Fresh from acquiring Samsung's hard drive business for a cool
$1.375 billion, Seagate has now announced the world's first 3.5in hard disk drive with 1TB platters.
We've seen plenty of increases in the capacity of hard disk platters in the last few years, with 750GB platters previously topping the chart.
However, these new 1TB platters have an areal density of 625Gb/in
2, which is currently the highest areal density in the world, potentially paving the way for cheaper and faster high-capacity hard drives.
Using the new platters, 1TB drives now only need to be shipped with a single platter rather than multiple-platters, while 3TB drives can easily be produced using three platters. It seems amazing that it was only just over two years ago that Seagate announced its first
500GB platters, with just half the capacity.
The new drives will be released under the Seagate Barracuda XT brand for internal drives, and under the Seagate GoFlex brand for external drives. The drives are scheduled to hit retailers in mid-2011, and will be available in 1TB, 1.5TB, 2TB and 3TB capacities.
It's hard to believe that hard disk capacity has doubled in the last two years. Is our need for storage really insatiable? Will cheaper storage encourage even more HD content, or have we hit a storage plateau? Let us know your thoughts in the
forums.
Want to comment? Please log in.