Toshiba Corporation has announced a new 2.5-inch hard disk drive (HDD) that uses perpendicular magnetic recording technology to achieve the industry"s largest 200GB capacity with only two platters. The new best of class HDD, MK2035GSS, features the highest areal density yet achieved of 277.1 megabits per square millimeter (178.8 gigabits per square inch). Toshiba plans to start mass production of the drive in August 2006.
The new 2.5-inch 200GB drive sets a new benchmark for areal density of 277.1 megabits per square millimeter (178.8 gigabits per square inch), boosting data capacity to 1.67 times that of Toshiba"s highest capacity conventional 2.5-inch drive. The new drive is a slim 9.5 millimeters, as it contains only two hard-disk platters, but nonetheless has storage capacity of 200GB.