Toshiba Announces Family of Small Form Factor Drives Targeted at High-End Computing, High-Availability and Security-Sensitive Applications

Industry-First 7,200 RPM 2.5-Inch SATA Drive Series Delivers High Performance and Lower Power Consumption Across Broad Line of Capacity Points

IRVINE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Toshiba Storage Device Division (SDD), the pioneer in small form factor hard disk drives (HDDs), today announced a new family of 7,200 RPM 2.5-inch SATA drives. This represents the industry’s first broad line of 7,200 RPM 2.5-inch models optimized for demanding performance, power consumption, and durability requirements across a wide range of high-performance and business-critical applications.

“With this family, Toshiba is addressing the high-performance 2.5-inch market and enabling system differentiation in the fiercely competitive notebook PC market. The MKxx61GSY is designed for speed, with a balanced approach to storage capacity, durability, power consumption, and acoustics, compared to 5,400 RPM mobile and 3.5-inch desktop drives”

• MKxx61GSY: Available in 160 to 640GB¹ capacities, the MKxx61GSY is targeted at high-end notebook PCs, gaming laptops, and mobile workstations as well as all-in-one and slimline desktop PCs. Using Toshiba’s extensive experience in the mobile computing market, the MKxx61GSY offers greater power efficiency and durability over 3.5-inch drives.
• High-Durability MKxx61GSYB: Leveraging the MKxx61GSY platform, the MKxx61GSYB series is a high-durability model targeted at demanding 24x7 applications such as network routers, network switches, blade servers, and point-of-sale terminals in a full range of capacities from 80 to 500GB. The MKxx61GSYB offers nearline storage levels of reliability and performance in a small form factor design.
• Self-Encrypting Drive (SED): The third member of the family, designed to the TCG Opal Specification, provides industry-standard, government-grade security features for organizations wanting to secure data at rest for compliance with data privacy policies. The SED drives will be available after launch of the GSY and GSYB series models.

Continuing the Toshiba tradition of leadership and innovation in small form factor storage, this product family offers systems designers a choice of capacities across standard, high-durability, and self-encrypting models. This new HDD family provides extremely quiet operation—the seek acoustics are the same as idle mode. Halogen-free² and power-efficient, the new models also deliver lowered heat generation and power consumption during operation.

Additionally, an optional free-fall sensor in the MKxx61GSY responds to drop events to securely lock the heads in place off the media before system impact. This is an added benefit for mobile applications and gives an extra level of ruggedness and durability to the Toshiba solution.

“With this family, Toshiba is addressing the high-performance 2.5-inch market and enabling system differentiation in the fiercely competitive notebook PC market. The MKxx61GSY is designed for speed, with a balanced approach to storage capacity, durability, power consumption, and acoustics, compared to 5,400 RPM mobile and 3.5-inch desktop drives,” said Maciek Brzeski, vice president of marketing at Toshiba Storage Device Division. “We have been able to transfer our extensive experience to the enterprise market so that the MKxx61GSYB meets demanding applications that require greater durability, availability, and performance.”

“Extracting additional value from HDDs with performance, security, and other features is challenging, requiring market savvy in addition to technological prowess from the HDD supplier,” says John Rydning, research director at IDC. “Executing on this strategy, Toshiba is addressing the market’s needs with a differentiated product line-up based on one family which helps customers get to market efficiently with key product differentiation.”

Toshiba has started shipping the MKxx61GSY, with volume production scheduled in the third quarter of 2010. The MKxx61GSYB will be available in the fourth quarter of 2010 and availability of the SED models will be announced at a later date.

For more information on Toshiba’s line of industry-leading mobile and enterprise-class, small form factor hard drives, visit www.toshibastorage.com.

