5TB External HDDs Arriving in Three Months?

Is Seagate shipping 5 TB hard drives three months from now? That's a hint the company dropped in a recent interview at GITEX 2011, a technology event held in Dubai. Seagate later followed up after the event by saying that an eventual 5 TB drive isn't any real revelation, nor is the timeframe in which the product may arrive.

"Now we have 1 TB per disk," said a Seagate Middle East salesperson by the name of Christian six minutes into the interview. "If you just do a simple calculation ... now a drive can have five disks ... so suddenly you make the disk 5 TB ... within three months you will see it."

Seagate first introduced a GoFlex Desk external hard drive featuring 1 TB platters and an areal density of 625 Gigabits per square inch back in May, revealing a special 3-platter, 3 TB Barracuda XT hard drive crammed inside (which typically uses 5 platters for 3 TB). According to the company, that's enough capacity to store up to 120 high-definition movies, 1,500 video games, thousands of photos or "virtually countless hours of digital music."

Then in September the company added a 4 TB version to its GoFlex Desk line of external drives, but instead of using 1 TB platters, it featured a 5-platter (800 GB each) 7200RPM design. Seagate will reportedly introduce an internal 4 TB hard drive in November which will also use the 5-platter (800 GB each) 7200RPM design.

That said, it's safe to assume that Seagate's 5 TB storage monster will arrive in the form of a GoFlex Desk external drive first, and will likely be revealed during CES 2012 in January. Of course, that's just guesswork based on Seagate's current pattern.