Travelstar

Travelstar was a brand of 2.5-inch hard disk drive (HDD) that was introduced by IBM in 1994 with the announcement of the Travelstar LP. At 12.5 mm high with two platters, they were available in 360, 540 and 720 MB capacities. Initial models were industry-leading for small form factor HDDs in terms of areal density (644 Mb/in²), data transfer rates (11.1 MB/sec) and shock tolerance (500g).^[1]

These drives were typically used with laptop computers and small form factor desktop computers. Models were manufactured with capacities up to 1 TB, with rotational speeds of 5400 rpm or 7200 rpm and in 7 mm or 9.5 mm package heights. Older models were offered with the Parallel ATA interface and some in a 1.8" form factor. In 1990 IBM began shipping 2.5-inch HDDs without this branding.^[2] Newer Travelstar drives were manufactured with the Serial ATA interface.

The brand was adopted and renamed to "HGST Travelstar" by Hitachi Global Storage Technologies after they acquired IBM's HDD business in 2003^[3][4] and continued for a while after HGST's 2.5-inch drive plant in Thailand, Toshiba Storage Device Co. Ltd., was acquired by Western Digital^[5] in 2012, but the HGST prefix is now defunct.^[6]

The brand ended in 2012 with the last Travelstar series, the Travelstar Z5K500 and Z7K500, which had a z-height of 7mm, 1 platter and 2 heads. The Z5K500 and Z7K500 had drive capacities of 250, 320, and 500GB capacities and 8,16 and 32MB of cache with a speed of 5400 or 7200 RPM. Western Digital later "updated" the line by rebranding a WD Blue drive to the Z5K500.B and WD Black to Z7K500.B, the Z5K500.B can only be configured with 16 MB cache while the Z7K500.B is only available with 32MB cache.