Very low cost 2.5in netbook drives due?
updated 11:50 am EST, Tue December 16, 2008
V Low Cost Netbook HDDs
Hard drive manufacturers are in the midst of developing 2.5-inch hard drives inexpensive enough to easily be used with netbooks and other budget notebooks, say unnamed storagy industry contacts. Hitachi, Seagate and Western Digital at a minimum are all said to be developing drives that would cost between 40 and 50 percent less than many existing netbook drives, which cost up to $45 and take up a disproportionately large percentage of the final cost of systems that themselves often cost approximately $400.
Most of the cost reductions would come from inexpensive circuitry, drive heads and other parts that contribute the most to the lower prices.
The new hard drives would have capacities similar to most netbook hard drives and should start at 80GB for a thin, single-platter drive. Versions with 100GB and 120GB are also possible but may hinge on whether prices can be brought into line.
Under this claim, the new hard drives wouldn't ship until the second half of 2009 and haven't been tied to particular manufacturers, though companies like Acer, ASUS and HP already use 2.5-inch notebook drives for some of their netbooks.
