Samsung at 250GB Into 1.8-Inch HDD

Strengthening its line up of portable 1.8" hard drives for external storage markets, Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. announced its 250 Gigabyte (GB) 1.8 inch hard disk drive, the Spinpoint N3U which incorporates a native USB controller on its printed circuit board.

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This optimized design results in a smaller foot print, less power consumption and optimized performance, which is ideal for portable external storage devices. The Spinpoint N3U stores up to 125 Gigabytes per platter for a total 250GB data storage capacity.

Most external hard drives require the addition of a bridge circuit board to convert the hard drive’s PATA interface into a USB interface. Samsung’s N3U drive, however, uses a native USB interface and as such does not require this bridge board.

"The new high-capacity 1.8" 250GB drive enhances Samsung’s product offerings and is ideal for consumers who require a small form factor, high capacity data storage," said Choel-Hee Lee, vice president of marketing Storage System Division, Samsung Electronics. "It is easy to carry around and it is designed to withstand a free fall drop of up to 50 centimeters and be resistant to a maximum shock incident of up to 1500G."

As a native USB interface device, the Spinpoint N3U eliminates possible points of failure due to loose cable connections and optimizes performance by eliminating the interrupt service time for the bridge board to convert PATA to USB signals. And the N3U 1.8" drive also consumes about 40 percent less power than a 2.5" hard drive of an equivalent capacity.

Samsung now ships industry leading areal density levels for all of its hard disk form factor products with up to 1.5 Terabyte for 3.5" drives, 500GB for 2.5" drives and 250GB for 1.8" drives. The Spinpoint N3U comes in 120-, 160-, 200- and 250-GB capacities, the disk rotation speed is 3600rpm, and it supports a USB 2.0 interface. The drives are equipped with an 8MB cache memory. Initial shipments to OEMs are scheduled from mid-July with a MSRP at $199.00.

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There was rumors that Samsung will end its 1.8-inch HDD production. But the Korean firm confirms here its commitment to this form-factor.

Toshiba already launched in October 2008 a 1.8-inch SATA drive with the same capacity, also with two platters and four heads, but rotating at 5,400rpm, the MKxx29GSG. There are no other manufacturers of 1.8-inch HDDs which are the smallest ones since the end of one-inch form factor.

This Samsung's unit is the first hard disk drive with an embedded USB interface, directly into the controller. As this Spinpoint N3U is totally dedicated to run on the slow USB 2.0 interface, the manufacturer didn't need to design a SATA model but a less expansive PATA drive, and only at 3,600rpm, a rotational speed fast enough for USB transfer rate.

In Samsung's catalog, a device is desperately missing to compete with WD and Seagate: a 3.5-inch unit at 2TB. That also the case for Hitachi GST and tiny Chinese maker ExcelStor.