[NEWZ] Svelte Monster: 3-Platter 400 GB 7200.8

[Explorer]

• SEAGATE DELIVERS WORLD'S HIGHEST CAPACITY PC HARD DRIVE TO RETAIL STORES AND SYSTEM BUILDERS
  
  New 400GB Barracuda 7200.8 offers fast SATA NCQ performance and greater areal density than any other PC hard drive
  
  SCOTTS VALLEY, Calif.—16 November 2004—Seagate Technology (NYSE:STX), the world's number one hard drive maker, today announced it is shipping the world's highest capacity PC hard drive to retail stores, resellers and system builders worldwide. The Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 hard drive gives customers up to 400GB, and with the industry's highest data density it's the first hard drive to store up to 133GB on a single disc. This technology advantage enables Seagate to use fewer discs and heads and ensures the fastest performance and greatest reliability of any PC hard drive in its class.
  
  The Barracuda 7200.8 continues Seagate's interface leadership with the most advanced single-chip native Serial ATA (SATA) interface with native command queuing (NCQ), for a significant performance boost...
  
  Seagate's native SATA interface technology with NCQ enables the Barracuda 7200.8 to match the performance of 10,000-rpm SATA drives without sacrificing capacity, and at a much more economical cost per gigabyte. The Barracuda 7200.8 with NCQ benefits applications like high-performance PCs such as gaming systems and workstations, PC-based home media servers and entry-level SATA servers. In addition, NCQ can make booting, application loading and file copying faster for everyday mainstream users...

More Shouting And Hyperbole At:


http://www.seagate.com/cda/newsinfo/newsroom/releases/article/0,1121,2469,00.html

 

[jtr1962]

I thought it was rather humerous that the smallest capacity was 200 GB. I'm also surprised that they didn't make a 1 platter 133 GB version. This would be perfect to upgrade older machines as it would be allow nearly the full 28-bit LBA capacity on a drive with a single platter.

And we creep inexorably one step closer towards the ultimate limits of magnetic mechanical storage. :excl: I don't think we're too many more platter size increases away from those limits now. I'd put even money that 500 GB/platter will be it.

 

[RWIndiana]

Non-magnetic storage certainly has it's limitations too, doesn't it? Solid-state storage is already significantly higher in price than magnetic. Although with solid-state, a 5.25" form factor hard drive could have a comeback since the physical size wouldn't have as much of an impact on performance. Though I'm wondering if solid-state will actually ever become affordable (or how long it will take).

 

[LunarMist]

Finally! Of course I need to buy one each in SATA and PATA.

I thought it was rather humerous that the smallest capacity was 200 GB. I'm also surprised that they didn't make a 1 platter 133 GB version. This would be perfect to upgrade older machines as it would be allow nearly the full 28-bit LBA capacity on a drive with a single platter.

133 is not a standard size, but presumably there at least will be 120GB 1-platter drives and 250 GB 2-platter drives which will be cheaper to make than the current 3-head and 6-head drives, respectively. There is a confusing thread about platter density here, but nothing in the SR database. I hope they are quiet.

 

[Tannin]

I'd not have used the term "confusing", LM. "Illiterate" might have been an appropriate term.

 

[LunarMist]

Heh, yeah. You know Tony, I still always try to be nice to SR.

 

[Tea]

And you know Tannin. He is never nice to anyone on a Friday.

 

[Fushigi]

133 is not a standard size, but presumably there at least will be 120GB 1-platter drives and 250 GB 2-platter drives which will be cheaper to make than the current 3-head and 6-head drives, respectively.

I think they should, though, market them as 130 & 260 GB. Price it the same as the competition and say for the same $ you get 10 more GB and the 5 year warranty.

 

[Buck]

The assumption is that a drive manufacturer will yield 133-gigabytes from each platter -- but they won't. Drive manufacturers will have a prime format for high-yield drives and then alternate formats for lower-yield products. I would expect that Seagate will have a prime format of 133 and at least one alternate of 120, probably a second at 100. Normally it is the TPI that changes for these formats, whereas the BPI stays consistant (although that has been known to change too).

 

[freeborn]

Nowadays nothing is certain on platter densities. BPI and TPI can vary surface to surface. It all depends on how good a given surface and the head mated to the surface is. Sometimes a head will work well with high BPI but low TPI (fat strong head). Sometimes the opposite is true with low BPI, and High TPI (narrow weak head). And of course there is an entire range in between. The beauty is having a manufacturing process which allows for this. Imagine if you will a series of allowed configurations 1000, 900, 800, 700, 600, etc. You have say 8 heads and 4 surfaces. During certification the drive will learn its defects and capabilities of its heads and media, After all defects are mapped and heads characterized it will then determine if it can meet the 1000 criteria. If it cannot then the 900 will be checked. This continues until a configuration meets what the drive has determined it is capable of. Once that is set then further testing can continue. and eventually you have a series of drives which start with the same nominal hardware but end up with varying capabilities and capacities with hopefully little waste and scrapped parts.

Free

 

[freeborn]

133 is not a standard size, but presumably there at least will be 120GB 1-platter drives and 250 GB 2-platter drives which will be cheaper to make than the current 3-head and 6-head drives, respectively.

I think they should, though, market them as 130 & 260 GB. Price it the same as the competition and say for the same $ you get 10 more GB and the 5 year warranty.

Saddly, capacity points are set by the major OEM buyers. They want to have a selection of drives from Vendor A, B, and C to all have the same usable number of LBAs to simplify their integration process and keep the job as simple as possible for their assemblers. Drives often have a few million LBAs beyond what the host can access but there is no way to use them without knowledge of the drive's firmware and means to reconfigure it.

Free