Samsung ships 1TB Spinpoint MT2 2.5-inch hard drive, but it won't fit in your laptop
By Darren Murph 
posted July 20th 2010 11:05AM
posted July 20th 2010 11:05AM
So, we've good news and bad news. Given that we aren't accepting votes for which you'll be fed first, we'll go ahead and extol the virtues of cramming a full terabyte of space into a 2.5-inch form factor. Not that this feat hasn't been accomplished before, but the 2.5-inch 1TB HDD realm could certainly use the competition. Now, the rough part -- Samsung's Spinpoint MT2 boasts a 12.5mm height, which is 3mm too high for your existing laptop. Unless, of course, you're rocking one of those otherworldly Clevo machines with enough space for a Karmann Ghia in there. There's also the fact that it's humming along at just 5,400RPM and rocks just 8MB of buffer memory, meaning that this one's entirely more likely to find a home within a portable HDD case than inside of Apple's next MacBook Air. Oh, and there's no price being made public, but honestly, we're sort of glad Sammy didn't bother teasing us.Update: We're hearing that 12.5mm drives fit just find in Apple's newer unibody MacBook Pro machines.
Samsung Launches Its First Terabyte Spinpoint MT2 2.5" Mobile Hard Drive
SEOUL, South Korea--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., a world leader in digital consumer electronics and information technology, today announced that it has started shipping its new Spinpoint MT2 1 terabyte (TB) 2.5" internal mobile hard disk drive. It is ideally suited for use in portable storage solutions, such as the newly released Samsung S2 Portable 1TB USB Drives. Other applications include digital TVs, home media systems and set-top boxes, where quiet and cool operations are important.
"The new Spinpoint MT2 drive offers the largest capacity in what has previously been offered as an option for portable digital devices"
Employing industry-leading 333GB per-platter technology, the new Spinpoint MT2 drive offers up to an enormous 1TB for personal digital collections such as photos, music, video and work files. Running at 5400rpm speed, the MT2 has a 12.5mm form factor and utilizes Samsung's proprietary SilentSeek™ and NoiseGuard™ technologies to minimize noise levels during drive operation.
"The new Spinpoint MT2 drive offers the largest capacity in what has previously been offered as an option for portable digital devices," said I.C. Park vice president, storage marketing, Samsung Electronics. "As the total storage solution provider, Samsung is committed to offering products that features exceptional performance and value across a wide range of computing and consumer electronics markets."
The performance and reliability features of the Spinpoint MT2 have been enhanced with an optimized design and improved suspension for multidisc. The new MT2 drive delivers about 20% increased read/write performance and 4% lower power consumption compared with competitive drives, and it features shock resistance levels of 400G (2ms) in operation mode and 800G (1ms) when the power is off. Equipped with Samsung's exclusive dynamic balancing technology, the drive's overall stability and reliability is optimized as a high-performing solution.
The halogen-free drive complies with the European Union's Directive on the Restriction of the use of certain Hazardous Substances in electrical and electronic equipment (RoHS).
The Spinpoint MT2 features 5400rpm speed rotation, SATA 3.0 Gbps interface and Native Command Queuing functions for advanced performance.
The Spinpoint MT2 drive has an 8MB buffer memory and is available in 750GB and 1TB capacity. Initial shipments are available now.
Lame. But 5400rpm is fine given the sheer density of the HDD. Here's hoping they make a 9.5 mm soon.
@daftrok
Even so, with only 8mb buffer on a drive that big it'll be way to slow for a main drive.
@daftrok Who the eff is sammy?
@tobsmonster2
Considering its a 12.5mm drive, its probably meant for systems that can fit more than one drive. Meaning it would make a good storage drive since its power consumption should be low.
@Fox Con
....Sammy=Samsung
@SoCoolCurt oh thanks
@Fox Con
You were serious?
Wow.
@Engadget "Now, the rough part -- Samsung's Spinpoint MT2 boasts a 12.5mm height, which is 3mm too high for your existing laptop. Unless, of course, you're rocking one of those otherworldly Clevo machines with enough space for a Karmann Ghia in there."
Actually 12.5mm drives fit in all unibody Macbook Pros. Seems odd that Engadget would miss that one. A lot of laptops are quite thick to be honest, I'm sure if people tried, they'd fit in a good number of machines.
But yeah, they need to make a 9.5mm 1TB drive and a 7200RPM model at that. Seems like we got perpendicular recording and they ran out of ideas.
