Tiny disk offers giant storage

today announced a 4.6cm (1.8-inch) hard disk drive (HDD) that offers a storage capacity of 100 gigabytes, the largest capacity yet achieved in this class of HDD.

The new drive, dubbed MK1011GAH, employs perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) technology and an improved error correction code to achieve a storage density of 240.8 megabits per square millimeter. Toshiba will start mass production of this new drive from January 2007.

The high-storage, lightweight, small format HDD is designed to support advances in the notebook PC market and to meet growing demand for personal digital media. The new HDD is the first in its class to achieve a 100GB capacity.

Alongside capacity improvement, Toshiba has also improved power consumption to 0.003W/GB, as defined in Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry's Energy Conservation Law. The new drive also complies with the EU's RoHS (restriction of hazardous substances) directive, which came into force in July 2006.