Fujitsu announces 300 GB 2.5" hard drive

Sunnyvale (CA) - With solid state disks shipping with up to 128 GB and perhaps even 256 GB capacity later this year, hard drive makers are under pressure to increase the storage space for the common hard drive : Fujitsu will begin selling a 300 GB 2.5" hard drive in Q3.

The 1.8" and 2.5" segments are without doubt the most competitive hard drive markets at this time, with capacities increases at a much faster pace than what we have seen in previous years. In May of this year, Hitachi and Western Digital introduced 2.5" hard drives with 250 GB storage space ; now it is Fujitsu that rings in the next round less than two months later : The company is first to announce a 300 GB 2.5" external hard drive (100 GB capacity per platter).

Spokeswoman Ayumi Sakoda told TG Daily that Fujitsu will offer 300 GB only in a portable hard drive for now and not as an internal drive for notebooks. According to the manufacturer the drive is designed "for the busy mobile professional" and is powered through the USB bus, which means that it does not come with an extra external power cord. Included in the package is Apricorn’s EZ Gig II software, the Cryptainer encryption program and the data synchronization suite Second Copy 2000.

Fujitsu said that the 300 GB drive will ship in Q3 for a suggested retail price of $229.

With 300 GB, portable 2.5" hard drives already have almost twice the capacity of the highest capacity 2.5" drives of one year ago (160 GB). And we are likely to reach almost half a terabyte in the not too distant future : Samsung recently announced a single-platter 160 GB 2.5" drive, which could hit the market - if Samsung decides to build a 3-disk drive like Fujitsu - as a 480 GB model.