HGST announces 1.5TB hard drive for notebooks

Formerly known as Hitachi Global Storage Technologies and now a Western Digital company, HGST has announced the Travelstar 5K1500. It is the storage industry’s first 2.5-inch, 9.5mm, 1.5TB mobile hard drive.

Ronald Tiefenthäler/ Alex Storey, Published 05/22/2013

Storage

HGST, formerly Hitachi Global Storage Technologies and now a subsidiary of Western Digital (WD), is bringing its new Travelstar 5K1500 to the market. The 5K1500 offers an impressive capacity of 1.5TB while maintaining a notebook-standard height of 9.5 millimeters. As a reminder, thicker 2.5-inch drives are either 15mm or 12.5mm, while Ultrabooks and Hybrid computers predominantly use 7mm drives.

Hitachi (or rather HGST) manages to achieve its 1.5TB milestone by fitting three 500GB platters in a space that has so far only incorporated two platters (as far as 9.5mm drives are concerned). The 5K1500 spins at a conservative 5400 RPM, however the company is keen to point out a ‘best-of-breed’ media transfer rate of 998Mb/s in PCMark 7 and PCMark Vantage testing.

Other specifications include a 32MB cache buffer and 6Gbps SATA interface, while the halogen-free components of the Travelstar 5K1500 are designed to withstand operating shocks of up to 400G and 1000G non-operating shocks. Operating power is 1.8W when the drive is in use and 0.5W at idle.

Besides notebooks the new drive is targeting external hard drives, gaming consoles, and all-in-one (AiO) desktop PCs. Pricing remains unknown for the time being however the Travelstar 5K1500 is expected to be available in June.

Source(s)

http://www.notebookcheck.com/HGST-2-5-Zoll-Festplatte-Travelstar-5K1500-fuer-Notebooks-mit-1-5-TByte.92953.0.html

http://www.hgst.com/tech/techlib.nsf/techdocs/75C6B2CC4638FE3A86257B710000CC42/$file/TS5K1500_ds_final.pdf

+ Press Release

Press Release

HGST LAUNCHES THE HIGHEST CAPACITY HARD DRIVE FOR THE MAINSTREAM MOBILE MARKET

With the Highest Storage Density of Any Hard Drive Today, HGST Delivers 1.5TB Capacity in a Standard 2.5-inch 9.5mm Form Factor, Targeting Notebooks, External Hard Drives, Gaming Consoles and All-in-one Desktop PCs

SAN JOSE, Calif., May 21, 2013– HGST (formerly Hitachi Global Storage Technologies and now a Western Digital company, NASDAQ: WDC) continues to push technology innovation by offering the highest storage density (MB/mm³) of any hard disk drive (HDD) today. The new Travelstar® 5K1500 is the industry’s first 9.5mm, 1.5TB mobile hard drive and features the industry’s highest capacity in a standard 9.5mm design. Built on HGST’s proven platform for quality and reliability, the Travelstar 5K1500 delivers high shock protection, low power and solid performance to meet the growing demands for a variety of market segments, including notebooks, external hard drives, gaming consoles and all-in-one desktop PCs.

The HGST three-platter Travelstar 5K1500 offers 50 percent more capacity than currently shipping 1TB 2.5-inch 9.5mm HDDs and 200 percent more capacity than single-disk 500GB 7mm or 5mm 2.5-inch HDDs, making them ideal for capacity-hungry devices. With better PCMark® Vantage and PCMark 7 performance than currently shipping two-platter HGST 5,400RPM models, all Travelstar 5K1500 drives ship with a 32MB cache buffer and 6Gbps SATA interface.

Smaller than current 15mm or 12.5mm 2.5-inch HDDs, the Travelstar 5K1500 drive features a standard 9.5mm form factor for simple integration into many traditional system designs. This allows OEMs and system integrators to take advantage of its huge capacity, 0.5 watt low power idle and 5,400RPM performance to deliver new high-capacity, power-efficient systems for longer battery life in notebooks and other unplugged applications. With only 2.5 bels idle, the 1.5TB Travelstar 5K1500 drive is also whisper quiet. The new Travelstar 5K1500 family offers the best operating shock at 400G/2ms and non-operating shock at 1000G/1ms to protect against bumps and rough handling in mobile environments. A dual stage actuator is included for track miss registration improvements for greater data integrity and reliability. All Travelstar drives use halogen-free components to support the “green” computing initiatives that are of increasing importance to today’s end users.

“Contrary to popular belief, the mobile hard drive market is not being replaced by SSDs. We continue to invest in and serve both the traditional 9.5mm and 7mm thin and light HDD mobile markets as they offer the best cost-per-GB, performance and proven product reliability for high-capacity, mainstream, Ultrabook® and A/V content creation notebook markets,” said Brendan Collins, vice president of product marketing at HGST. “HGST continues to have a strong share in the 2.5-inch market and the new Travelstar 5K1500 hard drive is the latest addition to our broad line of 5,400 and 7,200 RPM 2.5-inch drives, giving OEMs, ODMs and integrators an opportunity to grow and differentiate their product lines.”

“The PC continues to be an important productivity platform for content creators, who represent an echelon of users that value high-capacity portable storage," said John Rydning, research vice president for hard disk drives at IDC. "HGST's new mobile 1.5TB hard disk drive in a standard form factor for notebook PCs provides the highest capacity solution available today for users seeking more storage capacity inside their notebook PC.”

The new 1.5TB Travelstar 5K1500 is also available in an Enhanced Availability (EA) model, which brings together a host of features such as high capacity, durability and low power for blade servers, network routers, video surveillance and other systems needing 24x7 access to data. The Travelstar 5K1500 drive helps system designers, integrators and IT managers build and maintain their storage systems, achieving greater storage density in the same 2.5-inch footprint, while maximizing performance, and improving data integrity in “always-on” applications in lower-transaction environments.

Availability

Travelstar 5K1500 drives are expected to ship in June. The EA model, and the optional self-encrypting Travelstar 5K1500 model, which is designed to meet the Trusted Computer Group (TCG) Opal Storage Security specification, are expected to be available in 3Q 2013.

About HGST

HGST (formerly known as Hitachi Global Storage Technologies or Hitachi GST), a Western Digital company (NASDAQ: WDC), develops advanced hard disk drives, enterprise-class solid state drives, innovative external storage solutions and services used to store, preserve and manage the world’s most valued data. Founded by the pioneers of hard drives, HGST provides high-value storage for a broad range of market segments, including Enterprise, Desktop, Mobile Computing, Consumer Electronics and Personal Storage. HGST was established in 2003 and maintains its U.S. headquarters in San Jose, California. For more information, please visit the company’s website at http://www.hgst.com.

This press release contains forward-looking statements, including statements relating to expected availability dates for HDD products. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements, including changes in markets, demand, global economic conditions and other risks and uncertainties listed in Western Digital’s recent SEC filings, to which your attention is directed. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak on as of the date hereof, and HGST/WD undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events or circumstances.

One GB is equal to one billion bytes, and one TB equals 1,000 GB (one trillion bytes). Actual capacity will vary depending on operating environment and formatting.