Considering that Fujitsu just unleashed a
half-terabyte drive in the 2.5-inch form factor yesterday, Hitachi's 320GB Travelstar 5K320 seems a bit underwhelming. Still, it's pretty capacious in its own right, and does feature optional Bulk Data Encryption (BDE) and a 3Gb/s data transfer rate. The 5,400RPM SATA drive also includes "altitude-sensing Thermal Fly-height Control (TFC), an improved actuator latch and fourth-generation perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) head technology," and better still, only sucks down 1.8-watts of power when reading and writing. The good news? It's shipping to customers worldwide as we speak. The bad? Who knows how pricey it'll be.
