To achieve this industry-leading capacity, Toshiba has set a new benchmark for areal density in the 1.8-inch HDD category at 93.5 gigabits per square inch. This has allowed Toshiba to pack 30GB of data onto a single 1.8-inch platter, an increase of 50 percent over current models, delivering drives that are ideally suited for in-demand consumer electronics products such as mobile audio players and mobile notebook PCs.”
This formal announcement confirms Toshiba’s earlier revelation in Taiwan of the new 60GB drive, for which the company said Apple had already placed orders. The new details on size (60GB is the same thickness as current 40GB iPods; 30GB is same size as current 20GB models) and power consumption (lower) suggest that future iPods based on the new drive will be in cases of the same size as today’s models, but should feature even better battery life.