Toshiba today announced a new family of high-performance 7,200RPM 2.5-inch HDDs, including a top-end drive with a half-terabyte capacity. Mass production of the series will start in October.

Toshiba's high-performance MK5056GSYseries offers capacities of 160GB, 250GB, 320GB and 500GB for commercial and consumer notebook PCs, gaming notebooks, and tiny and all-in-one desktops. In operation, the drives deliver significant performance improvements over Toshiba's previous generation of 7,200RPM drives. Data is transferred at 1,255Mb/s, a 23% boost, and energy consumption efficiency is raised by 28%.

Application of Toshiba's original advanced acoustic management technology in the new double-platter MK5056GSY, the leading edge half-terabyte model, and the MK3256GSY, cuts acoustic noise during seek to 25dB, a 3dB decrease from the earlier MK3254GSY. The single-platter models, MK2556GSY and MK1656GSY, cut acoustic noise to 23dB, a 2dB decrease from the MK1654GSY, until now the quietest 7,200RPM 2.5-inch HDD.

Key Features

1. Reaches industry's largest capacity in 7200RPM model (MK5056GSY)
Toshiba's improved magnetic head and disk layer technology realize an areal density of 612 Mbit/mm2 (395 Gbit/in2) for the MK5056GSY, matching the industry highest level for 7,200RPM disks. Four different capacities are offered.

2. Improved energy consumption efficiency (MK5056GSY)
Compared to Toshiba's previous highest capacity HDD (the 320GB MK3254GSY), the new 500GB HDD MK5056GSY offers a 28% improvement in energy efficiency, as defined under the Japanese legal standard.