History (1993): Toshiba Packs 340MB in 2.5-Inch Form Factor HDD

Nobody ever stored 300MB or more in a 2.5-inch HDD.

The Japanese Toshiba, with its new 340MB drives, now sets the level quite high.

Obviously 3.5-inch disks are slowly going to be threatened, the price difference being the only advantage in larger units.

The new MK2326F from Toshiba is offered for $625, compared for instance to $495 for the very recent 3.5-inch CP-30340 from Conner Peripherals with the same capacity.

Additionally, with its new drive, Toshiba is going to have a good argument to sell its notebook computers in which it will probably be integrated.

The MK2326F, with an average seek time of 12ms, is available in two versions: the FC for AT/bus interface with a data transfer rate of 4MBs/s and a 128KB cache buffer, the FB with SCSI-2 interface. The MK2326F series has 3 platters, turning at 4,200 rpm, is 19mm high and weighs 215grams. Toshiba announced a 150,000-hour MTBF.

They will be available in sample quantity in February 1993 with production scheduled for 2Q93.

2.5-inch HDDs with 100MB and over capacity

This article is an abstract of news published on the former paper version of Computer Data Storage Newsletter on issue ≠61, published on February 1993.