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Toshiba Introduces 5400 RPM SATA 1.8" HDD

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Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
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Toshiba today announced 80 (single platter) and 120 GB (dual platter) 1.8" hard disk drives that use the Serial ATA (SATA) interface and operate at 5400 RPM.

Currently, Apple's MacBook Air and iPod Classic utilize 80 GB single platter 1.8" hard drives running at 4200 RPM over a Parallel ATA (PATA), though the Air has a solid state drive option. By incorporating the SATA bus and increasing the rotational speed, the performance should elevate to that of standard 2.5" drives used in larger laptops such as Apple's MacBook or MacBook Pro.

Additional Reading: Maximum MacBook Air Drive 80GB for Now

Article Link
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2008/02/26/toshiba-introduces-5200-rpm-sata-1-8-hdd/
Just to point out this isn't exactly 100% accurate... the 80gb Classic uses a single platter, while the 160gb Classic uses dual platter, which is why it's thicker.
 
From the data sheet it looks like both are 8mm 2 platter drives, not the 5mm needed for the MBA.
 
Hopefully in the next AirBook update. My fiance wants one and will probably get one by summer or a little after that, so getting an even faster Air is always a nice option.
 
Moving everything over to SATA so that there's just one drive standard out there is great. But is the PATA 1.8" drive really bus-limited in terms of speed? Somehow I have a hard time believing that, given the size of the cache and the smaller linear velocities incurred with the smaller platter, that these drives can even keep up with the fastest PATA standard at this point....
 
mkrishnan said:
Moving everything over to SATA so that there's just one drive standard out there is great. But is the PATA 1.8" drive really bus-limited in terms of speed? Somehow I have a hard time believing that, given the size of the cache and the smaller linear velocities incurred with the smaller platter, that these drives can even keep up with the fastest PATA standard at this point....
Click to expand...

They can't. I am no drive fanatic but I do know that the drive speed plays a major role in the speed of the device. The iPod classic is SLOW at times, taking anywhere from 4-5 seconds to play a song from a different playlist.

Comparing the 5400 rpm 2.5" drives to the 4200rpm drives gives the same results.

Comparing a PATA 4200rpm drive to a SATA 5400 rpm drive would probably give the same results.
 
Digital Skunk said:
They can't. I am no drive fanatic but I do know that the drive speed plays a major role in the speed of the device. The iPod classic is SLOW at times, taking anywhere from 4-5 seconds to play a song from a different playlist.

Comparing the 5400 rpm 2.5" drives to the 4200rpm drives gives the same results.

Comparing a PATA 4200rpm drive to a SATA 5400 rpm drive would probably give the same results.
Click to expand...

The reason that you're experiencing delays in switching music isn't necessarily because the drive is slow but because it has to spin up.

I agree that the 4200 RPM drives probably aren't tapping all of PATA's bandwidth, but the slowness you are describing sounds much more like a spin-up thing than a seek and transfer rate thing.
 
longofest said:
The reason that you're experiencing delays in switching music isn't necessarily because the drive is slow but because it has to spin up.

I agree that the 4200 RPM drives probably aren't tapping all of PATA's bandwidth, but the slowness you are describing sounds much more like a spin-up thing than a seek and transfer rate thing.
Click to expand...

That might be the case for the iPod then. It does vibrate when I do change playlists, and it might store the next song needed to playing in cache or something.
 
Digital Skunk said:
That might be the case for the iPod then. It does vibrate when I do change playlists, and it might store the next song needed to playing in cache or something.
Click to expand...

4-5 seconds does seem unseasonably long... that was a worse case scenario even for iPods from four years ago. They never really got much faster than that?
 
Well if these are dual platter HDD's then there is no way to fit this into a MBA, so move along folks nothing to see here.
 
