Seagate With Record 1TB on One 3.5-Inch Platter

Our comments :

Samsung demonstrated at last CeBIT in March 2011 one terabyte of data per platter with a two-disk HDD model as well as 1TB 2.5-inch HDD with 500GB per platter. Just demos.

Seagate will be probably the first to ship HDDs with 1TB platters at a record 625Gb per square inch in mid-2011, beginning with external and then internal units at 3TB rotating at 7,200rpm. But WD, who generally announces hard disk drives when they are in production, has few weeks to react to its competitor.

Up to know, 3TB units integrate 4 or 5 disks at a maximum of 750GB per disk. Normally HDDs of the same capacity with less components are cheaper. But Seagate didn't reveal any price. The current FreeAgent GoFlex Desk external drive with USB 3.0 costs $230 if purchased on Seagate web site. But it's not sure that the price will be decreasing. Following the tsunami in Japan, Hitachi GST and Toshiba encounter many problems. According to one of our sources, as much as seven million of HDDs are missing each month to respond to the worldwide demand. The prices are exploding. And this situation could continue during all the year.

In a 3.5-inch form factor, it's is possible to insert four or even five disks, meaning that the first 4TB units at a record capacity of 4TB never seen in the industry will arrive soon. This kind of devices will be appreciated by all the users, from the consumer to the enterprise markets.  

The first 3TB HDD was launched a little more than one year ago (June 2010), also by Seagate in an external model, the 3TB FreeAgent GoFlex Desk, at this time at $250. Hitachi GST and WD were the firsts to ship 1TB in 2007 and 2TB in 2009, respectively.


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  (Source: Coughlin Associates)