Samsung and Seagate release hard drives

Samsung and Seagate have released a collection of hard drives that demonstrates the huge choice now available.

On Tuesday, Samsung announced three hard drives: a 1.8-inch 120GB model, a 3.5-inch 1TB drive and a 2.5-inch, 120GB "hybrid" drive that includes flash memory as well as the traditional spinning platters.

Samsung's F1 Series drive combines three 334MB platters to reach its 1TB capacity. It uses a Serial ATA (SATA) interface with 3Gbps transfer speeds, it spins at 7,200 revolutions per minute, includes 32MB of cache and costs about $399 (£200). The drives are geared for video recorders, desktop PCs and external storage systems.

On the small end of the spectrum is the 120GB, 1.8-inch drive, which is known as the N2 Series. It spins at 4,200rpm and is geared for portable music players, mobile phones, cameras and lightweight PCs. It costs $249 (£125) and has a parallel ATA interface.

In between the two is the 2.5-inch, $299 (£150) MH80 Series hybrid model. It supplements 160GB of regular drive capacity with 256MB of flash memory. It is designed so that the flash memory can often serve users' needs, letting the drive save energy by not spinning the drive platters. Samsung says it could save an estimated 25 minutes of battery life on a typical notebook PC. It also means the computer can boot and load applications faster.

Samsung also announced the $70 (£35) SH-S203 recordable DVD drive, which can use both DVD+R and DVD-R formats and which uses a SATA interface.

Also new is a $150 (£75) slim SE-T084 DVD driver for portable computers. It uses a USB interface and doesn't need its own AC adapter.

On Monday, Samsung's rival Seagate released its 2.5-inch, 80GB EE25.2 drive for more demanding environments than the interior of a PC chassis. The drive can handle high and low temperatures, shock and vibration, humidity and high altitude. It is designed for use in automobiles, aircraft, industrial control systems, closed-circuit video systems and rugged PCs, Seagate said.

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