In November, Hitachi laid out its 2007 plans for mobile hard disk drives (HDDs). At the time, the company announced plans to release speedy 7200RPM 2.5" HDDs along with disk encryption.

Today, the company announced its new Travelstar 7K200 mobile HDD which offers a storage capacity of 200GB and a spindle speed of 7200RPM. In addition, the drive can also be equipped with hard-drive level "Bulk Data Encryption." The drive offers comparable power consumption to 5400RPM units and can withstand 350 Gs of shock.

"The 7200 RPM Travelstar is the rock star of our mobile hard drive family both for its technical merits and its desirability," said Hitachi Global Storage chief marketing officer Shinjiro Iwata. "The enthusiastic response to date confirms that consumers are ever more sophisticated in their notebook requirements and that the Travelstar has become a status symbol among notebook aficionados. As the industry’s only third-generation 7200 RPM product, we believe the Travelstar 7K200 will continue to accelerate this trend."

Likewise, Dell and Alienware are also embracing the new drive. "Incorporating best-in-class features, like the high-performance Travelstar 7K200, underscores Dell and Alienware’s commitment to meet and exceed our mobile customers’ expectations," said Dell's Neil Hand.

The Travelstar 7K200 will be available immediately in Alienware's Aurora m9700 and Dell's XPS M2010.  The 200GB models have an MSRP of $249 and will be available from retail outlets this summer.