Handy with a screwdriver and need some more hard drive space on your laptop? Well, the latest 2.5 inch 250 GB notebook storage kits from Toshiba may be just the answer for you. They’ve just unleashed a series of five hard drives ranging in capacity from 80 GB through to 250 GB that the untrained user can upgrade their laptop or suitable external storage device with. These suckers also talk nicely to Macs as well; here are a few more bits and pieces about them

* SATA Interface
* 0.37 x 2.75 x 3.94 inches
* 3.5 oz
* 8 MB buffer
* 5,400 rpm (4,200 for the 200 GB model)
* Windows, OS X and Linux will all talk to these babies

The price for the 250 GB model is US$190 dropping down to $80 for the 80 GB which seems a steal to be able to ramp up your laptop.

Toshiba have incorporated these drives into a new range of external drives too. Rather bizarrely the 250 GB external is the same price as the standalone model at US$190. The externals have USB 2.0 connectivity and will talk with both PCs and Macs.

Source: Toshiba

With Hitachi announcing their portable 250 GB this week, Western Digital bounce back and announce their own 250 GB portable, slip in your pocket, hard drive. As noted over at DailyTech although the WD 250GB offering rocks in at US$50 under the Hitachi price, it is a good inch longer than the Hitachi and most importantly doesn’t have the ‘go faster’ stripe down the side ;)

So as usual you pay for what you get, although with a saving of US$50 I’d be happy with a larger option, I’ll just have to buy trousers with extra large pockets!

The Scorpio 250GB is the latest 2.5 inch hard drive offering from Western Digital. The drive uses WD’s WhisperDrive technology to optimise seek time thus improving power consumption - also a bonus for laptop users - and reduce drive noise. The drive also encorporates WD’s ShockGuard tech to protect the drive and platters from damage.

From the specs on the product page, it is certainly one of the largest capacity and fastest 2.5 inch SATA HDs around boasting a whopping 250GB and an external transfer rate of 600 Mbps. The MSRP for this puppy is US$199, not cheap but that’s what you pay for speed and size.

Source: Legit Reviews