Hitachi today added several new ultra-slim hard drives to the Travelstar and CinemaStar Z series, which measure 7mm-thin and seem to break all sorts of records. Hitachi's press release says the family is home to the world's most capacious and fastest spinning 7mm drive, the Travelstar Z7K320, which offers 320GB of storage with a spindle speed of 7200RPM.
It also features 16MB of cache, uses SATA 3Gb/s, and consumes only 1.8W of power when active and 0.8W when idle. Additionally, the Travelstar Z7K320 offers up to 18% more performance than the 5400RPM Travelstar Z5K320, which features 8MB of cache, and consumes only 1.6W of power during read/write and 0.55W when idle.
Hitachi's CinemaStar drives are "specifically designed" for A/V streaming devices, such as set-top boxes, PVRs, portable video players, DVR-enabled TVs, and video surveillance systems. The fifth-generation 2.5-inch 5400RPM Z5K320 features 8MB of cache along with an "improved protection scheme for power fluctuation and enhanced Thermal Fly-Height Control for improved error rates."
The drives are expected to reach mass production in August, but there's no official release date or pricing at this point.
