The war of High Definition format between Blu-ray and HD DVD has come to the end. Toshiba just announced that they will no longer develop, make or market HD DVD players and recorders, handing a victory to rival Blu-ray disc technology in the format battle for next-generation video. “We concluded that a swift decision would be best,” Toshiba President Atsutoshi Nishida told reporters at his company’s Tokyo offices. The move would make Blu-ray ? backed by Sony Corp., Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., which makes Panasonic brand products, and five major Hollywood movie studios ? the winner in the battle over high-definition DVD formatting that began several years ago. Nishida said last month’s decision by Warner Bros. Entertainment to release movie discs only in the Blu-ray format made the move inevitable. Warner joined Sony Pictures, Walt Disney Co. and News Corp.’s Twentieth Century Fox in that move.

“That had tremendous impact,” he said. “If we had continued, that would have created problems for consumers, and we simply had no chance to win.”

Both HD DVD and Blu-ray deliver crisp, clear high-definition pictures and sound, which are more detailed and vivid than existing video technology. They are incompatible with each other, and neither plays on older DVD players. But both formats play on high-definition TVs. HD DVD was touted as being cheaper because it was more similar to previous video technology, while Blu-ray boasted bigger recording capacity. Nishida said his company had confidence in HD DVD as a technology and tried to assure the estimated 1 million people, including some 600,000 people in North America, who already bought HD DVD machines by promising that Toshiba will continue to provide product support for the technology.
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Toshiba has released its new external drives in 1.8-inch and 2.5-inch form factor with trendy and fashion design. The 1.8-inch pocket-sized mobile storage device is available in 60GB, 80GB and 120GB storage capacities and comes with backup software to protect data should the HDD ever be lost or stolen. While the 2.5-inch USB 2.0 portable external hard drive is available in 160GB, 250GB and 320GB storage capacities.
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After previous release, Toshiba has now announced another five new small form 1.8-inch factor hard drives. All the new hard drive are targeted for notebooks, UMPCs, and portable handheld CE devices. The new 1.8-inch HDDs for PC applications include the 120GB MK1214GAH, the 60GB MK6028GAL and the lightweight 80GB MK8025GAL, weighing two grams less than traditional 5-millimeter-high 1.8-inch HDDs. All three models are equipped with a PATA interface, 2MB buffer and 512 byte-per-sector format.
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By using its breakthrough technology, the Discrete Track Recording (DTR), Toshiba has boosted the recording density on an 80GB 1.8-inch single platter drive by 50%, which means boosting the capacity 120GB storage on a single 1.8-inch platter.

DTR technology increases recording density by forming a “groove” between the tracks on the PMR medium. The groove reduces signal interference between adjacent data tracks, allowing the pitch of the tracks to be shortened. The improved signal quality also contributes to raising the recording density by 50 percent.

The new development will hugely benefit media player, UMPC, and ultra-portable laptop segment where 1.8″ drive with maximum possible capacity are in great demand. Providing 50% increase in areal density of a perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) the new prototype hard drive takes the recording density to 516 megabits per square millimeter (333gigabits per square inch).
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Toshiba has announced two new 1.8-inch hard drive model, Toshiba MK8022GAA with 80GB capacity and Toshiba MK1626GCB with 160GB capacity. With the small size, both of them are designed for media players and UMPCs. The 160GB MK1626GCB will have to compete with Samsung’s recently announced 1.8-inch 160GB drive. Its the first Toshiba product to run on the new Consumer Electronics ATA (CE-ATA) interface. According to Toshiba, its power consumption is only 33% of their 100GB drive. The MK1626GCB features two 80GB platters (0.3 inches thick), 3,600 rpm speed, 52mbps transfer rate and 15ms seek time. While 80GB MK8022GAA is a 3600rpm drive with Parallel ATA interface and 66mbps transfer rate.

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Toshiba Corporation just announced the launch of nine new 2.5-inch hard disk drives (HDD) that employ the company?s latest advances in HDD technology. The new drives include the MK3252GSX, which achieves an industry-leading capacity of 320GB, and the MK2049GSY, which improves performance with a 7,200rpm rotational speed. Toshiba will mass produce the drives in turn, starting from November.

The MK3252GSX uses an improved read-write head and enhanced magnetic layer to boost areal density and achieves a storage capacity of 320GB. The high-speed MK2049GSY offers a rotation speed of 7,200rpm and also integrates a large capacity 16MB buffer memory, supporting high-speed processing of large volumes of data: the drive improves the maximum internal data transfer rate by approximately 46%(2) and increases the average random access time by some 8%(2). The new drives will provide product manufacturers with a broad line-up supporting many and diverse applications, including high density storage of multiple data sources, such as movies and digital photos, on high-end notebook PCs, and improved overall system performance from high-speed data transfers. Both models support an optional Free Fall Sensor function, which detects falling HDD and parks the head before it crashes.
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