Product specifications:

Model number	MKxx61GSY
Maximum capacity (formatted)^1	640/500 // 320/250/160
Number of platters	2 // 1
Areal density (max)	506.3 Gb/in^2
Media transfer rate (max)	1,412 Mbps
Average seek time	12 ms
Rotational speed	7,200 RPM
Buffer memory	16 MB
Interface	Serial ATA 3.0 Gb/sec, Revision 2.6 (ATA-8)
Interface transfer rate	3 Gb/s
External dimensions (WxDxH; mm)	69.85 mm x 100.0 mm x 9.5 mm
Weight (g)	115//98 g (max)
Energy consumption efficiency	0.0013/0.0016/0.0025/0.0032/0.0050 W/GB
Shock resistance:
Operating	3,185 m/s^2 (325 G) 2ms
Non-operating	8,820 m/s^2 (900 G) 1ms
Acoustics:
Idle	26 // 23 dB
Seek	26 // 23 dB

Model number	MKxx61GSYB
Maximum capacity (formatted)^1	500 // 250/160/80
Number of platters	2 // 1
Areal density (max)	396 Gb/in^2
Media transfer rate (max)	1,223 Mbps
Average seek time	10.5 ms
Rotational speed	7,200 RPM
Buffer memory	16 MB
Interface	Serial ATA 3.0 Gb/sec, Revision 2.6 (ATA-8)
Interface transfer rate	3 Gb/s
External dimensions (WxDxH; mm)	69.85 mm x 100.0 mm x 9.5 mm
Weight (g)	115 g (max)
Energy consumption efficiency	0.0016/0.0032/0.0050/0.010 W/GB
Shock resistance:
Operating	3,185 m/s^2 (325 G) 2ms
Non-operating	8,820 m/s^2 (900 G) 1ms
Acoustics:
Idle	26 // 23 dB
Seek	26 // 23 dB

About Toshiba Storage Device Division

Toshiba is a one-of-a-kind global storage company, offering hard disk drives (HDDs), optical disk drives (ODDs), solid state drives (SSDs) and NAND flash memories – technologies that drive a wide range of consumer electronics, computer and automotive applications, as well as enterprise solutions for the global marketplace. Through its Storage Device Division, Toshiba leads in the development, design and manufacture of mobile, retail and enterprise hard disk drives. Toshiba SDD markets high-quality peripherals to original equipment manufacturers, original design manufacturers, value-added resellers, value-added dealers, systems integrators, distributors and retailers worldwide. Inherent in the Toshiba storage family are the high-quality engineering and manufacturing capabilities that have established Toshiba products as innovation leaders worldwide. For more information, visit www.toshibastorage.com.

About Toshiba America Information Systems Inc. (TAIS)

Headquartered in Irvine, Calif., TAIS is comprised of four business units: Digital Products Division, Imaging Systems Division, Storage Device Division and Telecommunication Systems Division. Together, these divisions provide mobile products and solutions, including industry-leading portable computers; televisions, TV/DVD Combination products, Blu-ray Disc and DVD products and portable devices; imaging products for the security, medical and manufacturing markets; storage products for automotive, computer and consumer electronics applications; and telephony equipment and associated applications.

TAIS provides sales, marketing and services for its wide range of products in the United States and Latin America. TAIS is an independent operating company owned by Toshiba America, Inc., a subsidiary of Toshiba Corporation. Toshiba is a world leader and innovator in pioneering high technology, a diversified manufacturer and marketer of advanced electronic and electrical products spanning information & communications systems; digital consumer products; electronic devices and components; power systems, including nuclear energy; industrial and social infrastructure systems; and home appliances. Toshiba was founded in 1875, and today operates a global network of more than 740 companies, with 204,000 employees worldwide and annual sales surpassing 6.3 trillion yen (US$68 billion). For more information on Toshiba’s leading innovations, visit the company’s web site at www.toshiba.com.

© 2010 Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. All product, service and company names are trademarks, registered trademarks or service marks of their respective owners. Information including without limitation product prices, specifications, availability, content of services, and contact information is subject to change without notice.

1. One Gigabyte (1 GB) means 10⁹ = 1,000,000,000 bytes using powers of 10. A computer operating system, however, reports storage capacity using powers of 2 for the definition of 1 GB = 2³⁰ = 1,073,741,824 bytes and, therefore, shows less storage capacity. Available storage capacity (including examples of various media files) will vary based on file size, formatting, settings, software, and operating system. Examples of the number of photos, songs, movies, and any other files that can be stored on a hard drive are provided for illustrative purposes only. Your results will vary based on file size and format, settings, features, operating system, software and other factors.

2. Products are considered “halogen-free” when each homogeneous material in the product consists of a maximum bromine or chlorine concentration of 900 parts per million for weight percentage. Group VIIA halogens -- fluorine, iodine and astatine -- are not restricted in the industry-standard, ENV0199 description. Toshiba also restricts concentrations of red phosphorus and antimony trioxide in its halogen-free HDD products.

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