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Fujitsu's 250GB notebook drive will launch this quarter

While hybrid hard disk drives (HHDDs) and flash solid-state disks (SSDs) may be the next big thing in mobile storage, Fujitsu still has a few tricks up its sleeve when it comes to 2.5" HDDs. In early March, the company announced the world’s first 2.5” 160GB HDD with a 7200RPM spindle speed.

The company today announced that it is developing its new MHY2 BH Series drives which will offer a storage capacity of up to 250GB in a 9.5mm-thin profile. The drive will have an idle acoustic noise level of 2.4 bels and power consumption of 1.9 watts when writing data. The company neglected to mention how fast the drives would spin.

The MHY2 BH Series will be available in the second quarter of 2007 for consumer electronics devices and notebook computers.

While Fujitsu's 2.5" HDD development is still going strong, the company announced in April that it is ending the development of 1.8" HDDs to focus on SSDs. Falling NAND flash prices along with high transfer speeds, low power consumption and silent operation swayed Fujitsu to make the move.

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Its not clear?
By cheetah2k on 5/14/2007 10:57:25 PM , Rating: 1
While the DT article mentions Fujitsu's drive development and success of their 160Gb 7200 RPM drive, will the 250Gb drive be 7200RPM, 5400RPM or 4200RPM?




RE: Its not clear?
By EntreHoras on 5/14/2007 11:04:57 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
The company neglected to mention how fast the drives would spin.


But you are right, It's important to know the RPM.


RE: Its not clear?
By thestereotype on 5/14/2007 11:24:45 PM , Rating: 2
$5 says 5400 RPM


RE: Its not clear?
By kkwst2 on 5/14/07, Rating: -1
RE: Its not clear?
By thegrimreaper3 on 5/14/2007 11:51:32 PM , Rating: 2
I would say your right...


RE: Its not clear?
By Devo2007 on 5/15/2007 12:13:58 AM , Rating: 5
Considering that the article states power usage of 1.9W while writing data, I'm going to say it's probably a 4200rpm drive.

Most 5400rpm drives use around 2.5W or slightly more while writing data from what I've read.


RE: Its not clear?
By SiliconAddict on 5/15/2007 12:27:10 AM , Rating: 2
The highest cap drives always start off slowest. My money is on 4200


RE: Its not clear?
By Souka on 5/15/2007 1:19:29 AM , Rating: 2
agree....4200rpm


RE: Its not clear?
By Dactyl on 5/15/2007 1:38:39 AM , Rating: 2
4200 is not a death sentence. If you don't boot up often, and you only use office productivity type apps, it's not that bad. I'm on a 5400 and most of the time, it's good enough. If I needed to bring a lot of info with me in a portable notebook with good battery life, this drive would be very attractive.

It's not for everybody. Putting two 4200RPM drives in a 20" luggable--that's downright silly.


RE: Its not clear?
By JeffDM on 5/15/2007 7:48:11 AM , Rating: 2
It's the 20" luggable that is silly. Even the 17" models are often a little absurd.

Anyway, the high density/capacity often makes up for a lot of of the spindle shortfall. A 4200RPM 250GB might not beat a 7200RPM 200GB, but those don't seem to be available. It might be close enough to a 5400RPM 200GB drive that most people wouldn't notice a speed difference, but they might notice the extra space.


RE: Its not clear?
By glitchc on 5/15/2007 11:04:34 AM , Rating: 2
4200 rpm is pretty much a death sentence, especially if you boot up to Windows Update and antivirus software, not to mention System Restore grinding away to keep track of all the changes being made by Windows Update.

I've seen more than my fair share of laptops become non-functional for 2-3 min, sometimes 10, due to a slow 4200 rpm hard drive. And that's regardless of whether there's a Core 2 Duo under the hood. HDs tend to be the biggest bottlenecks in PCs, desktop or laptop.


RE: Its not clear?
By Stele on 5/15/2007 3:44:56 AM , Rating: 5
Actually information on the rotational speed of the new drive is right there in Fujitsu's press release, though not up front. Fujitsu mentioned that it would be part of the MHY2xxxBH family. A cross-reference with the specifications of that family reveals a 5400RPM, 8MB buffer design.


SATA? PATA?
By JeffDM on 5/15/2007 7:18:07 AM , Rating: 2
That's a fairly important detail, one can't just change their notebook's drive standard. Last I saw (a month ago), there weren't any SATA 200GB notebook drives that I could find.




RE: SATA? PATA?
By Stele on 5/15/2007 8:06:58 AM , Rating: 4
Again according to Fujitsu, the MHY2xxxBH series uses a SATA interface.

Curiously, despite what many may understand from this news, this new 250GB HDD is not so much about just its capacity, large as it as 2.5" HDDs go. Fujitsu already have a 300GB 2.5" HDD - the MHX2300BT; however, that one is a 4,200RPM device.

What's special about this new model being announced here is that it is the company's largest 5,400RPM SATA 2.5" HDD. Besides that, it touts a low noise level (24dB) and is very energy efficient (hence the low 1.9W-during-writes power draw which made a few DT posters mistake it for a 4,200RPM drive). The high energy efficiency is in order to do well in energy efficiency rankings as per Japan's Law Concerning the Rational Use of Energy (for domestic sales).


RE: SATA? PATA?
By JeffDM on 5/16/2007 10:16:25 AM , Rating: 2
As far as I can tell, that 300GB drive you mention is still a paper launch, I can't find them anywhere.


RE: SATA? PATA?
By Stele on 5/16/2007 8:52:21 PM , Rating: 2
You can't find them anywhere as in, you can't find any information on them or were you trying to find them for purchase online like newegg, zipzoomfly and such?

As to the former: http://www.fujitsu.com/global/services/computing/s...

As to the latter: a large proportion of Fujitsu's 2.5" HDD sales are to OEMs/laptop manufacturers and domestic Japanese markets (notice, for example, the emphasis on energy efficiency ratings as per Japanese domestic law). Even their vaunted 3.5" SCSI drives are not easy to find in the channels compared to the likes of their Maxtor/Seagate counterparts.

The MHX2300BT which I mentioned above was launched worldwide in Dec 2006 and commenced shipping only recently, in Q107. Hence it would likely take a while for their commitments to OEMs to be sufficiently fulfilled so that they can start shipping in quantity to retail channels.


2.4 bels?
By AdamsJabbar on 5/15/2007 12:16:01 PM , Rating: 2
I most certainly hope they mean DECIbels. A bel is a huge amount of sound. That is why they measure sound in DECIbels. If this really and truly is 2.4 bels, this hard drive is 100 times louder than the threshold of pain (1.4 bels = 140 decibels).

Nitpick...sarcasm...etc etc etc




RE: 2.4 bels?
By AdamsJabbar on 5/15/2007 12:19:12 PM , Rating: 2
Oops, my conversion was wrong...2.4 bels = 24 decibels.

Crazy metric system!


RE: 2.4 bels?
By Howard on 5/15/2007 12:25:21 PM , Rating: 2
The prefix "deci" means one tenth. If it were 2.4 centibels, then it would be 240dB.


RE: 2.4 bels?
By Howard on 5/15/2007 12:26:45 PM , Rating: 2
Sorry, that's incorrect. I meant decabels, not centibels.


Irritating
By Runiteshark on 5/15/07, Rating: 0
RE: Irritating
By Zirconium on 5/15/2007 6:54:32 AM , Rating: 4
quote:
Yeah and watch it be $600.
quote:
Watch this drive be $500 (Yes I know Fujitsu != Hitatchi, but I'm irritated anyway)
Which is it?


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