Toshiba today announced what it says is the world's first 2.5-inch, 512GB solid state hard drive for laptops.

"The vendor plans to showcase the storage device at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January," writes InformationWeek's Antone Gonsalves. "The new drive is one of a series of SSDs built with Toshiba's latest 43-nanometer manufacturing process."

"The family will also include 64 GB to 256 GB versions in 1.8 inch or 2.5 inch drive enclosures," writes ZDNet's Larry Dignan.

"Storage capacities of solid-state drives, or SSDs, are doubling every few months, but Toshiba's 512GB SSD is the highest storage capacity announced for SSDs intended for consumer devices like laptops," writes ITworld's Agam Shah. "Most PC makers today offer 128GB SSDs for laptops, and competitor Samsung recently said it put into mass production 256GB SSDs, which will become available in a few months."

"Samples of the new drives will be available in the first quarter of 2009, with mass production slated for the second quarter, in the April to June time frame, according to the company," writes CNET's Brooke Crothers. "Pricing in sample quantities ranges from $220 for the 64GB drive to $1,652 for the 512GB drive."

More here from Ubergizmo ... more here from jkOnTheRun ... more here from Digital Trends ... more here from SlipperyBrick ... more here from I4U News ... and the press release is here.