Hitachi staked out a claim as the top builder of thin hard drives on Wednesday through a 500GB version of the Travelstar Z7K500. The drive is the first to hit a half-terabyte at the slimmer 7mm height while keeping a full 7,200RPM spin speed and just one drive platter. Along with being the first to have both a 6Gbps SATA3 connection and a 32MB buffer, it's billed as being not just faster than other 7mm drives but faster than many regular 9mm drives as well.
