Toshiba's record breaking 1.8-inch 250GB SATA disk for your next ultra-slim laptop

Ok, it's not by much, but world's biggest is world's biggest especially notable when it comes in a package this small. Toshiba just busted up its own record for 1.8-inch drive capacity with this new 250GB MKxx29GSG series disk spinning at 5,400rpm -- the previous 240GB 1.8-incher announced a few weeks ago is stuck with a slower PATA interface more suitable to portable audio players. That makes this 8.0-mm thick, 3Gbps SATA hard drive ideal for ultra-slim, ultra-portable laptops requiring snappy (and cheap compared to an equivalent capacity SSD) data access by your applications. At least it will be when it begins mass production in November.

[Via Impress]

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 25th 2008 3:26AM]

Wow! That battery is huge!

[Muhammad Oli Posted Sep 25th 2008 4:05AM]

No! No! No! You've got it all wrong! The battery is normal sized and the hard drive is small! Jeeze. Kids these days.

[allston232 Posted Sep 25th 2008 5:30AM]

like me and the soap bars from one of the cheap hotels, where I think I'm a giant compared to those soap bars that they give you at those m/hotels.

[lax Posted Sep 25th 2008 4:12AM]

I guess no-one gets sarcasm :|

[Muhammad Oli Posted Sep 25th 2008 4:15AM]

Both my post and the first post were sarcasm. Don't know about the guy below mine...

[linuxamp Posted Sep 25th 2008 5:39AM]

There is a point where written sarcasm becomes indistinguishable to most. I think the second post is borderline.

On another note: That's a AAA battery right?

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 26th 2008 3:52PM]

I only see one A on that battery. Maybe there's another logo on the other side, though.

[michaspi Posted Sep 25th 2008 3:30AM]

Damn it, Apple/Microsoft should have put this into their hard-disk-based PMPs, even though their PMPs use an IDE interface.

[Danja Posted Sep 25th 2008 4:37AM]

VTEC just kicked in, yo!!

*wheeeeeeee*

/me is not high, no.

[TheNightPhoenix Posted Sep 25th 2008 7:39AM]

That's exactly what I had been hoping for, I lost my iPod 160GB days before the keynote and couldn't believe Apple lowered the max speck to 120GB. I hope someone buys some of these and puts them in a PMP.

[michaspi Posted Sep 25th 2008 9:25AM]

@BuddyBoy:

It seems that Apple will soon be abandoning hard drives altogether and completely moving toward flash memory-based iPods. Microsoft can still pull off a Zune with this hard disk or maybe some other company like Samsung or Archos.

Alas, hard drives are really going out of style. Everyone has hard-ons for SSDs.

[M C Posted Sep 25th 2008 10:33PM]

I want to put this in my PCMCIA card slot! why doesnt anyone do that anymore. * years ago or so the 5 and 10 gig pc card drives were really popular

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 25th 2008 4:52AM]

Will this fit into X300?

[CaramelZappa Posted Sep 25th 2008 3:54AM]

I'm still pissed off that apple chose to LOWER the maximum capacity of the classic instead of pushing it higher again. I was looking forward to buying a 250gb ipod, because it would actually be able to hold all of my music, and maybe some videos too. 120gb just doesn't cut it. If I end up getting an EEE PC (Or wind, or Acer Aspire One, or Lenovo S10) I'll probably put one of these in it.

[aeth Posted Sep 25th 2008 4:10AM]

I think they want to push people to purchase their flash based products (namely the iPod Touch).

[M C Posted Sep 25th 2008 10:35PM]

hell, the only reason i wont get a touch is cuz of capacity. Put one of these in there, and I might hink about actually laying down 500 bucks. I really wouldnt mind the extra thickness either

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 25th 2008 5:03AM]

Heck, I'd be happy with that in my 17" laptop. 160GB really didn't go as far as I'd hoped it would and an extra 90GB would be damned useful. That said, I'm still hoping to put a 500GB drive in it later this year. But, for a small and light laptop this drive looks like it will be very good and, personally, I'd be more inclined to to choose it rather than an SSD alternative.

[LondonConsultant Posted Sep 25th 2008 5:15AM]

In the age of SSDs, improving 1.8" HDDs can sometime seem like polishing turds - although 250GB is an impressive steaming one...

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 25th 2008 11:05AM]

I'm really surprised that this isn't a hybrid packing 1-2GB of cache but using a slower spindle speed. 5400 RPM is just going to suck battery life.

[jashsayani Posted Sep 25th 2008 5:21AM]

Nice. Even FUJITSU is coming up with ultra-portable SATA drives, read on a blog. I'll get one for Data backup. ]

[simbadogg Posted Sep 25th 2008 5:47AM]

smashing

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 25th 2008 6:23AM]

We need these numbers coming out of SSD's. NAND is coming down in cost per Gb, it is only a matter of time.

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 25th 2008 10:31AM]

My idea is to put two of these in the space of a normal laptop drive and have a nice RAID.

[edmcquade Posted Sep 25th 2008 12:05PM]

They should stick this in the next AppleTV

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 25th 2008 12:09PM]

Um..... Will this fit in my mini 9?????

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 25th 2008 1:11PM]

Does it fit in a MacBook Air??

[madmaxmedia Posted Sep 25th 2008 2:44PM]

Unfortunately not. This drive is 8mm height, the MBA needs 5mm.

Maybe in the next MBA rev. they can shave some other space and create room for a 8mm drive. I think that would be very advantageous for Apple and MBA buyers...

[Damage Posted Sep 25th 2008 2:41PM]

I want one of these in PATA form so I can shoehorn one of the suckers into my Zune 30 and make it... Zune 250...

OR something. Still, Damage wants.

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 25th 2008 3:46PM]

8mm high?

Might as well go for an extra 1.5mm and buy the 2.5" 500GB drive for a lot less money.

[libelle Posted Sep 25th 2008 6:10PM]

I'm still waiting for someone to actually sell the 500gb 9mm SATA notebook drives that were promised for, oh, March of this year.

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 25th 2008 6:24PM]

jeesuuuuS! if you're only going to mention one model engadget, why not make it easier for us and tag the post 'MK2529GSG'