Bangalore: Japanese tech giant, Toshiba is all set to boost their enterprise hard – drive market as they are to launch their ‘hybrid’ hard drives that assure superior laptop and desktop performance.

Hybrid hard drives contain flash memory chips that are already powering smartphones and tablet computers. These chips can start up, store and access data much faster when compared to traditional hard drives. However they are not so popular among desktop makers due to their deployment cost. PC makers can’t afford to replace all their current hard drives with hybrid ones, as it costs about 10 times more per unit of memory.

"For PCs to stay competitive, they need to be able to start up instantly," Toshiba Corporate Senior Vice President Hironobu Nishikori, who heads the company's hard-drive business, said in an interview. “Hybrid hard drives can help PC makers achieve that with only a little additional cost.”

According to the company, the new set of hard drives will get its first production at a plant in Philippines.

But the competition is pretty stiff in the market where hard drive vendors like Seagate and Western Digital already sells hybrid drives, that too slim enough for the thinnest laptops available.

"At the end of the day, whether Toshiba can increase its hard drive market share will depend largely on whether its prices are competitive," said Mizuho Investors Securities analyst Yuichi Ishida.

Last fiscal year, Toshiba’s hard drive business generated revenue of about $5.14 million. By the end of 2015, the company expects overall revenue of about $9 billion, which includes key sales contribution from hybrid hard drives.