Samsung Electronics is the first hard drive manufacturer to ship a 500GB 2.5-inch drive. Samsung announced its drive was shipping in volume to OEMs and PC makers today.

The 500GB drive marks a significant milestone in portable storage: On notebooks that support dual-hard drive configurations, a 500GB drive means you can have a whopping 1TB of storage in a laptop computer.
Competition to Market

Hitachi was the first company to announce a 500GB 2.5-inch hard drive, before the start of the 2008 International Consumer Electronics Show. Samsung was the second to announce, also at the show; Fujitsu also recently announced its intention to offer a 500GB drive.