Toshiba to offer 320GB laptop drive from Q4

Toshiba Corp. will start producing a 320GB hard disk drive for laptops before the end of this year, the company said Tuesday.

It is the first 2.5-in. drive to be announced at that capacity, with production to begin in the fourth quarter, according to Toshiba. Pricing was not announced.

The drive is one of a series of five that make up Toshiba's new MKxx52SX family of hard disk drives. The 320GB model will contain two platters -- the circular disks on which data is recorded. Other drives in the range will offer between 80GB and 250GB of storage space. They will connect via a 3Gbit/sec. Serial ATA interface.

The amount of data that can be stored on a hard disk drive is constantly expanding as drive makers fine-tune technology, and the needs of laptop users are growing in tandem with the expansion in drive space. While corporate users might not require such a capacious drive, users of multimedia laptops will almost certainly welcome the extra space to store video.