Toshiba has announced an upcoming speed increase to its line of 1.8-inch hard drives typically found in UMPCs, subnotebooks, netbooks, and various other small computing devices.
In August, Toshiba will begin shipping 80GB and 160GB hard drives running at 5,400RPM to manufacturers. Current 1.8-inch drives top out at 4,200RPM.
The storage capacities offered by the 160GB MK1617GSG and 80GBMK8017GSG mirror those of larger form factor HDDs, while reducing thestorage footprint by nearly 40 percent compared with the 2.5-inch form factor. Combined with the new micro-SATA connector, Serial-ATA 1.5Gb/s interface and 5,400 RPM spin speed, the MKxx17GSG series offers small and light-weight solutions at increased data transfer rates for enhanced performance in sub-notebook PCs.
These new drives should be a good option for people who don’t want to spend the money on solid state drives and the 80GB and 160GB capacities of these faster drives from Toshiba offer exponentially more storage space than SSDs as well.