Seagate Technology will start shipping a new range of 2.5-inch hard drives for the notebook PC market this June. The range contains a number of industry firsts that promise consumers a combination of better performance and storage capacity compared to the company"s existing models, it said at a news conference on Tuesday. The Momentus-brand hard drive series includes a 120GB drive that spins at 5400 rpm and a 100GB drive that spins at 7200 rpm. This is the first time notebook drives with these combinations of rotational speeds and capacities have been announced by Seagate, according to Mark Walker, manager of product marketing at the company.
The new range of drives comes in three series that cover the high-performance, mid-range, and value notebook PC markets respectively, Walker says. The 7200.1 series offers drives with 40GB, 60GB, and 80GB capacities as well as the 100GB version. All the drives in this series run at 7200rpm. The 5400.2 series offers drives at 30GB, 40GB, 60GB, 80GB, and 100GB capacities as well as the 120GB version, and all the drives run at 5400rpm.
The 4200.2 series also has the same six capacities as the 5400.2 series, but the drives run at 4200rpm, the company says. Both the 7200.1 and the 5400.2 series will be available with Parallel ATA or Serial ATA interfaces, while the 4200.2 series will only be available with the Parallel ATA interface, the company says.