Samsung intros single-platter 60GB 1.8-inch drive

[chaminga_d]

1.8" hard drives have already broken the 60GB mark by a good margin, but Samsung says it is the first company to put together a 60GB 1.8" hard drive with only a single platter. This feat, which was enabled by Samsung's use of perpendicular recording technology, has allowed the company to squeeze its new N-series drive down to a thickness of just 5mm (less than 1/5"). 60GB platters could conceivably allow Samsung to make 120GB 1.8" drives in the future, as well, although the company makes no mention of such plans in its press release.

In addition to the 60GB model, Samsung is introducing N-series 1.8" drives with capacities of 20GB, 30GB, and 40GB. The drives all spin at 4,200RPM and have 2MB of cache. They also support both "parallel" ATA and CE-ATA interfaces, making them compatible with a variety of devices including notebooks, portable media players, UMPCs, and car navigation systems.

[Anusha]

That's cool. I wonder why we don't see desktop Hard drives with only 1 or 2 platters. This should be possible with PMR technology. Lower the number of platters, lower the chance of failure, because platters (and the heads) are the moving parts.

I believe the highest platter density is 160GB/platter on 3.5" drives. Even with that, the Hitachi 7K500 500GB HDD uses 5 platters afaik. They could have gone with 4x125GB to reduce the risks.

[chaminga_d]

Why is Seagate still the only company to use perpendicular tech in 3.5" drives? Or have the other companies snuck it in without much fanfare...

[Anusha]

Why is Seagate still the only company to use perpendicular tech in 3.5" drives? Or have the other companies snuck it in without much fanfare...
Seagate is like Intel. They bring the innovation to, in this card, hard drives. They are the market leaders.

I think, maybe there is still no such need for 3.5" drives to use PMR technology. We have 500GB drives with the old technology. It's the laptop drives that are lagging behind. PMR is needed to increase the capacities of those drives, because you can't employ lots of platters in them.