WD, a subsidiary of Western Digital Corp, is set to showcase the 'world's thinnest' hybrid hard drive measuring 2.5 inch during the WD’s Investor Day on Thursday.

The company said it is sampling a 5mm-thin hard disk drive featuring hybrid technology. WD has developed hard drives slim enough for integration into today’s thinnest notebook PCs, which provide high-capacity storage and robustness while featuring instant-on and application performance similar to today’s client solid state drives (SSDs).

“Mobile devices are becoming smaller, thinner, lighter and more responsive,” said Matt Rutledge, vice president of client storage solutions at WD.

“Working with our technology partners, WD has developed new 5 mm hard drives that enable high capacity storage along with excellent performance and superior economics to allow our customers to expand their thin offerings,” he remarked.

With device volumetric efficiency is a key concern for systemmakers, WD began shipping 7 mm height hard drives for thin-profile notebooks earlier this year (historically, standard notebook hard drives have been 9.5 mm).

"WD 5mm hybrid hard drives will enable the market’s thinnest computers to offer 500 GB of capacity, utilizing almost 50 per  cent less volume compared to current 9.5mm harddrives and at one tenth the cost of similar capacity SSDs, he added.

Acer meanwhile said it is partnering with WD to bring advanced notebook performance and capacity in the smallest form factor. “It’s a part of our ongoing commitment to present leading technology that ultimately improves the total user experience of our customers,” explained David Lee, associate vice president of Mobile Computing Product business unit at Acer.

"We are seeing a shift in the computing world to more powerful mobile computing solutions,” said SY Shain, senior vice president of ASUS’ notebook business unit.

“With this in mind, ASUS and WD are collaborating to create slimmer and more mobile notebook solutions — without sacrificing capacity or performance — to deliver smaller form-factor to consumers,” he added.-TradeArabia News Service