Hitachi
One of the most popular laptop component brands is Hitachi. Although the company used to manufacturer a line of notebooks by the name of “Visionbook”, these days Hitachi focuses on laptop parts such as mobile hard drives, Hitachi laptop batteries, and memory, at least in the portable computing arena.

Hitachi notebook computer drives go by the name “Travelstar”, and there are 14 different types of this model, depending on the size, speed, and interface. The three types whose names start with C4K are all 1.8 inches long, and have a speed of 4200 RPM. They can come with a capacity of 20 to 60 GB, depending on the model.

The Hitachi laptop hard drives that start with 7K, on the other hand, are all 2.5 inches long with a speed of 7200 RPM. The 7K60 model has a capacity of 60 GB, while the 7K100 holds 100 GB of data. There is a difference in interface with the two models however, as the 60 GB drive has a Parallel ATA interface, while the 100 GB model has a Serial and Parallel ATA interface.

In the 5400 RPM category, there are four Travelstar models, the 5K100, the E5K100, the 5K120, and the 5K160. The primary difference between each of these is the capacity, with each model having the amount of space reflected at the end of its model number. These drives have serial and parallel interfaces, like the 7K60.

Finally, the 4K models and the 80GN model have a speed of 4200 RPM, and a capacity from 20 to 120 GB. They are 2.5 inches long with a Parallel ATA interface.

Other types of Hitachi components such as memory, laptop power supplies, and batteries are manufactured by some of the company’s many subsidiaries. For example, memory is made by Renesas, which is a Japanese semiconductor company based in Tokyo. And batteries are manufactured by Maxell, a well-known maker of components in the industry. Also based in Tokyo, the company was founded in 1960 and has long been known for its hard drives, tapes, and other storage media such as CDs and DVDs.