Western Digital sampling 5mm, 2.5-inch, 500Gbyte hybrid HDD with NAND Flash

Western Digital just started shipping 7mm, 2.5-inch HDDs earlier this year and has now announced that it is sampling a 5mm, 2.5-inch, 500Gbyte hybrid HDD with integrated NAND Flash caching. The drive will be showcased during Western Digital’s Investor Day on September 13. The announcement quotes spokespeople from both Acer and Asus, two of the leading PC notebook vendors that appear to be collaborating with Western Digital on the slimmer drive, which is clearly targeted at Ultrabook designs. As the announcement points out, the 5mm drive consumes a little more than half of the volume of a 9.5mm drive, which is important for Ultrabooks because of the small form factor.