Seagate launches first 1.5TB hard disk

It has been around one and a half years since the first 1TB 3.5" hard drives were announced and up until recently, no larger capacity desktop hard drives have been launched apart from raid-based external drives.  Now Seagate announces what it claims to be the industry’s first 1.5TB desktop and 512GB laptop hard drives.  According to Seagate, the leap to 1.5TB also marks the largest jump in hard disk capacity in the 1/2 century history of hard drives.

Its 1.5TB Barracuda 7200.11 7200rpm drive uses four platters and features a 3Gbps SATA connection.  It can provide a sustained data transfer rate of up to 120MBps.  Other drives from its 7200.11 series include capacities of 1TB, 750GB, 640GB, 500GB, 320GB and 160GB, with a cache size choice of 16MB or 32MB.  The new 2.5" Momentus 5400.6 and 7200.4 drives feature spindle speeds of 5400rpm and 7200rpm and cache sizes of 8MB and 16MB respectively.  Both feature a 3Gbps SATA interface and use perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) technology. 

The new 1.5TB drive is set to begin shipping next month.  The Momentus 5400.6 and 7200.4 drives are expected to start shipping in the 4th quarter.  No pricing information has been announced at this time.

With 1TB drives now selling for around 1/3 of their launch price, it will be interesting to see what these drives will retail for, considering how long it has taken now for the capacity to go beyond 1TB.  If the price is too high, chances are that only those with deep pockets will consider them.