HGST Launches 1.5 TB 2.5-inch Laptop Hard Drive

HGST, which was previously known as Hitachi Global Storage Technologies and is now a WD company, has announced a new mobile hard drive. While normally we find it difficult to get excited over hard drives, it happens once in a while that something quite remarkable surfaces that catches our attention. This time, we're talking about one of the highest capacity 2.5" drives that has hit the market to date. While the biggest 2.5" hard drive is a 2 TB model, there aren't particularly many options from which to choose if you want a 2 TB or 1.5 TB mobile hard drive. The good news is that a new competitor has just joined the playing field for 2.5" hard drives with a 1.5 TB capacity.

The 5K1500 features a three-platter design that stores 500 GB per platter. The drive runs at a speed of 5400 RPM and has a 32 MB cache. Moreover, the drive features a SATA3 interface. While it's likely to give any added benefits over an older SATA2 interface, it's still nice to know that your drive is equipped with the latest standards in connectivity. The drive has a 9.5 mm form factor.

"Contrary to popular belief, the mobile hard drive market is not being replaced by SSDs. We continue to invest in and serve both the traditional 9.5 mm and 7 mm thin and light HDD mobile markets as they offer the best cost-per-GB, performance and proven product reliability for high-capacity, mainstream, Ultrabook and A/V content creation notebook markets. HGST continues to have a strong share in the 2.5-inch market and the new Travelstar 5K1500 hard drive is the latest addition to our broad line of 5,400 and 7,200 RPM 2.5-inch drives, giving OEMs, ODMs and integrators an opportunity to grow and differentiate their product lines," said Brendan Collins, HGST's VP of product marketing.

So far there has been no word on pricing for the 5K1500 drive, however, it is expected to be released into the marketplace somewhere in Q3 2013.

Niels Broekhuijsen

Niels Broekhuijsen is a Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware US. He reviews cases, water cooling and pc builds.

  • gruntlord6
    "The 5K1500 features a three-platter design that stores 500 TB per platter." Either that's a typo, or I will take 5.
    Reply
  • jn77
    Wow, I was excited about this until I saw the 5400rpm spec.... I guess I am still waiting.
    Reply
  • hoofhearted
    Why is this exciting when you can get a 1TB SSD for $600 now?
    Reply
  • Spooderman
    This is kind of cool in that form factor
    Reply
  • Pgooch
    500 TB per platter. Now that IS something to get excited about.
    Reply
  • The-Darkening
    "The 5K1500 features a three-platter design that stores 500 TB per platter."
    Wow :O
    Reply
  • danwat1234
    3 platters with a height of only 9.5mm. Previously only 2 platters were possible with this design. I wonder if this will be normal now and if it will happen with 7200RPM hybrid laptop drives as well. Imagine a 4 platter 12.5mm height laptop drive.
    It is clear that there are serious issues with increasing platter density further and/or head technology, so they are just increasing the number of platters.
    We haven't gone beyond 500GB/platter with 2.5" drives, 1TB/platter with 3.5" drives for about 2 years now! - The Samsung Spinpoint M8 1TB 9.5mm laptop drive has been out for 2 years now and the Scorpio Blue 1TB 9.5mm laptop drive was released soon after.

    While I am excited about this advancement, I will never be buying a 5200/5400/5900RPM drive again in my life, so I'm still waiting, ideally 7200RPM with hybridness. The 12.5mm 3-platter 5400RPM laptop drives often have access times of about 19ms average! Very slow if it is multitasking/dealing with fragmented files. I wonder if this 3 platter 9.5mm laptop drive will suffer the same slow access time or if it will be more like a 2 platter with around 15-16ms access time.
    Typically a 2 platter 7200RPM laptop drive is 14-15ms average access time.

    It is clear that Hitachi is leading the way with capacity in the mobile sector. They are also the only manufacturer that has a 1TB 7200 laptop drive out (Travelstar 7k1000) with about 140MB/s on the outer edge.
    Reply
  • nieur
    I think it must be 500 GB per platter.
    Reply
  • WithoutWeakness
    1.5TB in a 9.5mm form factor is awesome. If you have a laptop that accommodates mSATA drives you could have a decent sized (128-256GB) mSATA boot SSD with all your programs and still have mass, cheap storage on a hard disk. However, 2.5" SSD's are now hitting 1TB capacities with Crucial's affordable (relatively) M500 series so the market for large notebook hard disks is shrinking as SSD prices continue to drop.
    Reply
  • zyx410
    500TB per platter?! I'm getting one of these as soon as they are released!!
    Seriously though, you reaally ned to proofread your articles.....
    Reply