IBM introduces 32G-byte hard drive for notebooks

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April 13, 2000
Web posted at: 12:11 p.m. EDT (1611 GMT)

by Terho Uimonen

(IDG) -- IBM's storage technology division this week introduced a video-savvy, 32G-byte hard drive for notebook PCs.

Billed as the industry's highest-capacity notebook hard drive to date, the Travelstar 32GH is also designed to deliver smoother audio and video playback, IBM said in a statement.

Performance is also boosted by the drive's four disk platters spinning at 5,411 rotations per minute (rpm), some 1,200 rpm faster than the average notebook drive on the market today, according to IBM.

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Scheduled to ship in limited quantities by June and in volume by August, the 32GH is capable of storing up to eight DVD (digital versatile disc)-quality movies, 32,000 high-resolution digital photographs or the equivalent of 49 music CDs (compact discs), IBM said.

The 12.5-millimeter high drive weighs in at 5.43 ounces (155 grams), and other features include a 12 millisecond average read seek time and 66.6M-byte per second Ultra DMA mode-4 interface.

In addition, IBM announced that in May it will start supplying in volume two new 20G-byte and 30G-byte Travelstar hard drives to major notebook vendors, including Compaq, Dell, Gateway and the IBM Personal Systems Group.

The 9.5 millimeter high 20G-byte Travelstar 20GN is aimed at ultra-portables, while the 12.5-millimeter 30GT model is aimed at mainstream notebooks, IBM said.

Pricing information for the new Travelstar drives was not available.

The new drives are the first IBM notebook hard drives designed with audio-visual capabilities in mind, the company said. The improved audio and video playback performance is due to IBM researchers having found a way to partially disengage the error-correcting feature that most hard drives use to regulate the transfer of text-based files, which can interfere with video downloading, the company said.

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