Seagate will start shipments of 4 TB hard disk drives (HDDs) with four platters with a capacity of 1 TB each. Seagate claims to be the first HDD manufacturer that ships drives with 1 TB platters. The new disk is also the first in Seagate's 7200.15 series.
HDDs with a capacity of 4TB have been available before but 1 TB platters are a novelty. Previously Seagate used 5 platters with a capacity of 800 GB to achieve the 4 TB mark. Theoretically it should now be possible for the company to release a 5 TB HDD using five 1 TB platters.
The HDDs spin at 7200 RPM, have a cache memory of 64 MB and connect to the computer using the SATA-3 interface. According to Seagate the disks should be able to achieve an average transfer-rate of 146 MB/s. The disk can be ordered from the Seagate website at $189.99 . For $204.99 it's possible to order a kit that contains the disk, mounting screws and interface cables.
