David Flynn16 December 2009, 10:32 AM
Matching the move towards slim and sleek notebook designs, Seagate’s newest hard drive retains the standards 2.5 inch form factor but trims the profile to a wafer-thin 7mm.
One of the last remaining size constraints for laptops has gotten the chop.
Seagate’s Momentus Thin hard drive, which will begin shipping to notebook and netbook makers next month, keeps the popular and cost-effective 2.5 inch footprint but shaves the profile down to 7mm – a 25% reduction over the conventional 9.5mm height.
That might not sound like much, but for vendors looking to craft an ultra-thin notebook, it’s sufficient to provide an alternative to 1.8 inch hard disks and solid state drives, both of which add significantly to the notebook’s final cost.
“Of all netbook computers available today, 90 percent feature 9.5mm 2.5-inch laptop drives because solid state and 1.8-inch hard drives are largely cost-prohibitive for this market” says Dave Mosley, Seagate’s Sales & Marketing veep. “The Momentus Thin drive provides the lowest-cost storage for netbooks and thin laptops”.
Mosley doesn’t expect that all netbooks will suddenly get slimmer – there’s still a place and a price-point for mass market notebook drives – but the Momentus Thin will let vendors introduce ‘premium’ netbooks as well as better value ultra-portable notebooks.
The Momentus Thin will initially ship in 160GB and 250GB capacities. Both will be backed by 8MB of cache, spin at 5400rpm and use the Serial ATA 3GB/s interface.