Wirelessly posted (Apple Communication Device: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/4A93 Safari/419.3)

That's too bad. Moving along now.
 
mkrishnan said:
Moving everything over to SATA so that there's just one drive standard out there is great. But is the PATA 1.8" drive really bus-limited in terms of speed? Somehow I have a hard time believing that, given the size of the cache and the smaller linear velocities incurred with the smaller platter, that these drives can even keep up with the fastest PATA standard at this point....
Click to expand...

Digital Skunk said:
They can't. I am no drive fanatic but I do know that the drive speed plays a major role in the speed of the device. The iPod classic is SLOW at times, taking anywhere from 4-5 seconds to play a song from a different playlist.
Comparing a PATA 4200rpm drive to a SATA 5400 rpm drive would probably give the same results.
Click to expand...

longofest said:
The reason that you're experiencing delays in switching music isn't necessarily because the drive is slow but because it has to spin up.

I agree that the 4200 RPM drives probably aren't tapping all of PATA's bandwidth, but the slowness you are describing sounds much more like a spin-up thing than a seek and transfer rate thing.
Click to expand...


reallynotnick said:
Well if these are dual platter HDD's then there is no way to fit this into a MBA, so move along folks nothing to see here.
Click to expand...


the Parallel ATA interface will handle up to 133MB/s. There is no way in hell these drives are even coming close to saturating that. I've heard in the past that PATA interfaces use a lot less power than the SATA equivalent, and thus the reason for the PATA in the Macbook Air.
That said, I hope they are able to translate this 5400rpm speed development over to a PATA drive, and one that is single platter as well.
 
mkrishnan said:
4-5 seconds does seem unseasonably long... that was a worse case scenario even for iPods from four years ago. They never really got much faster than that?
Click to expand...
Nope. I found they actually got worst in the 6G. I think its primarily due to all the graphics. The CPU seems to bottleneck when just changing menus. Annoying but w/e.... I imagine the 7th will be perfect. Plenty of space for Flash and HD, with 32/64GBs of Flash, and faster, more efificent 80/160GB HDs along with faster CPUs and larger caches and bam. You have more efficient and quicker. Probably the best before they start introducing new mediums or designs.
 
mkrishnan said:
4-5 seconds does seem unseasonably long... that was a worse case scenario even for iPods from four years ago. They never really got much faster than that?
Click to expand...

Chef Medeski said:
Nope. I found they actually got worst in the 6G. I think its primarily due to all the graphics. The CPU seems to bottleneck when just changing menus. Annoying but w/e.... I imagine the 7th will be perfect. Plenty of space for Flash and HD, with 32/64GBs of Flash, and faster, more efificent 80/160GB HDs along with faster CPUs and larger caches and bam. You have more efficient and quicker. Probably the best before they start introducing new mediums or designs.
Click to expand...

Yeah... I have that issue to, and it's not when It's from a cold start. I usually have a wait when I start sifting through menus after listening to a long stretch of music. As mkishnan said though, it may just be the spin up time.

It also may be a result of the size of the HDD. 80GB is large, and 160 on two platters (the one I have) is twice that size, so the spin up and seek time may just be the result.

twoodcc said:
great news! but it will still be awhile before i'll be buying a macbook air. but i do look forward to seeing it evolve though
Click to expand...

Same here. It's a very wonderful machine as a Rev A and it far more sturdier than the MBPs that I have used. I hope the Rev B not only uses these drive or an equivalent but they also get that ONE extra USB port that some have been asking for.... along with a few other things.

Personally, once I used it in the store I could have gotten along just fine with the single port, since I don't touch that many USB devices anyway. If I am not cutting footage or images on my book then I am doing the basic stuff and a little bit of writing and organizing, and neither that nor video editing needs USB. The Air could be a nice book to complement my 17" MBP if I ever resorted to two portables.
 
240 GB iPod Çlassics? YUM. I would LOVE that. Remember, some of us want 50,000 songs on our pods. I got 33K so far and there are plenty more CDs in my collection to load in. :p
 
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