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Seagate hard drives hit 1TB per platter

The storage company has squeezed 625Gb onto each square inch of disk to produce platters holding up to 1TB, which it plans to put into its GoFlex and Barracuda lines
Written by Ben Woods, Contributor

Seagate has introduced a 3.5-inch hard drive that stores 1TB of data per platter, by cramming 625Gb onto each square inch of disk.

The storage specialist's external GoFlex Desk drives will be the first to use the technology when they are released later in 2011, the company said in an announcement on Tuesday. They will contain up to three platters to give 3TB of storage per hard drive.

Seagate Barrcuda XT hard drive

Seagate has announced it can store 1TB of data per platter, a feature that will be included on its forthcoming Barracuda XT hard drives. Photo credit: Seagate

In addition, Seagate's internal Barracuda XT 3.5-inch drives will also feature 1TB platters when they ship in mid-2011, the company said. The Barracuda XTs will range from 1TB to 3TB in capacity.

The platters can store 1TB because they have an areal density of 625Gb per square inch, according to Seagate. Areal density, also called bit density, refers to the amount of data that can be packed onto a hard disk.

In comparison, rival Hitachi GST has a 3TB Deskstar 7K3000 with an areal density of 411Gb per square inch.

The 1TB areal breakthrough will help keep up with demand for compact storage, according to Seagate, which said a 3TB drive is enough to store 120 high-definition films or 1,500 video games.

"Organisations of all sizes and consumers worldwide are amassing digital content at light speed, generating immense demand for storage of digital content of every imaginable kind," Rocky Pimentel, Seagate's head of worldwide sales and marketing, said in a statement.

In April, Seagate completed its $1.4bn (£845m) purchase of Samsung's hard-disk drive division, which had developed prototypes of its own 1TB platter.

Pricing details have not yet been announced for the GoFlex and Barracuda XT drives.


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