back to article Tosh puts slim model on a single-plate diet to create new 7mm mutant

Toshiba has put its hybrid flash-disk drive on a diet - and a new, slimmer device has emerged with just one spinning platter. Toshiba 7mm hybrid disk drive Toshiba's 7mm hybrid disk drive The new MQ01ABFH is a single-plate version of the existing MQ01ABDH, and is available in 320GB and 500GB capacities. The earlier two- …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. Unicornpiss
    WTF?

    Something I've never understood

    Don't 2.5" laptop drives have to conform to an established standard anyway? We have some machines at my work with Seagate "Momentus Thin" drives. (which are pieces of garbage BTW, IMHO) Since the drive still has to fit in the same space as any drive, is never even seen by the end user in most cases, and has to be harder to manufacture (and make reliable), what's the point of making it thinner? In fact, when inserting one of these into a Dell laptop, you have to make sure the machine is lying flat and let gravity assist you with lining the connector up or it won't mate--the drive is that loose in the compartment. And these drives have been Junk.

    So again, what is the point to slimming something down that has to fit in a well-defined space anyway?

    1. seven of five

      Re: Something I've never understood

      You know, the good thing about standards is we have so many of them. And as soon as thiner drives are available a standard for Mediumultraprotablepaneltabletbooks will emerge, using only these drives - since the´rs "standard"

    2. Patrick R
      Holmes

      Re: Something I've never understood

      Laptops have become thinner with years, 2;5"HDDs have become thinner as well as parts of those thinner laptops. That's the point.

  2. Nigel 11

    SLC advantage

    Toshiba may also gain a lot of reliability by using SLC. The other manufacturers are presumably confident that they can detect failing blocks in MLC and retire them without any detriment to the end-user, but SLC is intrinsically thousands of times more reliable as well as faster. And 1000x more write cycles means the firmware can be more aggressive (or responsive) about replacing blocks in the flash cache.

    BTW it's possible that thinner actually confers some sort of advantage to the electromechanical parts n a single-platter drive. Perhaps head aerodynamics? Or that the shorter spindle down the middle is more rigid? Or maybe it's just that it'll find a home in new ultra-thin designs where the fatter drives can't venture.

This topic is closed for new posts.

Other stories you might like