Samsung launches two-platter 1TB disk drive

Samsung has taken advantage of rising hard-disk memory storage densities to launch a new line of high-end products with capacities of up to 1TB.

The Spinpoint F3 line, announced on Tuesday, uses technologies such as perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) to increase storage density. This raises capacity to 500GB per platter and makes a two-platter 1TB product possible, according to Samsung.

Increased density means higher performance, so the two-platter 1TB Spinpoint product operates up to 30 percent faster than a three-platter 1TB offering in the same 3.5-inch form factor, the company added.

Reducing the number of platters means fewer mechanical parts, which in turn improves reliability, according to the company.

The F3 products operate at 7,200 RPM and use a 3.0GB per second Sata interface, native command queuing features and a 16MB/32MB buffer memory. They incorporate low-noise technologies called SilentSeek and NoiseGuard.

A drive with a capacity of 500GB is available now, with the 1TB drive due to ship in August, according to Samsung.

Other companies, including Western Digital, Toshiba and Seagate, have recently released 1TB and 2TB drives in different configurations of platter.

On Monday, Western Digital announced a 2.5-inch laptop hard drive with 1TB of storage, currently the highest-capacity laptop drive on the market. The Scorpio Blue 1TB uses three 333GB platters.