Asus has announced that it will use Hitachi’s Travelstar 5K500 500GB hard drive in its new M50 and M70 notebook PCs. The notebooks will come with 500GB drives as standard, but can take two of the drives in a special two-drive configuration, making them the first to offer 1TB of storage in a notebook.
According to Hitachi, 1TB translates to 1,000 hours of video, more than 350 feature-length movies or 250,000 four-minute songs.
The new M50 and M70 notebooks are spearheading Asus’ high-definition (HD) drive, sporting a special LCD lid engraved using the Asus Infusion technology, ergonomic full-size keyboard with a separate numerical keypad and a dual-mode touchpad that allows easy access to playback controls.
The new 500GB 2.5in drives use Hitachi’s Rotational Vibration Safeguard (RVS) technology to protect data from shocks by sensing impending vibrations and adjusting the drive head.
“Digital entertainment on the go is growing rapidly and notebooks are being used to run more powerful, memory-intensive applications,” said Tony Chen, general manager
of Asus notebooks business.
“Our notebooks with the Hitachi Travelstar 5K500 provide the answer to users who demand systems that combine large storage capacities with desktop-class performance and features.”
Larry Swezey, director of consumer and commercial HDD at Hitachi Global Storage Technologies, said: “1TB represents a major advancement in notebook computing and we are pleased to be at the heart of this industry milestone. We will continue to deliver the best that storage technology has to offer, solidifying Hitachi’s position as the segment and technology leader in 2.5in hard drives.”
The new M50 and M70 notebooks are expected to ship in February and March respectively.
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