Seagate: Terabyte Platter HDDs Now in Volume Production

[Guest]

As part of its quarterly earnings call, Seagate said that it has begun putting 1 Terabyte per platter hard drives into production.

Seagate: Terabyte Platter HDDs Now in Volume Production : Read more

 

[gokanis]

And 5 percect are replacements are for drives that fail.

 

[nottheking]

1 TB platters might mean that those multi-TB drives might finally be able to be recommendable for stability. Most of us enthusiasts know that if you take a maximum-size HDD, it has 4 or 5 platters in there cramming it full; the thing's bound to fail within a year or two given all the heat and vibrations packed into such a tiny bit of room. 2 & 3-platter drives (I've yet to see many 1-platter desktop drives) are vastly more reliable.

I think a lot of us enthusiasts have gotten a little tired of having to stick with 1.0 & 1.5 TB HDDs simply due to concerns over failure rates on the 2.0 & 3.0 TB models... So while I think a lot of the headlines will focus on the introduction of 3.5" HDDs of 4.0-5.0 TB capacity, most of us will instead know that this means the 2.0 & 3.0 TB drives will no longer be subjected to the expected issues from being bleeding-edge.

 

[species8472]

While Luczo said that Seagate has not been directly affected by the flooding in Thailand, it conceded that some of its suppliers were affected and that the company will be able to ship between "40 million and 50 million drives" during the December quarter.

How did Luczo turn into Seagate?

 

[gokanis]

Thats why I wait till they increase density. My dismal failures with 3 500gb segates in warranty period and WD 5 of 9 just out of warrenty. I had luck with the WD blacks and the samsung 1 and 2tbs but I cried like a schoolkid when segate bought samsung. I wonder how that will affect quality.

 

[danwat1234]

[citation][nom]nottheking[/nom]1 TB platters might mean that those multi-TB drives might finally be able to be recommendable for stability. Most of us enthusiasts know that if you take a maximum-size HDD, it has 4 or 5 platters in there cramming it full; the thing's bound to fail within a year or two given all the heat and vibrations packed into such a tiny bit of room. 2 & 3-platter drives (I've yet to see many 1-platter desktop drives) are vastly more reliable.I think a lot of us enthusiasts have gotten a little tired of having to stick with 1.0 & 1.5 TB HDDs simply due to concerns over failure rates on the 2.0 & 3.0 TB models... So while I think a lot of the headlines will focus on the introduction of 3.5" HDDs of 4.0-5.0 TB capacity, most of us will instead know that this means the 2.0 & 3.0 TB drives will no longer be subjected to the expected issues from being bleeding-edge.[/citation]

Yeah but with 1TB/platter drives, the platters are still bleeding-edge. Never expect a hard drive to last, just keep a backup so you don't have to worry about reliability. Buy the capacity you want with the speed you want and be done with it. And buy a backup drive

 

[mikesmithfl]

don't get hung up on statistics. the "stability" is simply the drives ability to swap out bad blocks. with the increased density, the rate of failure will actually increase, but you won't notice it because there will be more spares available to replace the dead ones with...

 

[CaedenV]

[citation][nom]nottheking[/nom]1 TB platters might mean that those multi-TB drives might finally be able to be recommendable for stability. Most of us enthusiasts know that if you take a maximum-size HDD, it has 4 or 5 platters in there cramming it full; the thing's bound to fail within a year or two given all the heat and vibrations packed into such a tiny bit of room. 2 & 3-platter drives (I've yet to see many 1-platter desktop drives) are vastly more reliable.I think a lot of us enthusiasts have gotten a little tired of having to stick with 1.0 & 1.5 TB HDDs simply due to concerns over failure rates on the 2.0 & 3.0 TB models... So while I think a lot of the headlines will focus on the introduction of 3.5" HDDs of 4.0-5.0 TB capacity, most of us will instead know that this means the 2.0 & 3.0 TB drives will no longer be subjected to the expected issues from being bleeding-edge.[/citation]
There were a few specific models, especially when 2+TB drive first came out, that were pretty terrible (especially Seagate which I love and was very disappointed with), but it was not a problem across the board, and definitely not a problem with most of the current drives available. the problem is not so much failure rate, as much as it is a question of what do you back up to? I have 2 very old 1TB drives (one is going on 7 years), and they are both full to the brim just waiting to fail and break my heart. So I am building a home server which will have RAID 1 or 10 which should give me the redundancy and speed that I need for the network. I just hope the drives last long enough and don't fail before I can afford the 4 drives I need for the server!
But that is the trick (and real expense) of large drives. It is not like some little 80Gig drive you can throw on a few DVDs. With files that large you have to back up to other large drives, which means buying a 2TB server equals buying 3 drives. 2 For RAID 1, plus a spare external that you occasionally image to, but stays unplugged most of the time as a fail safe. It sucks to loose a 20GB music collection, but it really burns to loose that plus all of the family photos, videos, the movie collection, software, and work projects. Always backup!

 

[zoemayne]

SEAGATE BOUGHT SAMSUNG?????????????

 

[Novulux]

[citation][nom]zoemayne[/nom]SEAGATE BOUGHT SAMSUNG?????????????[/citation]

Only the HDD division.
Lol

 

[andy5174]

2-year-warranty only. No, thank you!

 

[cybersans]

duhhh! i thought it already in the production line, since it announce about this platter 5 months ago.

 

[flong]

So are these 1 TB HDD platters going to be significantly faster than the smaller multi-platter drives? And, are they going to be more reliable? I would be excited to see a 25% increase in HDD speed. They are pretty much locked in a 100 mb/s right now.

 

[danwat1234]

[citation][nom]flong[/nom]So are these 1 TB HDD platters going to be significantly faster than the smaller multi-platter drives? And, are they going to be more reliable? I would be excited to see a 25% increase in HDD speed. They are pretty much locked in a 100 mb/s right now.[/citation]

Expect around 160-170MB/s sustained transfer rate at the outer edge of the platters.
Current drives like the Caviar Black 2TB do about 135MB/s on the outer edge.

 

[Wish I Was Wealthy]

No way, Josey! To their two year warranty.

 

[flong]

[citation][nom]danwat1234[/nom]Expect around 160-170MB/s sustained transfer rate at the outer edge of the platters.Current drives like the Caviar Black 2TB do about 135MB/s on the outer edge.[/citation]

This is interesting - it puts it nearly into the speeds of the second generation SSD. However, it will still have the problem of decreasing speeds as it is tested and it still as moving parts. Still if it is cheap, it will be a great mass storage option.

I have not read a lot of HDD reviews lately, I am surprised the Caviar black is that fast. My Samsung F3 hits 112 mb/s read and 108 mb/s write on ATTO. The F3 cost me $50 and so I doubt that Caviar Black is worth the increased cost of the WD drives. Interestingly, the F3 maintains its speed in the ATTO test fairly consistently.

 

[eddieroolz]

Come on Hitachi and Western Digital, I need you guys as an alternative...