Hitachi Global Storage Technologies is finally joining the 250GB 2.5-inch notebook hard drive market with the introduction of Travelstar 5K250. The Travelstar 5K250 is Hitachi's best in its class 250GB 5400RPM SATA II HDD. The drive is perfect for notebook PCs, external storage devices, gaming consoles and other mobile devices. It also features a host of category-leading features including 400G shock protection, quiet acoustics and optional Bulk Data Encryption for hard-drive level data security. The 5K250 uses perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) technology, which builds upon the highly-successful debut of the Travelstar 5K160 hard drives. Hitachi will also offer an enhanced-availability version, the E5K250, which is designed for applications needing around-the-clock access in lower transaction environments, such as blade servers, network routers, point-of-sale terminals and video surveillance systems.