Hitachi today began shipment of its fourth-generation 7,200 RPM mobile hard drive, the Travelstar 7K320.

The new drive delivers 60 percent higher capacity than its predecessor, while improving application performance by 12 percent and power consumption by 22 percent. The drive?s quiet acoustics improve the experience of watching movies or listening to music on a notebook PC. The 2.5-inch drive is offered with optional Bulk Data Encryption for users wanting increased data security. Hitachi also plans to ship enhanced-availability (EA) models, designed to provide high-capacity storage for low-duty-cycle, 24x7 applications.

"Solid state drives (SSD) have yet to deliver an overall increase in speed, and certainly not at an affordable price. The 7,200 RPM speed of the Travelstar 7K320 provides an improved overall experience, at the capacities users want and at a far lower cost than SSD."

The Travelstar 7K320 includes many features, including:

- 320GB capacity for storing approximately 80 hours of high definition video
- The 7,200 RPM provides any operating system with a noticeable advantage in boot times and application performance. A SATA 3Gb/s interface provides faster file copying and document retrieval
- Operating shock protection of 400Gs to minimize the effects of rough handling and vibration
- Power utilization on par with Hitachi?s 5,400 RPM mobile drives, so that users can enjoy more "unplugged" notebook computing time

The Travelstar 7K320 features optional Bulk Data Encryption (BDE), a capability that Hitachi has offered in its mobile hard drives since the start of 2007. Hard drive level encryption provides improved performance and a higher level of security than any of the previously available methods.

When employing bulk data encryption, data is scrambled using a key as it is being written to the disk and then descrambled with the key as it is retrieved. Thus, data encryption at the hard-drive level represents a more sophisticated approach of securing users? data and is generally considered to be virtually impenetrable. Another benefit is that it speeds and simplifies the drive re-deployment process. By deleting the encryption key, the data on the drive is rendered unreadable, thereby eliminating the need for time-consuming data-overwrite.

BDE models ship exclusively with a SATA 1.5Gb/s interface.

The Travelstar 7K320 is now shipping worldwide. The enhanced-availability version of the drive is expected to ship in the third quarter of 2008.

Technical Specifications:

Travelstar 7K320
320/250/160/120/80GB
9.5mm in height
7,200 RPM
252 billion bits per square inch maximum areal density
2/2/1/1/1 glass disks
4/4/2/2/1 TMR recording head(s)
1000G/1ms non-operating shock
400G/2ms operating shock
4.2ms average latency
12ms average read time
1.0W active idle
0.8W low-power idle
Serial ATA 3Gb/s, 1.5Gb/s encrypted
115/110 grams in weight
2.5Bels typical idle acoustics
2.8Bels typical operational acoustics