Introducing Seagate's 7200.9: The New Generation
by Purav Sanghani on October 10, 2005 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Storage
Seagate's Upcoming Offerings
Perpendicular recording has been in the news recently, with Toshiba bringing to the market the first drive utilizing the technology. We asked Seagate how soon it would bring a product using the new recording method to the desktop and notebook market. Back in June, Seagate introduced the 160GB Momentus 5400.3 notebook drive, the highest capacity notebook drive to date, achieved by using perpendicular recording and higher density platters for the increased disk space. The 160GB version of the 5400.3 will use two 80GB platters in combination with 4 heads to achieve this capacity. The 5400.3 line will offer 40GB, 60GB, 80GB, and 120GB as well with an 8MB cache and both PATA and SATA 1.5Gb/sec transfer rate with Native Command Queuing.
Another offering that we are looking forward to is the Momentus with FDE (Full Disc Encryption) technology. This implements a hardware-based encryption method to protect the contents on a lost or stolen drive. Since the encryption is hardware-based, there is virtually no chance of breaking into a locked volume, and in cases where the drive is to be disposed, the Disc Erase feature will completely wipe the platters clean of any sensitive data. The Momentus 5400 FDE line will come in 40GB, 60GB, 80GB, 100GB, and 120GB sizes. It will feature an 8MB cache and looks like it will be offered only in the PATA flavor - at least initially.
Perpendicular recording has been in the news recently, with Toshiba bringing to the market the first drive utilizing the technology. We asked Seagate how soon it would bring a product using the new recording method to the desktop and notebook market. Back in June, Seagate introduced the 160GB Momentus 5400.3 notebook drive, the highest capacity notebook drive to date, achieved by using perpendicular recording and higher density platters for the increased disk space. The 160GB version of the 5400.3 will use two 80GB platters in combination with 4 heads to achieve this capacity. The 5400.3 line will offer 40GB, 60GB, 80GB, and 120GB as well with an 8MB cache and both PATA and SATA 1.5Gb/sec transfer rate with Native Command Queuing.
Another offering that we are looking forward to is the Momentus with FDE (Full Disc Encryption) technology. This implements a hardware-based encryption method to protect the contents on a lost or stolen drive. Since the encryption is hardware-based, there is virtually no chance of breaking into a locked volume, and in cases where the drive is to be disposed, the Disc Erase feature will completely wipe the platters clean of any sensitive data. The Momentus 5400 FDE line will come in 40GB, 60GB, 80GB, 100GB, and 120GB sizes. It will feature an 8MB cache and looks like it will be offered only in the PATA flavor - at least initially.
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ElFenix - Monday, October 10, 2005 - link
"in their 400GB version drive at 133GB per square inch. "unless platers are 1/2 of a sq. inch per side, which i doubt, this statement is wrong.
i'm still having trouble understanding why this isn't in news, rather than a front page article.
JarredWalton - Monday, October 10, 2005 - link
It's not a review, it's an announcement of a new product which we feel many people will find interesting. If I were about ready to spend $100 on a 250GB drive, I'd sure like to know that Seagate has just released their 7200.9 series. This is an introduction to the technology, and an explanation about what has changed. The 16 MB cache models are certainly noteworthy, and all indicators are that the new drives will at worst match the old 7200.7/.8 Seagate models.Price is the only thing I would worry about. If the 250GB 7200.9 costs $150 vs. $100, I probably wouldn't bother. Right now, http://labs.anandtech.com/search.php?q=seagate+160...">prices on the 160GB models are in favor of the new 7200.9. The remaining http://labs.anandtech.com/search.php?q=7200.9">7200.9 drives in our RTPE may or may not be worth consideration. $380 for the 500GB is more than I'm willing to pay for a single drive.
cryptonomicon - Monday, October 10, 2005 - link
argh forget it. i guess i just want to see the reviews perfect for the sake of keeping anandtech the best it can be, so even though a typo doesn't affect the real content of an article (but it still devalues it)joex444 - Tuesday, October 11, 2005 - link
This is true. If this was my first visit and I hadn't read articles here before, the typos really just make the author and the site appear ignorant. People in general, atleast ones that know the correct way, tend to stop reading things if they are written improperly; they just look like a child wrote it.SpaceRanger - Monday, October 10, 2005 - link
I wouldn't call it a review. Read more like a commercial for Seagate.Xenoterranos - Monday, October 10, 2005 - link
You know what. Anandtech has never posted any news that has ever been considered "out of touch". They're reviews are as unbiased as reviews can be without being written by cold, unfeeling machines. If Anadtech decided that these segate drives were good enough to give a free comercial too, then thats the best kind of marketing isn't it? I remember back in the day when a 40gig was huge, I called a local dealer and asked them for the cheapest 40gig they had. The guy said "We'll, that would be a Ninja [something], but I wouldn't recommened that unless you want to come back tomorrow and call in the warranty." Ok, that was a but off topic. Long live the Queen, free tibet, and all that jazz.PuravSanghani - Monday, October 10, 2005 - link
I would actually call this an article detailing Seagate's official introduction of the 7200.9 line. As far as purchasing these drives go, they have shipped in the last few weeks and are in stock at many places already.As we mentioned in the article, we will be providing benchmarks of the 500GB version of the 7200.9 within the next few weeks.
Thanks,
Purav Sanghani
ATWindsor - Monday, October 10, 2005 - link
"The lowest amount of sound audible by human ears is 26 decibels, so the idle noise output is borderline inaudible to our ears"This seems to be taken from the info Seagate has published, unfotantly it is not correct. The db(p)-scale has it reference at the human hearing threshold. In other words, the human hearing threshold is 0 db. (although there obivously are individual differences, and background noise rarly is under 15 db).
PuravSanghani - Monday, October 10, 2005 - link
Looking at the charts, we meant to say 2.5, 2.6, 2.8, and 3.2 bels. The numbers have been fixed to match the slides from Seagate.ATWindsor - Monday, October 10, 2005 - link
I see you also added "according to seagate" which is good.