Toshiba's Groundbreaking 1.8-Inch Hard Disk Drive Reaches Three-Million-Produced Milestone
IRVINE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 11, 2003--
Company Builds the Small Form Factor HDD Category, Leading its Expansion Into New Markets and Enabling Today's Generation of Digital Devices
Toshiba Storage Device Division (SDD) today announced it has surpassed the milestone of cumulative production of three million 1.8-inch hard disk drives (HDDs), validating the need for small form factor, high-capacity storage to create today's new breed of consumer electronics devices and mobile products.
With its place "under the hood" of some of today's hottest portable gadgets, Toshiba's 1.8-inch HDD has been an immediate success since its launch in 2000. The small form factor HDD delivers the unbeatable combination of high-performance and high-capacity storage, enabling product manufacturers to offer unprecedented functionality in mobile products. Toshiba's 1.8-inch HDDs are the heart of today's exciting new mobile entertainment devices, handheld computers, ultraportable notebooks, portable handheld GPS units, MP3 players, automotive jukebox systems and other specialized digital products.
"Toshiba is the first company to successfully market storage products in the 1.8-inch category and currently is the only 1.8-inch supplier shipping multiple platforms in volume today," said Amy Dalphy, manager, HDD business unit, Toshiba SDD. "We looked at the trends, listened to our customers and then put a stake in the ground that this product was the right fit for emerging business computing tools and consumer electronics products."
Toshiba's 1.8-inch HDD has been a key element of the company's successful strategy to expand its business into non-PC and consumer electronics applications. As advances in HDD technology continue to evolve and push the limits on areal density and speed, these tiny HDDs have transformed basic products into compelling power tools.
"We are thrilled to achieve this significant production milestone of three million units, proving this storage category is capable of driving explosive growth in smaller and more mobile digital devices," Dalphy added. "With our industry-leading research and development, this achievement is only the beginning of continued technology advancements that will revolutionize mobile digital devices."
Toshiba's 1.8-inch hard disk drives began mass production in 2000 with a removable 1.8-inch PC Card HDD in a 2GB(a) capacity. The company has subsequently introduced a series of products that consistently push the borders of capacity and performance, including a 1.8-inch 5GB PC Card HDD and 1.8-inch embedded HDDs available in 5GB, 10GB, 15GB, 20GB, 30GB and 40GB capacities.
Toshiba estimates the market for 1.8-inch HDDs will rise to 70 million in 2010. As the demand for small form factor HDDs continues, Toshiba is responding by doubling its production volume to 600,000 units per month by March 2004, including in-house production and outsourced manufacturing by Matsushita Kotobuki Electronics Industries, Ltd.
"This production, along with the drive's tremendous advantages in size, weight, low power consumption and overall performance ensures that Toshiba's 1.8-inch HDD will continue to be a winner in the market for mobile digital products," Dalphy said.
For more information about Toshiba's line of 1.8-inch HDDs, visit www.harddrives.toshiba.com.
About Toshiba Storage Device Division
Toshiba SDD, a division of Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc., leads the market in the development, design and manufacturing of DVD-ROM, slim CD-R/CD-RW/DVD-R/DVD-RW, combination CD-R/CD-RW/DVD-R/DVD-RW, 1.8-inch hard disk drives and 2.5-inch hard disk drives. Toshiba SDD markets high-quality peripherals to original equipment manufacturers, value-added resellers, value-added dealers, systems integrators and distributors in the United States. Inherent in the company's product line is the high-quality engineering and manufacturing that has established Toshiba products as worldwide leaders. For more information, visit www.sdd.toshiba.com.
About Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc. (TAIS)
Headquartered in Irvine, Calif., TAIS is comprised of three divisions: Digital Products Division, Digital Solutions Division and the Storage Device Division. Together, the three divisions provide mobile products and solutions, communications, storage and imaging products and services. Products include industry leading portable computers, PDAs, projectors, DVD/CD recordable products and hard disk drives for computers, telephony products, digital imaging systems, cable modems, servers, wireless solutions and services. TAIS provides sales, marketing and services for its wide range of information products in the United States and Latin America. TAIS is an independent operating company owned by Toshiba America, Inc., a subsidiary of Toshiba Corporation, which is a world leader in high technology and integrated manufacturing of electrical and electronic components, products and systems. Toshiba has global sales of over $47 billion and more than 300 subsidiaries and affiliates worldwide. For more information visit the company's Web site at www.toshiba.com.
(a) Toshiba defines a megabyte (MB) as 1,000,000 bytes and a gigabyte (GB) as 1,000,000,000 bytes.
