Seagate Delivers A 2 TB HDD In 7mm
Nearly all new notebooks require 7mm Z-height drives. The trend started with Ultrabooks, but now most notebook manufacturers have adapted the thin-is-in philosophy. In order to make mobile computing platforms thinner, all of the components must shrink. Height is not an issue with solid-state products, but it is a very small space for spinning disks. Seagate has now doubled the capacity in this form factor by reaching 2 TB.
Seagate's new Mobile HDD ships in two capacity sizes, and each size is offered with three levels of encryption. The largest size, 2 TB, is more interesting because it packs more space in such a small package. Seagate also has a 1 TB model.
Both capacity sizes have three options that have to do with encryption: You can order the new Mobile HDD without full disk encryption, with encryption, or with FIPS 140-2 encryption. Most of the encrypted disks will ship to system builders and large OEMs for business notebook platforms.
The new drives allow system builders and even end users to increase storage capacity in notebooks. Samsung's 850 EVO and 850 Pro are the only existing products sold today with a 7mm Z-height and 2 TB of storage capacity. Seagate's new Mobile HDD will lower the cost to reach the same storage capacity.
The new Mobile HDD products consume just 1.7 watts under load and idle at 0.5 watts. The drives use a large 128 MB DRAM buffer and reach up to 100 MB/s sustained sequential performance. Warranty coverage runs out after 2 years.
Seagate's announcement stated that the new Mobile HDD product line ships today. However, we were unable to locate an online seller with stock available at the time of writing.
Chris Ramseyer is a Contributing Editor for Tom's Hardware, covering Storage. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. Follow Tom's Hardware on Twitter, Facebook and Google+.
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Non-Euclidean This article needs a pic of the drive flat, with a penny quarter next to it (or some such object for size relational identification)!Reply -
10tacle Go to Seagate's FB page and they have a photo of a man's fingers holding one.Reply
https://www.facebook.com/seagate
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hst101rox So,.. 2 platters at 1000GB/platter? That's quite a jump from the 667GB/platter Samsung M9T 2TB or 750GB/platter Toshiba MQ03ABB300. Make a 3TB 3 platter 9.5mm and a 4TB 12.5mm drive please! and 64GB NAND hybrid models of each! Does this use HaMR or SMR or just traditional PMR?Reply -
whassup My next PC build will be SSD only system. Good bye to unreliable HDD in general Seagate in specific.Reply -
amk-aka-Phantom HDDs do not belong in products with a 7 mm SATA bay. Stop being disgusting, vendors. Even a cheap convertible or ultrabook must come with a 120 GB SSD, not a hard drive. Space is not an issue, some will use the cloud and some will get an external HDD if there is really a lot of data to store. But enough of this. The first thing people do nowadays is throw the HDD out...Reply
@Non-Euclidian: what even? Just take a ruler and measure 7 mm. That's the point of providing dimensions, so that no one needs approximations and comparisons. -
tamalero HDDs do not belong in products with a 7 mm SATA bay. Stop being disgusting, vendors. Even a cheap convertible or ultrabook must come with a 120 GB SSD, not a hard drive. Space is not an issue, some will use the cloud and some will get an external HDD if there is really a lot of data to store. But enough of this. The first thing people do nowadays is throw the HDD out...
Pretty sure they do not mind the size or space or speed.. Most laptop manufacturers worry about keeping costs low to sell to people.
@Non-Euclidian: what even? Just take a ruler and measure 7 mm. That's the point of providing dimensions, so that no one needs approximations and comparisons.
Anyway, as others said, Id be worried about the reliability.
Seagate has been beyond poor in that aspect.
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tamalero Wow, Tomshardware really need to fix their site.. so buggy!Reply
You comment, they throw you to another article that has nothing to do with the comment you're replying to (it sends me to the frontier developments one).
Plus the quote button can quote up to 4 times per click.