Burn media maker Verbatim has just told us that it has a slim, 9.5mm thick 500GB portable hard drive that it plans to release soon. The PDA-sized 2.5-inch drive measures 3.38 in. X 5.38 in. X 0.63 in. and is set to drench the thirst of those in need of sufficient storage on the go. With three 166GB platters running at 5400rpm and 8MB of cache, the upcoming drive should also offer some decent transfer speeds though keep in mind that the connection interfaces, either USB 2.0 or a FireWire/USB combo can be somewhat limiting.

Set to cost about $300, the 500GB SmartDisk drive supports Time Machine backup feature in Mac OS X Leopard and, in its USB-only version, comes included with the BounceBack Express backup software. Verbatim will start shipping the new 500GB later this quarter.