Slim hard drive biggest yet
IBM will release a slim hard drive for notebook computers that holds three times as much information as standard notebook drives.
The svelte IBM drive has a capacity of 6.4GB and will be featured in an upcoming IBM ThinkPad notebooks and Dell Inspiron and Latitude portables. The Dell notebooks are due out in the first half of the year, while IBM's products will appear a bit later.
The device falls into the ultra-slim 2.5-inch form factor category, meaning that it can be used in thin-and-light notebooks such as IBM's popular 560 series or the thinner designs now coming out from Dell. Gateway 2000 has also been a regular user of IBM hard drives as has Digital Equipment.
Capable of storing as much information as 3 million typed sheets of paper, the drives comes in a form factor the size of a pack of cards, IBM said.
The "Travelstar 6GT" was designed using IBM's Giant Magnetoresistive head, a component that greatly increases the amount of data stored per square inch of a hard drive.
IBM previously offered high-capacity drives in a larger, 17-millimeter form factor. The 12.5 mm Travelstar 6GT is IBM's smallest drive to offer 6.4GB storage capacity.