Toshiba Planning 320GB Notebook Drive

Toshiba Corp. will start producing a 320G-byte hard-disk drive for laptop computers before the end of this year.It is the first 2.5-inch drive to be announced at that capacity, with production to begin in the fourth quarter, according to sources. Pricing was not announced.

The drive is one of a series of five that make up Toshiba's new MKxx52SX family of hard-disk drives. The 320G-byte model will contain two platters -- the circular disks on which data is recorded. Other drives in the range will offer between 80G bytes and 250G bytes of storage space. They will connect via a 3G bps (bits per second) serial ATA (SATA) interface.

In today’s world the amount of data that can be stored on a hard-disk drive is constantly expanding as drive makers fine tune technology, and the needs of laptop users are growing in tandem with the expansion in drive space . While enterprise users might not require such a capacious drive, users of multimedia laptops will almost certainly welcome the extra space to store video.