Samsung debuts 120GB 1.8" drive, 1TB desktop
updated 01:50 pm EDT, Tue June 19, 2007
Samsung SpinPoint N2
Samsung at a special event today unveiled some of its fastest and largest-capacity drives to date. The SpinPoint N2 is now the world's highest-capacity 1.8-inch hard drive and provides as much as 120GB of storage in a form suitable for portable media players such as the iPod as well as camcorders and other handhelds. Its 4200RPM speed is also quick enough to handle the demands of ultraportable notebooks, Samsung says. The drive also incorporates 8MB of cache and will run from completely idle to ready in two seconds. Unlike many of these drives, the N2 is available as a stand-alone drive for regular users and ships now for $249.
Equally record-setting is the F1 series, according to Samsung. While it matches the same 1TB storage capacity of Hitachi's Deskstar 7K1000 and other drives, it does so using only three drive platters -- creating the highest-density desktop drive in the world, the company says. The simplified setup as well as better power optimization also make it the coolest and most power-efficient 1TB drive to date. Shipping with 32MB of onboard cache, the drive should also be available from today but at a price of $399.
Samsung today wrapped up its announcements with the SH-S203, which the company boasts is the fastest DVD rewriter available. The Serial ATA-based optical disc drive will record a single-layer DVD-R or DVD+R disc at 20X, allowing it to fill an entire 4.7GB disc in just over 4.5 minutes. This is about 12 percent faster than the previous 18X barrier, by company estimates. It will also write dual-layer DVD+R at a similarly quick 16X (12X for its DVD-R equivalent) and 8X for fully rewritable DVD-RW dual-layer discs. Pricing is set at $70 for the S203, which is shipping today along with the announced hard disks.
