Hitachi delivers 7200RPM 2.5-inch Travelstar drive

Hitachi went and sucked more desktop performance out of a 2.5-inch, durable laptop drive once again. Their new 2.5-inch Travelstar 7K320 spins at 7200RPM with a 320GB storage capacity. It also boasts 12ms seek times and optional Bulk Data Encryption, which scrambles and unscrambles data as its written just in case you lose your little precious on the road. This drive is shipping now unless you want the enhanced availability version -- meant for media servers and 24/7 uptime -- which should ship this fall. And let's be honest: until solid-state drives hit that elusive price / storage sweet spot, drives like this may just be your best bet in compact computing.

[Morgan @ May 7th 2008 8:45AM]

One important thing the summary failed to mention is the drive height. It's 9.5mm, which means it will fit in just about any device that uses 2.5" drives, including some of the smaller laptops out there. Sweet!

[Raymond @ May 7th 2008 8:47AM]

So long after 7K200. Sweet!

They really have to put out this, or those high capacity 5400rpm drive will gain more and more performance edge with the advantage of high density.

But I am going to wait for a review before I go and buy one, worrying about its heat and noise.

I used to use Fujitsu hard drives, where are generally cooler and quieter than their counterparts from other manufacturer.

[case @ May 7th 2008 9:03AM]

Hmm... isn't there a 320 GB HDD coming out in June from Fujitsu?

http://www.engadget.com/2008/03/24/fujitsu-announces-worlds-first-2-5-inch-320gb-disk-to-spin-at/

[nikster @ May 7th 2008 9:45AM]

it's not on sale yet - at least, i couldn't find it anywhere for sale. let's see how much that hitachi is "available now"... i can't seem to find it in any of my usual online stores either.

[Cycomachead @ May 7th 2008 9:32AM]

I upgraded my MacBook's HD to a Hitachi 7K200 just after Christmas. I love it. It's fast quiet and doesn't seem to suck much more power than a 5400RPM did.

Anyway, this is good news, but I've got about 90 gigs to go before I get a new one.

[Edmund @ May 7th 2008 10:34AM]

It's "available now" in the sense that Apple products are "available now" after Steve announces them at the keynote. I ordered a 7K200 yesterday, but promptly cancelled that order as soon as I saw this press release. Now to wait a month for it to make it into distribution channels, and another month for Newegg et al to slog through all the backorders...

[marc @ May 7th 2008 11:06AM]

Where have you been all my life? Been waiting on this for months to use as field video capture drive for my laptop.

[Johnny Unitas @ May 7th 2008 11:08AM]

Only an idiot would by a $hitachi drive when cheap, reliable options from WD and Seagate are readily available.

I've never understood why Hitachi bought the "Deathstar" line from IBM given all the negative press and associations it brings with it.

And why is this even news?

JU

[Tom @ Jun 13th 2008 5:46PM]

Just FYI if you're reading some of the above (questionable) comments about Seagate drives being faster - the 7200.3 has an internal transfer rate of 60MB/s. The above Hitachi has a max internal transfer of 142MB/s. Max internal means that's the outside tracks only, but that's still a lot faster. I know internal transfer isn't the only measure of performance, but it's kinda a limiting factor ;-). Seagate drives have better queuing for instance which would help you if you're using it in a blade server, but I don't think that pertains so much to most people here. Hitachi's got the performance.

[Wiliam @ May 7th 2008 12:10PM]

Johnny Unitas you clearly have no idea about HD technology. The Hitachis have been faster than everyone else for years, and the Deskstar line is excellent right NOW. And that's coming from someone who owned 5 of the so-called Deathstar drives. I still by Hitachi, and it's news because it's new? Selfish twit...

[0megapart!cle @ May 7th 2008 3:36PM]

Yes, this is obviously news, but I don't know who you are trying to fool by saying that Hitachi's are on top of the performance heap. Seagate is generally considered to be the highest performance drive maker, by far.

[1trev27 @ May 7th 2008 12:13PM]

Sweet! I had an older version (60GB) of this series on a previous notebook and it was the business. Good to see they have decent capacities now.
Will probably cost a wee bit tho!

[Andrew @ Jul 4th 2008 3:27AM]

You know, "delivers" is really a bit misleading here. Granted Hitachi's own press release implied if you couldn't buy one today you certainly would be able to next week.

Well, its now July and I still haven't found a single place selling this HDD.

Maybe Engadget should do an... opinion piece? I don't know what it would be called, but something about which companies are truest to their word regarding published information etc.