Hitachi's Travelstar line of 2.5in hard disk drives has been providing mobile storage for as long as we can remember, and the Japanese manufacturer has used those years of experience to today launch its first-generation drive, the Travelstar 7K500.
The drive, pictured below, offers 500GB of storage in a 2.5in form factor and operates at 7,200RPM. Combined with a 16MB buffer, it provides a 12ms seek time and 16 per cent better application performance than its predecessor, says Hitachi.
Despite its performance credentials, the drive consumes just 0.69 watts of power when idle, and 1.8 watts during read/write.
It's no match for an SSD, of course, but if you're looking for something that delivers decent performance without burning a hole in the pocket, this one looks useful. Hitachi tells us the Travelstar 7K500 is "shipping in limited quantities to top tier OEMs", with volume shipments expected to begin this month.
