Hitachi today announced volume shipment of new 5,400 RPM notebook hard drives with a maximum available capacity of 320GB. The Travelstar 5K320 drives feature optional Bulk Data Encryption (BDE) for users requiring increased data security and enhanced availability models designed for use in 24x7 environments.

The drives? Serial ATA (SATA) interface provides a 3Gb/s data transfer rate and include altitude-sensing Thermal Fly-height Control (TFC), an improved actuator latch and fourth generation perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) head technology. The drives also include TrueTrack technology, which improves tracking accuracy in high shock or vibration environments. These features combine to deliver a 400Gs of operating shock protection, Hitachi claims.

The drives also consume 1.8W of power when reading and writing and their 0.55W low power idle means longer battery life for more "unplugged" notebook time and a longer drive life expectancy.

The Travelstar 5K320 is available in single or dual-platter configurations with capacities between 80GB and 320GB. Hitachi will also offer an enhanced-availability (EA) version of the drive that is designed for applications requiring 24x7 operation in lower transaction environments, such as blade servers, network routers, point-of-sale terminals and video surveillance systems.

The Travelstar 5K320 is now shipping to customers worldwide. The enhanced-availability version of the drive is expected to ship in the second quarter of 2008.

Technical Specifications:

320/250/160/120/80 GB
9.5 mm in height
5400 RPM
250 billion bits per square inch maximum areal density
2/2/1/1/1glass disk platter (s)
4/3/2/2/1 TMR recording head(s)
1000 G/1ms non-operating shock
400 G/2ms operating shock
5.5 ms average latency
12 ms average read time
0.8W active idle
0.55W low-power idle
Serial ATA 3.0Gb/s, 1.5Gb/s encrypted
102//95 grams in weight
2.4 Bels typical idle acoustics
2.6 Bels typical operational acoustics