Seagate plans to introduce a whole new range of hard drive products. Some ten new drives will be introduced, including 500 GByte desktop drives, and (great news for laptop people like me!) a 160 GByte notebook drive that will make use of perpendicular recording. Currently, one has to make a pilgrimage to hell to get hold of a notebook hard drive that is bigger than 100 GByte, so this is welcome news.
The most significant changes in Seagate's offering will happen in the mobile space. Capacity of notebook drives will climb to 160 GByte by the first quarter of next year, bringing the mobile computer closer to the desktop than ever before. While the additional effort in the notebook drive market is a clear reaction to the rising demand for mobile computers, these mobile drives, named "Momentus 5400.3" offer another unique feature: The devices will be first to use perpendicular recording technology.
Using a system that aligns data vertically to increase storage density, perpendicular recording will permit hard drives to increase radically in capacity, allowing for drives in the Terabyte range.
In addition to its new notebook hard drives, Seagate will be offering drives with 500 GByte of space, and will also make available an 8 GByte CF II-sized drive.