The guys over at Seagate are at it again, with an announcement Monday morning of the first laptop hard drive to break the 150Gb barrier, known as the Momentus family of drives.
As reported on Techworld.com earlier, the drive is the first laptop drive to use perpendicular recording, which has allowed 160Gb on a 2.5" platter. The drive will spin at 5400rpm and uses a UATA/100 interface, though a SATA version will be available before the end of the year.
The drive has no confirmed pricepoint yet, but will be available in the market very soon.
This is great news for laptop owners, who are always in pursuit of more storage. The use of perpendicular recording is a nice step forward, since smaller drives tend to be considerably behind in the technology curve. However, I doubt the usefulness of the SATA version, assuming it still spins at the same 5400rpm, except for a bit of cable routing ease. Hopefully, as the technology is refined for the smaller drives, speeds will increase along with size.
UPDATE: Our friends at Seagate got in touch to clarify some points about the speed of their new Momentus notebook hard drive. They do spin at 5400rpm, but thanks to the efficiency of perpendicular recording they only consume about the same amount of battery power as a slower 4200rpm drive. In other words, not only more storage, but less power drain than an equivalent, conventional 5400rpm hard drive.
As an added bonus, perpendicular recording yields a faster seek time than a standard drive, so a 5400rpm Momentus will be closer to (though not equal to) a 7200rpm drive.
In summary, greater capacity + lower power + fast seek time = win-win-win.
Got a thought on the size of your laptop drive? Show us whether bigger is truly better, or if it's all in how you use it, in our forums.
(Sorry, you know we just can't help that one...)
As reported on Techworld.com earlier, the drive is the first laptop drive to use perpendicular recording, which has allowed 160Gb on a 2.5" platter. The drive will spin at 5400rpm and uses a UATA/100 interface, though a SATA version will be available before the end of the year.
The drive has no confirmed pricepoint yet, but will be available in the market very soon.
This is great news for laptop owners, who are always in pursuit of more storage. The use of perpendicular recording is a nice step forward, since smaller drives tend to be considerably behind in the technology curve. However, I doubt the usefulness of the SATA version, assuming it still spins at the same 5400rpm, except for a bit of cable routing ease. Hopefully, as the technology is refined for the smaller drives, speeds will increase along with size.
UPDATE: Our friends at Seagate got in touch to clarify some points about the speed of their new Momentus notebook hard drive. They do spin at 5400rpm, but thanks to the efficiency of perpendicular recording they only consume about the same amount of battery power as a slower 4200rpm drive. In other words, not only more storage, but less power drain than an equivalent, conventional 5400rpm hard drive.
As an added bonus, perpendicular recording yields a faster seek time than a standard drive, so a 5400rpm Momentus will be closer to (though not equal to) a 7200rpm drive.
In summary, greater capacity + lower power + fast seek time = win-win-win.
Got a thought on the size of your laptop drive? Show us whether bigger is truly better, or if it's all in how you use it, in our forums.
(Sorry, you know we just can't help that one...)
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