Seagate Rolls Out Speedy 320 GB Notebook Hard Drive

Scotts Valley (CA) - Dell and Alienware have begun offering Seagate’s new flagship notebook hard drives. The third-generation Momentus 7200 drives are now available with up to 320 GB capacity.

Since the introduction of its 160 GB perpendicular hard drives more than two years ago, Seagate seemed to almost have lost contact to all other large hard drive manufacturers which have been driving the capacity train. The company trailed the announcements of its rivals, claiming that it is introducing new capacity ranges when the market is actually showing demand: While it is clear that Seagate still controls the market with a 33.9% share according to iSuppli, new drives have been introduced by the competition - especially by Western Digital, Hitachi GST, Fujitsu and Toshiba.

But Seagate has reclaimed the lead today in the performance segment of 2.5" drives. At least in the 7200 rpm market, Seagate is currently offering the broadest range of drives and the largest capacities. The Momentus 7200.3 is available in 1-disk configurations with 80, 120 and 160 GB versions and in 2-disk models with 250 and 320 GB. If you are looking for pure capacity and don’t care about the platter rotation speed, Hitachi GST has still an edge with a 500 GB 5400 rpm model.

According to Seagate, the Momentus 7200.3 consumes about 2.1 watts during read/write and 2.3 watts during seek processes.

Dell and Alienware are the first system builders to offer the new drives. A 160 GB 7200 rpm drive sells for a $75 premium over a standard 160 GB 5400 rpm drive in Dell Inspiron and XPS notebooks. The $250 GB rings in at an extra $250. The 320 GB option was not listed by Dell/Alienware at the time of this writing.