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Harddrives to Hit 3TB Capacities By November

By - Source: Tom's Hardware US

A TDK chart paves the road to 3 TB hard drives by November.

Softpedia reports that hard drive head manufacturer TDK released a chart revealing hard drive capacity updates for 2010. The chart indicates that-- for 3.5-inch HDDs--the company is moving from 500 GB per platter to 640 GB per platter.

This update means that hard drive manufacturers can now crank out HDDs with 2.5 TB storage capacities (using four platters), and five-platter HDDs offering a whopping 3 TB of storage.

The chart indicates that TDK plans to launch the update next month, with the new HDDs appearing on the market by November.

As for the smaller 2.5-inch form factor, hard drive manufacturers will be able to use the just-launched 375 GB platters as soon as this month. This will be a small bump up from the previous 320 GB platters, however storage makers will now be able to manufacture HDDs with 750 GB of storage using two platters.

According to TechConnect, 2.5-inch HDDs with 750 GB are expected to hit the market sometime this October. Still, with the release of SSDs, are mechanical drives a dying technology?

There are 44 Comments.
Top Comments
  • 14
    captaincharisma , February 9, 2010 1:15 AM
    i cannot wait to get a 3TB drive for 99 bucks lol. i would love to get one of these for my PVR
  • 12
    Silmarunya , February 9, 2010 1:22 AM
    JohnnyLuckyHow many movies can be stored on a 3TB drive? Are 3TB hard drives aimed at the home theater market or commercial data storage? I'm having a hard drive imagining the massive storage capabilities.


    They'll certainly find a market in enterprise use, still the largest market for hardware. And I can imagine that workstations and certain home theater PC's could use that much storage.

    And to reply to the question in the article: I don't think magnetic storage is dying just yet. It will have a massive pricing advantage for years to come and capacity is still far ahead. The best SSD's manage 1TB, but are nearly unaffordable. Meanwhile, dirt cheap 3TB drives are being prepared...

    SSD's are great as a boot drive, maybe as a primary drive in higher end systems in a few years time, but I think that it will be at least a year or 3 before magnetic storage will start dying.
Other Comments
  • 14
    captaincharisma , February 9, 2010 1:15 AM
    i cannot wait to get a 3TB drive for 99 bucks lol. i would love to get one of these for my PVR
  • 12
    Silmarunya , February 9, 2010 1:22 AM
    JohnnyLuckyHow many movies can be stored on a 3TB drive? Are 3TB hard drives aimed at the home theater market or commercial data storage? I'm having a hard drive imagining the massive storage capabilities.


    They'll certainly find a market in enterprise use, still the largest market for hardware. And I can imagine that workstations and certain home theater PC's could use that much storage.

    And to reply to the question in the article: I don't think magnetic storage is dying just yet. It will have a massive pricing advantage for years to come and capacity is still far ahead. The best SSD's manage 1TB, but are nearly unaffordable. Meanwhile, dirt cheap 3TB drives are being prepared...

    SSD's are great as a boot drive, maybe as a primary drive in higher end systems in a few years time, but I think that it will be at least a year or 3 before magnetic storage will start dying.
  • 8
    eyemaster , February 9, 2010 3:24 AM
    Impressive! Talk about not even 20 years ago when I had my 20MB HDD and it was huge! The 1GB HDD's came out about 10 years and a bit ago, costing quite a bit. If I can remember correctly, at one point we were paying 100$ per 100MB, then 100$ per 1GB, now it's 100$ per TB, it's so impressive!
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