Seagate to Release World's Thinnest 2.5-inch HDD

As our devices get slimmer in form factor, the demand rises for the miniaturization of components. Storage hardware, however, is standardized to several sizes, with 9.5 mm being the typical height for the 2.5-inch drives used in laptops and notebooks.

System designers wanting something slimmer than 9.5 mm can turn to 1.8-inch drives or SSD, but that in turn drives up costs. Seagate believes that it has the perfect answer to this with its upcoming line of Momentus Thin hard drives it plans to launch next week.

The storage company has created what it touts as the world's thinnest 2.5-inch laptop drive, measuring in with a 7 mm height. Seagate says that its solution provides the lowest-cost storage for netbooks and thin laptops, enabling computer makers to offer systems that reach a broader market.

The Momentus Thin will feature two capacity points – 250GB and 160GB – both packing an 8MB cache, a Serial ATA 3Gb/second interface and a 5400RPM spin speed. The drive will be available to Seagate’s OEM and integrator partners in January 2010.

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Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam served as Tom's Hardware News Director during 2008-2014. He entered tech media in the late 90s and fondly remembers the days when an overclocked Celeron 300A and Voodoo2 SLI comprised a gaming rig with the ultimate street cred.
  • leafblower29
    Hmmm... interesting to see the speeds of read/write. Perhaps size could allow RAID in laptops.
    Reply
  • Efrayim
    Wow that's thin. I bet they could make it thinner if they weren't restricted by the SATA connector height.
    Reply
  • metalfellow
    Impressive work seagate. This might cause headaches if owners want to upgrade to a larger capacity and they don't realise the drive is only 7mm high rather than the normal 9.5mm. Guess that could be solved by having a label to identify this as "super-slim 2.5in hdd" or something similar.
    Reply
  • tipmen
    rigaudioBut can it store Crysis?

    Just drop it.
    Reply
  • HansVonOhain
    rigaudioBut can it store Crysis?
    **** you please

    Just stop
    Reply
  • rigaudio
    Oh please, it was gonna be said eventually.

    Anyways, I hope they managed to slice the price as well as the drive.
    Reply
  • shiftstealth
    cant wait to see how long it takes this drive to fail, 2 weeks?
    gogo seagate
    Reply
  • Sicundercover
    What concerns me is why bother putting all the time into R&D to make a analog device like this?
    Reply
  • nawat
    leafblower29Hmmm... interesting to see the speeds of read/write. Perhaps size could allow RAID in laptops.Toshiba's been offering RAID in laptops for quite a long time now with its Qosmio series. But it's not in all models and these laptops are huge and heavy.
    Reply
  • Gin Fushicho
    Give me a 7200rpm single platter 250GB one of those and i'll be one happy boy. ;)
    Reply