Earlier this week, Hitachi GST (soon to be part of Western Digital) announced they would soon ship a 1 TB single-platter hard disk drive. But archrival Seagate rained on their parade financing immediate shipment of their own 4 TB unit. With the industry consolidating rapidly, it’s good to see healthy competition among the two remaining hard disk drive giants.
areal density
Forecasting Seagate’s Next-Generation Momentus 5400.8 Family
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
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.
WD’s 1 TB Laptop Drive? Not Quite!
Western Digital announced this morning the world’s first “1 TB mobile hard drive!” But although the news is great for storage-hungry folks looking for a portable external drive, it doesn’t quite mark a sea change in the storage industry since this drive cannot be used in (most) laptops.
I’ll Have Two Platters of Sheer Storage Madness, Please!
The inexorable march of areal density continues with this week’s release of two breakthrough two-platter hard disk drives: First up is Seagate, with their next-generation 3.5″ “7200.12” drive family. Boasting 500 GB per platter, the drives are initially offered in 500 GB, 750 GB, and 1 TB versions, but we expect a 1.5 TB three-platter […]