Another 1TB entry has made it into the desktop hard drive market, with Samsung's addition to their high density 7200RPM SpinPoint F1 unit. While they have been quiet about it, this new drive actually has a very strong selling point. It is the first 1TB unit on the market that features 334GB platters, making it a three platter design. Increase data density leads to higher performance overall and possibly a more reliable unit. Just last week, Seagate introduced a four platter design, and other vendors are utilizing 5 platters. On top of being very dense, Samsung's new unit will sport 32MB of cache.
The SATA-II units are already shipping, though retail pricing and mass availability isn't clear. As the article points out, a three platter design may be more difficult to manufacture and possibly more costly than other designs. This makes some wonder if Samsung's units will be priced well outside the range of existing 1TB units.