Samsung announces 1 TB hard drive

New York (NY) – Following Hitachi GST, Samsung is the second company to offer a 3.5” hard drive with a capacity of 1 TB. However, Samsung offers 67% more storage density per disk.

Samsung’s new F1 series of 3.5” hard drives is yet another sign how serious the company takes its increasingly aggressive move into the mass storage market. The availability of the firm’s new 1 TB drive trails Hitachi’s 1 TB model by a few weeks, but Samsung already has hit a storage density that could make hard drives with a capacity of more than 1.5 TB a reality in the not too distant future.

The 7200 rpm F1 drive uses only three platters, which store 334 GB each, translating into a storage density of about 241 Gb/square inch. In comparison, Hitachi’s 1 TB drive uses five 200 GB platters with a density of 144 Gb/square inch. Seagate recently revealed a single platter 250 GB 3.5” drive with a density of 205 Gb/square inch. While higher storage density and fewer platters typically result in less power consumption of a drive and Samsung noted that its F1 drive is very power efficient, the company did not provide detailed technical specifications of the device.

Samsung said that the 1 TB F1 drive is selling for a suggested retail price of $400.

The company also introduced a Spinpoint 120 GB 1.8” hard drive, which is the form factor that is used in hard drive-based MP3 players such as the video iPod : The device is shipping now and available for $250, the company said.