Toshiba's 500GB laptop drive is ready for the Christmas ball

Oh hey, welcome to 500GB laptop drive announcement party Toshiba. Shame you had to come dressed in the same 9.5-mm slab, 2.5-inch 3Gbps SATA interface, 1.4 watt idle power draw, 5,400rpm spin, and 25dB hum as everyone else in the room. Pretty, but still embarrassing. No full-disk, hardware encryption but at least you can take comfort at besting some (but not all) of your competition by actually shipping your drive in December.

[Via Impress]

[shawnmos @ Nov 19th 2008 2:11AM]

As long as competition drives prices down, sounds good to me.

[neodorian @ Nov 19th 2008 2:13AM]

I've been more enjoying the barely-sub-$100 terabyte drives shipped free on newegg this past week or so. Just bumped up the storage on my media server.

[KilgoreTrout @ Nov 19th 2008 3:21AM]

WOW, that's so interesting man!

[neodorian @ Nov 19th 2008 11:26AM]

Yeah I guess I should have worked in something snide about Apple or Microsoft to avoid getting downranked. Thanks for pointing out the semi-unrelatedness of my post with the total worthlessness of your own.

[Joseph @ Nov 19th 2008 1:29PM]

it's not often that we get to down-rank someone twice. Thanks for the additional comment.

[raymond @ Nov 19th 2008 2:14AM]

man the amount of porn i could store on my ps3 if i had this installed, would be mind bottling.

[finite_rings @ Nov 19th 2008 2:18AM]

mind *boggling*

[raymond @ Nov 19th 2008 2:25AM]

@ finite_rings

haha nope i meant bottling, i was thinking about blades of glory when i replied for some reason.

[Daniel @ Nov 19th 2008 2:18AM]

Haha when I read this I thought I was reading a product description from Woot

[Erb @ Nov 19th 2008 3:07AM]

OMG, Thanks! I went to go see what woot was today, and it was...
WOOT OFF!

Everybody get your browsers on woot.com NAO!

[AVG @ Nov 19th 2008 3:30AM]

Woot just had a "DigiPro 8" x 6" USB Graphics Tablet with Cordless Pen" for $30! What a steal. Got one for my sister for her birthday.

Moral of the story is, thanks Erb,

[nerdtalker @ Nov 19th 2008 2:19AM]

More storage is always a win, but after you've switched from a 5400 RPM drive to 7200 RPM in the notebook form factor, there really isn't any going back. The performance difference is so noticeable that anything slow feels unbearably glacial, and ReadyBoost does little to really make it feel the same as having a good drive.

[digitallysick @ Nov 19th 2008 2:35AM]

SSD = win

[Gio Tron @ Nov 19th 2008 2:36AM]

Cosign to that.

[lpppppl @ Nov 19th 2008 2:46AM]

only if it automatically slows down: average percentage increase of power draw of a 7200rpm w.r.t. 5400rpm >=7200/5400
(basically Irw^2/sqrt(1-u^2/c^2) is increasing at a microscopic rate, but you're doing it 7200 times now instead of 5400...)

[Rico-San @ Nov 19th 2008 11:05AM]

Agreed. I've got a 100 GB 7200 RPM drive in my lappy, and while I'd like to put something bigger (I'm using PATA, so 250 GB is the limit for me), I'm very content with the speed. It really does make a difference.

Now, when SLC SSDs come down in price, then sign me up.

[L3 @ Nov 19th 2008 3:15AM]

A spacewalking astronaut accidentally let go of her tool bag Tuesday after a grease gun inside it exploded, and helplessly watched as the tote and everything inside floated away.

[Bo @ Nov 19th 2008 3:21AM]

Thank you, space cadet!

[L3 @ Nov 19th 2008 3:17AM]

"Oh, great," she mumbled.

[Patriks7 @ Nov 19th 2008 5:12AM]

I have a small question.. As far as I know, Toshiba, WD and also Samsung are selling these 500 GB drives..
Which would be the most reliable one for my laptop? I really don't have too much experience with HDD's..

[LonnieDvD @ Nov 19th 2008 7:27AM]

Darn it, if only Toshiba could have had this 500GB in their laptops two weeks ago. As Maxwell Smart would say, I missed it by that much!

[Joseph @ Nov 19th 2008 1:28PM]

it's not often that we get to down-rank someone twice. Thanks for the additional comment.

[Joseph @ Nov 19th 2008 1:28PM]

bury this one, it didnt get posted int he right place.

[John Wayne @ Nov 19th 2008 5:32PM]

it's not often that i get to down-rank someone who just down-ranked someone else twice, twice. Thanks for the additional comment.