2.5 TB HDD Expected in 2010
The capacity bar has been raised according to TDK's roadmap.
A recent roadmap presented by TDK Corporation--a manufacturer of read/write heads for many hard disk drive (HDD) suppliers--revealed that 640 GB 2.5-inch and 2.5 TB 3.5-inch HDDs should become available around January 2010. For now, Seagate and WD provide HDDs with the largest capacities: 2 TB.
According to Register Hardware, TDK is currently producing high density read/write heads for 250 GB/platter (2.5-inch) and 500 GB/platter (3.5-inch). However, the roadmap indicates that the 2.5-inch drive read heads will jump up to 320 GB/platter (which apparently are already in qualification by its OEMs), and the 3.5-inch drive read heads will move up to 640 GB/platter.
The 3.5-inch 4-platter HDDs are expected to enter mass production in November and exit in January. The 2.5-inch 2-platter drives, on the other hand, will enter manufacturing this month and slip into mass production by December. HDD manufacturers should begin announcing the 2.5-inch drives by the end of the year, and the 3.5-inch drives as early as February 2010.
3.5-inch manufacturers may even provide a possible 3.2 TB, 5-platter model next year.
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Kevin Parrish has over a decade of experience as a writer, editor, and product tester. His work focused on computer hardware, networking equipment, smartphones, tablets, gaming consoles, and other internet-connected devices. His work has appeared in Tom's Hardware, Tom's Guide, Maximum PC, Digital Trends, Android Authority, How-To Geek, Lifewire, and others.
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mindless728 well this is an issue for people that don;t have good raid cards, the lack of support for 64bit LBA in motherboards will render these HDD's useless (without the 64bit LBA you can't have volumes, not partitions, over 2TiB)Reply -
AmazingRando 640GB 2.5" notebook drives with a 320GB/platter design are already here. There is a review with benchmarks for a Seagate drive at http://blog.penguintrail.com/?p=257.Reply -
anamaniac Wow...Reply
At 3-8GB a game (assuming 5 for average), that's 500 games for me to pirate on a 2.5GB drive... That's 29 days at max bandwidth downloading for me... wow. My ISP would absolutely hate me (and fine me). -
NikeWK AmazingRando, couldn't agree moreReply
There are even drives with 334GB/platter design:
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/western-digital-1tb-2.5-hdd,8347.html
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NikeWK Also, it has been said about 2.5 inch drivesReply
"will enter manufacturing this month and slip into mass production by December"
So when are they coming out? Could it be a mistake? -
jdog2076 Why is it every time there's news about a upcoming larger-capacity hard drive someone always comments "who would ever need that much space!" Guys, *it depends what you do* with your computer that determines how much space you need. If all you use your computer for is "normal" things like web surfing and word processing then no, you don't need much storage. But (case in point) if you're involved in video production you realize that digital video eats hard drive space for breakfast (36 Mbps for DV). There is always a need for more storage.Reply