May 19, 2012

Forecasting Seagate’s Next-Generation Momentus 5400.8 Family

Seagate's massive 1 TB laptop drive is almost here, packing almost 800 Gb per square inch

Seagate is one of the world’s most-successful hard disk drive companies, consistently ranked first in overall sales for a decade. The company is respected for their high-end products, but is aggressively moving into the world of smaller hard disks for laptops and portable storage as well. The company’s mainstream “Momentus” portable hard disk family has kept pace with the industry, but Seagate will soon break away with a major jump in areal density. Using public information, and the first product in this line, we will consider what Seagate’s eighth-generation Momentus family will look like.

Seagate Breaks the Areal Density Limit With 1 TB 2 Platter 2.5″ Drive

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Storage capacity continues to move forward on both 3.5″ and 2.5″ hard disk drives. On the small form factor side, Western Digital was first with a 250 GB platter, then Seagate shot back with a 320 GB platter, then it was Hitachi at 375 GB. So it was only a matter of time until the magical half-terabyte mark would be reached, yielding 1 TB in a 2-platter drive. Now Seagate has done it, shipping a 2-platter 9.5 mm hard disk drive in their latest GoFlex portable case.

Hitachi GST Joins WD On The “Advanced Format” Hard Disk Drive Bandwagon

Advanced Format is on the rise, with Western Digital and now Hitachi GST supporting the 4K drive addressing method

Another limit is being pushed in computers: The 32-bit LBA addressing mode. Hard disk drives have simply become too big for the 2.1 TB allowed by 32-bit LBA and 512 K sectors. Western Digital was first to answer this challenge with “Advanced Format”, and Seagate took an alternate 48-bit LBA route. Now Hitachi GST introduced an Advanced Format drive of their own. Will the industry ever adopt 48-bit LBA?

Which Hard Disk Drives Should You Use In A Drobo?

What hard disk drive should you use in a Drobo? Stick to 1.5 or 2 TB models from Seagate and Western Digital, and watch for great deals!

Feed Your Drobo: 1 TB WD Green SATA Drive, $55.49

It seems like my Drobo is always hungry. I’ve got all four slots stuffed with 1.5 TB drives right now, and the Western Digital Caviar Green is one of my favorites. It’s quiet and draws just a little power, yet is fairly quick thanks to 64 MB of cache. Now Amazon has it for $55.49, shipped!

Smoking-Fast Laptops: Seagate Momentus XT Hybrid SSD Disk Drive Confirmed!

Thar she blows! Seagate's hybrid ssd/hard disk drive is real!

There has been much speculation that a new generation of hybrid flash/hard disk drives was right around the corner, and Provantage confirmed it today: The reseller posted a family of “Momentus XT” 2.5″ laptop drives for sale on their web site, shipping in 3-4 weeks. Many other sites began listing the drives as well, and The Register got the scoop, benchmarks, and official comment.

Taming Monster Disk Drives: 3 TB and Beyond!

Seagate, Western Digital, and others are introducing massive new 3 TB hard disk drives, but will they work with current computers? In order to take advantage of new hard disk drives over 2 TB, you must have a compatible operating system, BIOS, partition table, and file system.

Lemons Into Lemonade: Seagate Repackages SATA As GoFlex

Seagate's new GoFlex external drive lineup moves the smarts into the cable, simplifying function and connectivity upgrades

The external hard disk drive market is incredibly hot right now, but it’s also ultra-competitive. The latest trend is dockable multi-function drives that are friendlier to use and offer advanced features like video playback. Most docks rely on USB 2.0, but Seagate just dropped a bomb on the industry with a simple twist: They moved the intelligence outside the case, repackaging the standard internal SATA connector as GoFlex, an external link to a variety of docks and adapters.

Should Home Users Buy Enterprise Hard Disk Drives?

Are “enterprise” drives worth the extra cost in a RAID enclosure? The reason I ask is I’ve had 2 of 4 Seagate ‘consumer’ (7200.12) drives fail in my (Other World Qx2) enclosure. The two drives that failed were maybe a year old, well short of any ‘MBTF’ expectation. Enterprise drives cost nearly twice that of consumer drives.

Drobo, XP Users: Beware of 4K “Advanced Format” Drives!

Western Digital is first to market with "Advanced Format" 4K-sector drives

Personal computer hard disk drive access methods have been repeatedly forced to adapt to ever-expanding capacity. But Western Digital is leading the change to larger 4 kilobyte hard disk blocks. Although this new “Advanced Format” includes mechanisms for backwards compatibility, buyers should be wary of these new drives for the time being.