MCE is now selling 160GB (5400RPM) SATA hard drives for the MacBook, MBP and Mac mini for US$299. Previously the largest shipping notebook SATA drive was 120GB. In January MCE announced 160GB hard drives for PowerBooks but those drives are Ultra ATA/100 and won't work in Apple's newest iron. So if your MacBook's hard drive is already full, image that bad boy and upgrade to the new 160GB drives. I recommend picking up a pair so that you can have a hot spare at home.

UPDATE: Suprisingly its not Seagate Momentus 5400.3 mechanism (although they've had a 160GB PATA version out for some time now.) The drive that MCE is selling is a Hitachi Travelstar 5K160 mechanism - they're first perpendicular recording (PMR) hard drive.

MCE Technologies, LLC (MCE) has added a 160GB Serial-ATA hard drive with a fast 5400 RPM rotational speed to their MobileStor-S lineup of hard drive upgrades for the MacBook Pro, MacBook, and Mac mini. The MCE MobileStor-S 160GB/5400RPM drive is the highest performance, highest capacity drive available for the Apple MacBook Pro and includes an 8MB cache buffer. The drive has a suggested retail price of $299 and is available for immediate shipment.

“Our new, heavily anticipated, MobileStor-S 160GB SATA hard drive upgrade for the MacBook Pro brings a much needed increase in storage capacity to video editors, graphic designers, and anyone who is finding that their ever-growing collections of music, videos, and photos are squeezing all the available space out of their original hard drives,” stated Arnold Ramirez, president of MCE.

The MCE MobileStor-S 160GB hard drive upgrade is compatible with all Apple MacBook Pro models. The drive can also be installed into the Apple MacBook and Mac mini (Intel).

The MCE MobileStor-S 160GB hard drive’s most impressive features are its sheer capacity and high performance. The MobileStor-S 160GB hard drive achieves its high capacity by utilizing second generation “Perpendicular Recording” technology: Data bits are stood on end within the disks’ platters allowing more bits to be packed into the platter which, in turn, gives way to increased hard drive capacity. The MCE MobileStor-S 160GB hard drive has sustained data transfer rates of up to 67.5MB per second with burst transfer rates of up to 150MB per second. To further increase performance, the drive features Native Command Queing (NCQ) in which the drive automatically reorders commands in the most efficient way based on the location of data on its platters in order to be able to retrieve that data with the least latency. The drive also supports S.M.A.R.T. status monitoring and can warn of possible or impending disk failure long before one actually occurs allowing the user to take early action to keep their data safe. The drive’s S.M.A.R.T. status can be checked easily by running Apple’s Disk Utility program.

The MCE MobileStor-S 160GB hard drive upgrade for the MacBook Pro has a suggested retail price of $299 and carries a three year warranty. All MCE MobileStor drives include an installation kit containing tools and items necessary to properly install the drive.