Hitachi Ships Thin 7mm 500GB HDD

Hitachi has announced that it is now shipping its new and very thin 500GB HDD called the Travelstar Z5K500. The new HDD is a single platter drive that is only 7mm thick. The average 2.5-inch HDD is a 9.5mm form factor.

The new and thin form factor allows the Hitachi HDD to be used in standard 9.5mm devices and it can be used in ultraportable devices that need a thinner HDD as well. The drive is not only thin, but it has low power needs too with 1.8W in operation and 0.55W at idle. The drive is also very quiet with 1.9 bels idle and 2.1 bels when in use.
Hitachi has also shown off a new G-Drive Slim external storage drive that is the thinnest external storage drive on the market. It has 500GB of storage and will ship early in Q1. Pricing for the external drive and the 2.5-inch HDD alone are not announced at this time.