Seagate's new 5TB drive

LaCie, now Seagate's consumer facing subsidiary, announced a 5TB desktop drive (tip of the hat to Storage Newsletter). The unit is available in its 5big Thunderbolt Series, 2big Thunderbolt Series and d2 Thunderbolt Series.

The drive is reportedly a 5 platter, 7200RPM unit, which remains unannounced by parent Seagate. LaCie can now offer up to 25TB of capacity in a desktop enclosure.

The Storage Bits take
Two takeaways:

• Capacity increases have slowed from the torrid 40-50 percent growth of the first decade of the 21st century. 25 percent growth is better than nothing, but the slowing makes it easier for flash drives to compete with disk.
• This may be the beginning of a trend. Drive vendors like the higher margins they get with add-on storage compared to volume OEM sales, especially since early production is typically volume constrained until processes get nailed down. Expect to see WD and Toshiba follow Seagate's lead.

Of course WD's HGST unit - much of the old IBM disk business - is theoretically shipping (haven't seen any in the wild yet) a 6TB server drive. It will be interesting to see if they also offer it as a desktop unit from their G-tech brand.

Comments welcome, as always. Do you need a 5 or 6TB drive? Why?