November 11 - 7:15am EST   Hitachi is releasing a new family of Travelstar 2.5-inch drives with improved security features, and reduced power use for longer battery life. The Travelstar 5K500.B line will be available in several sizes ranging from 160 to 500GB operating at 5400RPM with an 8MB cache. Hitachi says it expects the 5K500.B will be the first hard drive line to comply with the new Storage Security specification being finalized by the Trusted Security Group. The optional Bulk Data Encryption feature encrypts data as it is written to the drive and reverses this as information is retrieved, preventing casual data theft online. [full story]

May 7 - 8:30am EDT   Hitachi this morning bolstered its drive lineup through the addition of the Travelstar 7K320. Launching shortly after a similar effort by Fujitsu, the hard disk purports to have both large storage and fast transfers with 320GB for holding data and a 7,200RPM disk speed. Despite the speed boost, the drive reportedly consumes no more power than a 5,400RPM equivalent. It also boasts one of the most resilient designs in the category, according to Hitachi: the 7K320 can absorb 400Gs of shock even while in full use. [full story]