Seagate's new hard disk drive is highly space efficient and offers 1 TB per platter in a 2.5-inch form factor. Needless to say, high-spatial efficiency brings about a 25 percent reduction in weight. Note the current offering only weighs in at 3.17 ounces. The company notes that this breakthrough also gives way to low acoustics and a more robust and stable storage hardware that can withstand higher levels of shocks and vibrations.
The new drive technology, according to the company, incorporates recording-subsystem components such as the head, preamp channel and media. The inclusion of these components leads to the improved areal densities in the platters, the amount of data that can be stored in a given amount of hard disk platter space. With the reduced hard drive size, Seagate sees itself enabling OEMs in designing more lightweight, feature-packed, power efficient, cost-effective and faster products with improved air circulation.
"In an industry first, our engineers have been able to boost areal density to 1 TB per platter in a 2.5-inch form factor, which will give OEMs the flexibility to design and build virtually any kind of mobile device they can envision, with plenty of storage to boot," said Mark Re, Seagate's chief technology officer, through a press release.
The Seagate CTO added that the current hardware development is a game changer for it provides four times the storage capacity of a 250-GB solid-state drive with a much lower price tag.
The press release also quoted IDC Vice Pesident John Rydning, affirming that notebooks are important productivity tools. "Seagate's new ultramobile HDD technology is groundbreaking for Seagate and the HDD industry, making it possible for notebook PC users to have generous storage capacity in a thin and light PC," Rydning said.
The storage solutions company has also announced that it is looking into a hybrid format that merges its own learning algorithms and NAND flash. The combination is aimed at delivering a better consumer experience and supreme performance at a lower price range than that of competing solid state drives.
Seagate is yet to release the read and write speeds of its new HDD. However, seeing how it aims to go head-to-head with SSDs that are known to beat HDDs on both, this should not come as a surprise.
Photo: Robert Scoble | Flickr
