LaptopDrive
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Seagate outs second-gen Momentus XT: a 750GB hybrid laptop drive for $189 (update: actually $245)
Seagate was quick to jump into the hybrid HDD/SSD fray last year, with the decently priced and capable Momentus XT. Now we have a successor with identical branding, but with the HDD upped to 742GB, NAND storage slightly increased to 8GB, plus a faster SATA III 6Gb/s interface. The 'flash-assisted drive' promises to cut boot-up and lag times compared to a standard laptop hard disk, by gradually learning which of your files are popular enough to deserve a spot in that solid state VIP lounge. We're looking at a price of $189 $245, including a five-year warranty, and availability from today. Read on the full PR. Update: The press release sent to us stated $189, but the one that's now live on Seagate's site (at the source link) says $245, so we're switching to that. Thanks to everyone who spotted this.
WD and Fujitsu could offer 1TB 2.5-inch HDDs in 2010, sun could rise tomorrow
We've been around this stuff long enough to know that hard drives just keep getting bigger with time, but if you were eager to know exactly when a 1TB unit would be prepped and ready for your notebook, try 2010. According to those infamous "undisclosed sources," both Western Digital (which started shipping a 500-gigger today) and Fujitsu are looking to pump out 750GB 2.5-inch HDDs by mid-2009 and 1TB variants in 2010. Keep the faith, brethren.
Panasonic whittles thinnest Blu-ray drive for laptops down to 9.5mm
While certain notable holdouts have yet to even announce HD disc-based products, it looks like the rest of modern civilization is getting ready to move the discs to an even slimmer set of laptops. Panasonic's latest burner for laptops is down to a mere 9.5mm thick, easily besting the company's previous 12.7mm Blu-ray drives. The drive can read and write Blu-ray discs at 2x, and supports DVD and CD read / write functions aplenty. Toshiba is on record claiming that HD DVD burners can be slimmed down to 7mm and will eventually be besting Blu-ray in this category, but so far only DVD has gone that slim. Panasonic will debut the new drive next month at CES.
Western Digital's 250GB perpendicular Scorpio heads for laptops
Late last year, Western Digital decided to make the leap to the land of perpendicular magnetic recording with its 160GB Scorpio, and now the firm is stepping it up to a full quarter terabyte with its latest rendition. The 2.5-inch SATA drive fits nicely within the confines of most lappies, sports 8MB of cache, a 12-millisecond access time, spins at 5400RPM, and touts the company's WhisperDrive technology so you'll barely know its there. Additionally, the ShockGuard and SecurePark systems tag team to keep your data safe during turmoil, and the IntelliSeek system reportedly "calculates the optimum seek speed of the read / write head actuator to help reduce noise and power consumption." So if you're looking to up the storage capacity of your mobile machine, you can snag WD's latest right now for a penny under $200.[Via MacWorld]
