Samsung's 250GB SpinPoint N3U has on-board USB, personal bonus card

It may not be the first 1.8-inch hard disk we've seen pushing a 250GB capacity, but damn if Samsung doesn't know how to market its tech. See, these drives are small as Samsung skillfully demonstrates by photographing its new Spinpoint N3U disk in front of a credit card. And by including a native PATA to USB controller on the circuit board, Samsung has helped manufacturers eliminate a bit bulk from future portable USB disk offerings. The 3,600rpm drive itself features 125GB per platter, 8MB of cache, and should be capable of withstanding drops from about 20-inches. At least it will when these begin shipping in mid-July for about $200.

[google: Operation Northwoods @ Jul 9th 2009 3:19AM]

What the buck? I thought this was a SSD!!! Who the cave man wants a HDD these days?

[andres @ Jul 9th 2009 3:21AM]

i do

[Lando Calrissian @ Jul 9th 2009 3:24AM]

Same here, when you need to store things like hyperdrive vectors and galactic maps, you need the extra space that hard drives give you. Back before Han won the Milennium Falcon off of me in that Goddamn stupid game of sabbac, I used hard drives exclusively for all data storage on the Falcon.

[Bernhard @ Jul 9th 2009 3:27AM]

How else could I store all that Porn?

[CtrlBurn @ Jul 9th 2009 8:51AM]

An SSD called "Spinpoint"? That wouldn't make much sense.

[Wwhat @ Jul 9th 2009 9:02AM]

They'd have to use some spin to make that make sense.

[Joseph @ Jul 9th 2009 5:17PM]

Lando, buried as fake. Never could have completed Kessel run w/ hdd.

[ishism @ Jul 9th 2009 3:28AM]

Adding this to an older ipod or zune would be a great upgrade mod.

[pete @ Jul 9th 2009 10:58AM]

Except it looks like this doesn't have the Zif connector the older drives the Zune and iPod use...

[fischziege @ Jul 9th 2009 3:52AM]

exactly my thinking. im still hoping that the ipod classic will survive this september, and a 250 gig drive would be great for that.

[Miles @ Jul 9th 2009 4:03AM]

Doesn't samsung make ones that are as small as a Quarter?
Why don't they make a USB Hard Drive that functions like a USB Flash Drive already?
We really do want one!

[andres @ Jul 9th 2009 1:12PM]

is that not exactly what this does

[G @ Jul 9th 2009 4:17AM]

wow, that thing is tiny!

[Fox @ Jul 9th 2009 7:58AM]

That's what she said.

[Samzebian @ Jul 9th 2009 4:20AM]

I'd like to throw this in my Zune 120 when it gets full (only using 86gb's now), but this is only 3200 RPM, the built in drives are ussually 4200 rpm for 1.8" drives, I don't want a speed DECREASE in a PMP. I'll wait until they have this in 4200 RPM, or perhaps a western digital raptor wth 15,000 RPM lol. Maybe an SSD instead? they're going down in price, I got my 60GB OCZ for $300, they're like $150-200 for that capacity now!

[A.C.E.R. @ Jul 9th 2009 4:42AM]

you should be happy that it'll use less power... like you'll notice the milliseconds of difference in seek time.

[Wwhat @ Jul 9th 2009 8:59AM]

It does have 2 platters it seems, so that means under circumstances it's speedier than a single platter.

[Matlock @ Jul 9th 2009 5:25AM]

This is neat and all, but Apple's current-gen iPod Classic uses a single-platter 120GB HDD. This end-product launched last September (who knows when the HDD itself launched), and this is launching a full 10 months later with an areal density increase of ~4.2%? With promises of 1.2 Petabyte HDDs in "2-5 years," this launch is rather disappointing.

[Wwhat @ Jul 9th 2009 9:00AM]

It's sooner surprising that they still make tiny HD's at all.

[strider_mt2k @ Jul 9th 2009 7:34AM]

Very nice!

That USB connection makes it a snap to copy over the drive image when upgrading.

I upgraded my Dell Mini 9 netbook with an SSD offering the same feature.

Cool!

[Patrick @ Jul 9th 2009 9:53AM]

I was going to say the same thing. Love that runcore ssd. That plus this drive has me wondering...why don't all drives (hdd, ssd, optical) have USB built in? Man would it make life easier (and possibly put brando out of business)!

[Patrick @ Jul 9th 2009 9:55AM]

Oh and yes I know about 3.5" and 5.25" drive power requirements. Just throw in a power adapter while you're at it, will ya, manufacturers? :)

[10minutehobo @ Jul 9th 2009 8:16AM]

3600rpm?

I demand SLOWER!

[Wwhat @ Jul 9th 2009 8:57AM]

For the metric people: 20 inch = 51 centimeter
Also, 3600 RPM = 60 rotations per second, why do they always specify it per minute anyway?

It's actually surprising that it can only withstand 51 cm when you think how short the arm is and how small and therefore rigid the platters are, you'd think at that size robustness would be easier than the big ones with all their mass and momentum when in motion.

[barry99705 @ Jul 9th 2009 9:40AM]

Yea, the arms are shorter, but they're thinner too.

[Wwhat @ Jul 9th 2009 10:57AM]

Ah but the ratio is different. or easily could be, I presume it is already though

[barry99705 @ Jul 9th 2009 9:41AM]

Yea, the arms are shorter, but they're thinner too.

[barry99705 @ Jul 9th 2009 9:41AM]

Heh, oops.

[pete @ Jul 9th 2009 11:05AM]

Sorry to dash all your iPod, Zune, and netbook upgrading hopes, but this looks like it ONLY has a usb connector.
The above mentioned devices use 1.8" pata drives with zif connectors - ya know the ones that connect to those fragile orange ribbon cables?
Like this -
cable - http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/mac/macbookair/review/ZIF.jpg
connector - http://32.sarutek.com/zif-lif-info/ziflif/hitachi_zif.jpg
sigh

[Jon Doe. @ Jul 9th 2009 11:36AM]

You lost me at 3,600. I'd sooner write out the 0's and 1's by hand on paper. 5400 RPM is literally the slowest I've ever go on a HD that size.

[andres @ Jul 9th 2009 1:14PM]

what the slowest you would figuratively go?