Maybe we're just going with SSD now.
True story: I learned to drive stick on a Karmann Ghia. Bitchin little car.
@TimStevens
My first car was a '66 Karmann Ghia that had belonged to my grandpa in Florida. By the time I got it, there was more Bondo and rust than actual metal left. Every time I'd fix one thing, two others would break. I loved that cool old piece of crap.
@TimStevens I have a '70 Karmann Ghia. Great car, easy to fix, rusting to bits :)
@TimStevens This was my girlfriend's at the time. She was prone to fits of serious intestinal distress and one day after dinner was doubled over in pain. I had to drive us to the ER and had never driven stick before. She kinda grunted instructions and I somehow managed to limp us there.
I even got it into second gear once!
Anyhow, since then every vehicle I've owned has been a manual. No looking back.
12.5? That should fit inside an Alienware m15x, right?
Duh! And here I was looking for one of these puppies to squeeze into my lappy! Thanks, and no thanks! I guess better luck next time!
will it fit in my ps3?
@Mr Hett Yea that's what I wanna know....
Where's a fail whale when you need one..
I'm pretty sure that will fit in a Dell Studio XPS 16. However, I would never replace my SSD with that slow thing. Be OK as an external drive.
Come on guys, hurry up on the 9.5mm drives. I'd like more than 500 GB in my laptop.
Actually, for those of you with the unibody macbook pro, the 12.5mm drive will fit. Check newegg reviews on their western digital 2.5" 1tb hard drive. Although it is a 5200rpm drive, it has been out for some time and costs $170
@diamond3 This not only fits in the unibody MacBook Pros but in the non-unibody MacBook Pro 17's as well. Why expect a blog to do any fact checking though?
i want the one with the bigger GB's
Doesn't the Macbook air use a 1.8" hard drive? I'd like to know as I'd hate someone to buy one of these on your comments. Have to be sure. Of all the machines you could have mentioned, the macbook air is the probably the main one that uses a 1.8" drive
Yes they should fit the Macbook Unibodies (2008+ Silver/aluminum Macbooks or Macbook Pros). It will NOT fit the Macbook Airs, they use the 1.8" SATA HDDs with the "exotic" LIF connectors (in the newer gens with the nVidia 9400m graphics anyways, the first gen MBA's with the Intel graphics used 1.8" PATA HDDs with the ZIF connector).
I have a 12.5mm 500GB drive in my 13" Macbook Pro (2010 version with nVidia 320m graphics) right now so these new 1TB Samsungs should fit fine.
True, Apple would be more likely to give you a 500GB 5400rpm off brand drive and charge you 300$ for it.
I have two 1TB that are 12.5mm high in my 2007 15inch MacBook Pro, one replaced my optical drive. They fit just fine.
@simonhowes Impressive, 2TB in a laptop really makes me think twice
ALL of my media in one compact machine!
I know one laptop that had a 12.5mm height hard drive... my old Toshiba 335CDS laptop from 1998.
It was fast for its day-- Pentium I 266 MHz MMX CPU, 160 MB EDO SDRAM, and 4 MB C&T graphics chip with 12.1-inch dual scan LCD screen.
Yup, that baby had a large internal hard drive bay. The standard drive was a Toshiba 4.3 GB, 12.5mm height hard drive. I later replaced it with a 160 GB, 9.5mm height hard drive. lol
My current Dell Inspiron 1525 only has a drive bay large enough for a 9.5mm height hard drive. Practically nearly every modern day laptop for keeping things thin and light is 9.5mm height only unless you are going into behemoth desktop replacements. My Toshiba 335 CDS? Well, that thing was 1 inch thick which didn't count the LCD lid, which was an additional quarter-inch in thickness. LOL
I still have a dual booted 1TB SSD I am rocking
Will this fit in the PS3? Both old and new?
"Fits find"?
@pablofamoso What he mean is "just fine". Be Creative and use some imagination, oh and some of that common sense.
@iPodPhone "fits find", "what he mean..."
It's clear that nobody has editors anymore....
I've installed quite a few 1TB drives in the current Macbook Pros. Even the 13". I love that Apple planned their unibody design around accommodating 12.5mm drives when none ship with anything taller than 9.5mm.
Maybe they're making up for the Macbook Air? :)
This story must have been written by an intern. I can't believe a writer at Engadget would not know that or over 2 years almost every Mac laptop could use 12mm drives - not to mention plenty of Dell and Lenovo machines as well.