New Samsung 1 TB HDD Uses Only Two Platters

The new Spinpoint F3 series of hard drives consist of two platter disks.

Samsung sent over a press release revealing the new Spinpoint F3 line of high-density hard drives that only use two platters. Operating at 7200 RPM rotational speed, the new line provides up to 1 TB (Terabyte) of storage, meaning the drive's two platter disks would consist of 500 GB each. By using only two disks, the drives use less power and offers 30-percent higher performance than a three-platter drive in the same 3.5-inch form factor.

“Our customers require not only additional capacity but also high performance for their server and desktop storage systems, while promoting a green environment,” said Choel-Hee Lee, vice president of marketing, Storage Systems Division, Samsung Electronics. “The massive capacity-per-platter and high-performance features of the new Spinpoint F3 make it an attractive solution for driving the growth of high-density storage.”

Samsung also stated that the Spinpoint F3 series is compliant with the Restriction of Hazardous Substances directive (RoHS), and uses SilentSeek and NoiseGuard to "achieve a quiet operation system." The drives also use a 3.0 Gbps SATA interface, Native Command Queuing features, and a 16 MB / 32 MB buffer memory.

The 1 TB Spinpoint F3 drive is scheduled to ship in August, however the 500 GB version (using 250 GB per platter we assume) is now available worldwide.