. The new 240GB and 120GB drives from Toshiba not only boast with record capacities, but also set the world’s record in terms of areal density.

The new micro hard disk drives from Toshiba sport 80GB, 120GB and 240GB capacities, 4200rpm spindle speed, 8MB of cache (or 256KB in case of budget 80GB model) and Parallel ATA-100 interface. Toshiba declares 15ms average seek time for the new MK2431GAH and MKxx31GAL HDDs. The manufacturer said that the new hard drives use a new mechanical and firmware design for enhanced durability.

The company's new 1.8” HDDs also reflect a commitment to enhancing the environmental soundness of its products by discontinuing use of certain environmentally harmful chemical substances across all components incorporated in the drive and reducing carbon dioxide emissions during HDD operation.

Toshiba’s two new hard disk drives – the single-platter 120GB and dual-platter 240GB – feature the industry's highest areal density at 344Gb/inch² (gigabits-per-square-inch), using fourth-generation perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) technology, which was first introduced and commercialized by Toshiba in 2005. Toshiba’s experience in PMR has enabled the company to consistently deliver leading-edge capacities in the 1.8” form-factor to support growing demand for the miniaturization of mobile devices to run digital video, photo, audio and computing applications.

“Toshiba’s dedication and focus on 1.8” HDD product development over the past decade has enabled us to continually drive innovation in this form factor – from robust capacity introductions to improved performance and power efficiency. Thanks to these continual advancements, 1.8” HDDs have become an ideal form factor for the digital world, where the ability to handle rich digital content in a mobile environment is king,” said Maciek Brzeski, vice president of marketing at Toshiba Storage Device Division.

Toshiba has cumulatively shipped more than 60 million 1.8” HDDs worldwide and is one of the leading producers of hard disk drives for mobile applications.

Toshiba’s new 1.8” HDDs will be incorporated into consumer electronics and mobile PC products shipping this holiday season.

Tags: Toshiba