Toshiba Offers World's Highest Capacity in New Line of 1.8-Inch Hard Disk Drives

IRVINE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 4, 2004--

Mobile Storage Leader Achieves Industry-Leading Benchmarks for Areal Density and other Key Technology Milestones for Growing HDD Category

“We are delighted to announce the world's highest capacity 1.8-inch HDD”

Toshiba Storage Device Division (SDD), the industry pioneer in small form factor storage, today announced a new family of 1.8-inch hard disk drives (HDDs) that deliver the industry's highest capacities in this category with its 30GB "MK3006GAL" and 60GB "MK6006GAH." These drives also feature improved shock tolerance, power consumption and vibration control for better performance in mobile consumer electronics devices.

To achieve this industry-leading capacity, Toshiba has set a new benchmark for areal density in the 1.8-inch HDD category at 93.5 gigabits per square inch. This has allowed Toshiba to pack 30GB of data onto a single 1.8-inch platter, an increase of 50 percent over current models, delivering drives that are ideally suited for in-demand consumer electronics products such as mobile audio players and mobile notebook PCs.

"We are delighted to announce the world's highest capacity 1.8-inch HDD," said Amy Dalphy, manager, HDD business unit, Toshiba SDD. "We made improvements to push the capacity, increase shock resistance and to lower power consumption and noise. The resulting drives are perfect for integration in audio applications, such as mobile audio players, and mini-notebook PCs. We will continue to introduce high-capacity, small form factor HDD and contribute to making a reality of ubiquitous computing."

The key to setting a new areal density benchmark of 30GB on a single platter -- and achieving a 1.8-inch drive with the largest capacity ever -- was the replacement of the Pico Sliders with Femto Sliders. Femto Sliders are attached to the drive's heads, and maintain the appropriate distance from the disk during read and write operations. The new Femto Sliders are 35 percent smaller and much lighter. Advances were also achieved in the thin-film technology for both the head and the platter.

Engineered to meet the stringent requirements for mobile devices such as MP3 players, handheld video players and handheld computers, Toshiba's new 30GB (single platter) and 60GB (dual platter) HDDs offer industry-leading operating shock tolerance of 500G and non-operating shock tolerance of 1,500G through the employment of fluid dynamic bearing (FDB) motor technology. The drives' FDB motor also provides improved acoustics.

Toshiba's new 1.8-inch drives also achieve improvements in vibration resistance and power consumption. The drives are capable of withstanding 2G of vibration during operation. Power consumption of the MK6006GAH and MK3006GAL are approximately 20 percent lower on average than the company's current drive(a) due to application of pulse width modulation (PWM) to control the disk rotation speed. A DC-DC converter is also used in the power unit to reduce power consumption.

Shipping and Toshiba Product Family Information

The 1.8-inch 30GB and 60GB HDDs will begin shipping in the fourth quarter 2004. Toshiba has shipped more than 7.5 million 1.8-inch HDD units, achieving volume leadership in this form factor. Toshiba's new 1.8-inch HDD family joins the company's current mobile HDD lineup, which includes 2.5-inch HDDs available in 20GB, 30GB, 40GB, 60GB, 80GB and 100GB capacities. Toshiba's 1.8-inch HDD's are currently available in 10GB, 20GB, 30GB (currently a dual platter drive), 40GB capacities for embedded applications and in a 5GB PC-Card-type mobile HDD. Toshiba most recently announced its 0.85-inch HDD, which has planned capacities of 2GB to 4GB and is featured in this year's Guinness Book of World Records as the world's smallest multi-gigabyte HDD.

Drive Specifications                        MK6006GAH      MK3006GAL
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Capacity                                      60GB           30GB
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Number of platters                              2              1
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Number of heads                                 4              2
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Average seek time                                   15 msec
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Data transfer rate                              Ultra DMA / 100
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Rotational speed                                   4,200 rpm
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Buffer memory                                 2 MB           2 MB
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Interface                                            ATA-6
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External Dimensions
 (WxDxH; mm)                              54 x 78.5 x 8  54 x 78.5 x 5
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Weight                                        62 g           51 g
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Energy consumption
 efficiency                                0.005 W/GB      0.01 W/GB
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                        Operating           4,900 m/s2 (500G, 2msec)
Shock resistance        ----------------------------------------------
                        Non-operating      14,700 m/s2 (1500G, 1msec)
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Note: Toshiba defines a megabyte (MB) as 1,000,000 bytes and a
gigabyte (GB) as 1,000,000,000 bytes.
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(a) Comparison based on Toshiba's current 1.8-inch 20GB and 40GB HDD, "MK4004GAH" and "MK2004GAL."

About Toshiba Storage Device Division

Toshiba SDD, a division of Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc., leads the market in the development, design and manufacturing of combination DVD/CD recordable drives and small form factor 0.85-inch, 1.8-inch and 2.5-inch hard disk drives. Toshiba SDD markets high-quality peripherals to original equipment manufacturers, value-added resellers, value-added dealers, systems integrators and distributors in the United States. Inherent in the Toshiba storage family are the high-quality engineering and manufacturing capabilities that have established Toshiba products as worldwide leaders. For more information, visit www.sdd.toshiba.com.

About Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc. (TAIS)

Headquartered in Irvine, Calif., TAIS is comprised of three divisions: Digital Products Division, Digital Solutions Division and the Storage Device Division. Together, the three divisions provide mobile products and solutions, communications, storage and imaging products and services. Products include industry leading portable computers, PDAs, projectors, DVD/CD recordable products and hard disk drives for computers, telephony products, digital imaging systems, wireless solutions and services. TAIS provides sales, marketing and services for its wide range of information products in the United States and Latin America. TAIS is an independent operating company owned by Toshiba America, Inc., a subsidiary of Toshiba Corporation, which is a world leader in high technology and integrated manufacturing of electrical and electronic components, products and systems. Toshiba has global sales of over $52 billion and more than 300 subsidiaries and affiliates worldwide. For more information visit the company's Web site at www.toshiba.com.

NOTE TO EDITORS: In the tabular information, the "2" in "m/s2" is superscript. It has been changed for transmission purposes only.