Toshiba Storage Device Division, a provider of small-form-factor hard disk
drives, announced a family of 7,200-rpm 2.5-inch SATA drives. The MKxx61GSY is
targeted at high-end notebook PCs, gaming laptops and mobile workstations and
is available in 160GB to 640GB capacities.
Toshiba has started shipping the MKxx61GSY, with volume production scheduled
in the third quarter of 2010. The MKxx61GSYB will be available in the fourth
quarter of 2010, and availability of the Self-Encrypting Drive (SED) models will
be announced at a later date, the company said.
Leveraging the MKxx61GSY platform, the MKxx61GSYB series is a
high-durability model targeted at 24/7 applications such as network routers,
network switches, blade servers and point-of-sale terminals in a full range of
capacities from 80GB to 500GB. The MKxx61GSYB offers nearline storage levels of
reliability and performance in a small-form-factor design.
The third member of the family, designed to the TCG Opal Specification, is
the SED, which provides industry-standard, government-grade security features
for organizations wanting to secure data at rest for compliance with data
privacy policies. The company said the SED drives will be available after
launch of the GSY and GSYB series models.
"With this family, Toshiba is addressing the high-performance 2.5-inch
market and enabling system differentiation in the fiercely competitive notebook
PC market. The MKxx61GSY is designed for speed, with a balanced approach to
storage capacity, durability, power consumption and acoustics, compared to
5,400-rpm mobile and 3.5-inch desktop drives," said Maciek Brzeski, vice
president of marketing at Toshiba Storage Device Division. "We have been
able to transfer our extensive experience to the enterprise market so that the
MKxx61GSYB meets demanding applications that require greater durability,
availability and performance."
The product family offers systems designers a choice of capacities across
standard, high-durability and self-encrypting models. The HDD family provides
quiet operation, as the seek acoustics are the same as idle mode. The
appliances are also halogen-free and power-efficient, and Toshiba said they
also deliver lowered heat generation and power consumption during operation.
"Extracting additional value from HDDs with performance, security and
other features is challenging, requiring market savvy in addition to
technological prowess from the HDD supplier," says John Rydning, research
director at IDC. "Executing on this
strategy, Toshiba is addressing the market's needs with a differentiated
product lineup based on one family, which helps customers get to market
efficiently with key product differentiation."
