The world's smallest 1.8 inch HDD - 160 GB

With hard disk capacity accelerating faster than Moore’s Law for computer chips, Toshiba nudged ahead of Hitachi today when it announced the commercialization of the world’s largest 1.8-inch hard disk drive. Dubbed the MK1626GCB, the device offers a storage capacity of 160GB, and Toshiba has started to shipping samples. The disk is clearly destined to end up inside the next generation of consumer electronics requiring high capacity storage in a small form-factor – notebooks, personal media players, and high def digital video cameras.

The new drive has an improved read-write head and enhanced magnetic layer that boosts recording density, and achieves an areal density of 353 mega-bit per square millimeters (228 gigabits per square inches). The drive uses CE-ATA (an HDD interface that optimizes performance in consumer electronics applications) and fulfils another key criteria for drives destined for battery-powered portable electronics, in that it is 33% more energy efficient than Toshiba’s current range-topping 1.8-inch HDD, the MK1011GAH.