Technology breakthrough: 2TB on a slim 7mm laptop drive
Seagate last week announced a technology breakthrough that enables up to 2TB of capacity in a slim 7mm hard drive.
In an industry first, Seagate engineers boosted areal density to 1TB-per-platter in a 2.5-inch form factor. The breakthrough was achieved using shingled-magnetic recording (SMR) technology, in which tracks on a platter are layered on top of each other, like shingles on a roof. This allows more data to be written on a drive, without increasing its size or form factor.
The drive combines new firmware architectures with state-of-the-art heads, media and electronic design to achieve densities that are well ahead of competitive offerings.
“We’re ahead of the competition on delivering this capability,” said Mark Re, SVP and chief technology officer at Seagate. “We can offer more storage space without increasing the drive’s footprint. Not only does this drive deliver leading capacity, but it also delivers the best cost-per-terabyte for customers.”
Seagate’s new drive gives mobile device makers the ability to design a new generation of extremely thin, stylish and lightweight products, with ample capacity for HD video and other content.
“If you look at the market trends for laptops and ultraportable systems, demand for storage capacity is only going up,” added Chris Deardorff, global product marketing manager. “This technology positions us very well to meet that demand now and in the future.”
The new drive weighs just 3.17 ounces and is 25 percent lighter than the previous generation of Seagate’s mobile hard drive products. Smaller drives free up valuable space in a mobile device to accommodate additional designed-in features, such as bigger batteries and more memory.
SMR: greater storage capacity, without increasing a drive’s footprint
The drive also utilizes a standard SATA 6Gb/s interface, which makes it easy to integrate into existing mobile and laptop designs, Deardorff explained. That makes it ideal for consumers and small and medium-sized businesses looking to upgrade to higher-capacity drives.
And with up to 2TB of space, the drive also enables affordable high-capacity storage; it can store more than 500,000 songs, 320,000 photos, 240 hours of HD video or 26 hours of ultra-HD content.
Seagate is planning to release a hybrid drive as well, Re said, in calendar-year 2016. A hybrid version would combine NAND flash with Seagate’s proprietary learning algorithms to deliver outstanding performance and a richer consumer experience, at a much lower cost than comparable solid-state drives.
