Seagate claims first with 400GB PC hard drive
Firms aims new offering at system builders and the retail channel
Seagate is claiming a world first with the introduction of a 400GB PC hard drive for system builders and the retail channel.
The 400GB drive sits at the top of the new Barracuda 7200.8 range of high-speed serial ATA (SATA) drives. Seagate claimed it is the first drive to cram up to 133GB of data on a single disk, which should boost performance and reliability because the drive uses less disks and heads.
The firm is targeting the drive at high-performance PCs, workstations, PC-based home media servers and entry-level SATA servers.
The SATA drive uses native command queuing (NCQ) technology to up performance, and although the drive boasts a spin rate of 7,200rpm, Seagate maintained that it can match the performance of a 10,000rpm SATA drive.
NCQ is designed to take advantage of PCs using Intel's Hyperthreading technology and asynchronous I/O. Apart from running things faster it can offer greater drive reliability by eliminating the wear and tear that non-NCQ drives endure transferring the same amount of data.
"Leveraging operational excellence is key to bringing new technology and products to market first and Seagate's Barracuda 7200.8, with its industry-leading density and SATA NCQ technologies, is one such example," said Dave Reinsel, director of storage research at IDC.
"Seagate's investments in common design platforms, advanced manufacturing and Six Sigma design and quality processes have also contributed to its ability over the past several years to deliver reliable, high-quality products."
Joe Treacy, vice-president at the UK and European arm of system builder Alienware, said: "A drive this big will probably be most popular with workstation users. While there's not a lot of demand for drives this big from the mainstream market, there is growing demand in the market for more and more storage."