First HDDs at 500GB Per Platter Appearing

There was no press release announcing new 3.5-inch HDDs at 500GB per disk from any company. But wait for an official announcement –  probably today – by Seagate Technology of the Barracuda 7200.12  or ST3500410AS (500GB on one platter only, 7,200rpm, 3Gb SATA, 16MB of cache, €55 to €60).

At the same time, some distributors are already offering the Samsung F2EG Eco Green or HD502HI with exactly the same specs but rotating at only 5,400rpm, at prices starting at €50. Here, we found a PDF page with the presentation of the drive on the French Samsung Web site only.

An announcement from WD is also imminent, but we have currently no news from Hitachi GST.

The first versions released use one platter at a cheap price, but other ones with four disks to get 2TB into the same 3.5-inch form factor will also appear very rapidly, notably from WD ( Caviar Green WD20EADS at 7,200rpm).