Seagate to stop making 7200 RPM drives for notebooks
Though there are hardly any hard disc drive manufacturers left, Seagate remains one of the largest. Helping the company get where it is today were acquisitions of industry giants like Maxtor and, more recently, Samsung’s HDD division.
The Cupertino-based company introduced the industry’s first 7,200 RPM disc drive back in the early 90’s. But oddly enough the company was a late bloomer when it came to 2.5-inch drives for laptops, only entering the market ten years ago. Finally, nearly three years ago Seagate introduced the Momentus XT solid state hybrid drive for notebooks.
Apparently Seagate is now planning to discontinue 2.5-inch 7,200 RPM drives for notebooks, in favor of hybrid drives.
“We are going stop building our notebook 7200 RPM hard disc drives at the end of 2013,” said David Burks, director of marketing and product management at Seagate Technology, during a conversation with X-bit labs.
5,400 RPM drives will continue shipping in budget notebooks and also be paired with SSDs in high-end solutions. Seagate also plans to introduce its 3rd generation hybrid drives later this year.
Source(s)
3 comments
Got questions or something to add to our article? Even without registering you can post in the comments!Read all comments / answer
| #3 Re: Seagate to stop making 7200 RPM drives for not | Rico, 14:10 18.03 |
[quote author=danwat1234 link=topic=39792.msg204765#msg204765 date=1363596084]Why not make the same policy for laptop drives? Power consumption isn't an issue, maybe 1 watt more. [/quote]Since when is power consumption NOT an issue in notebooks ? (mobile usage)and 1W would be a [b]10% [/b]increase in my notebook (office style usage). Anyhoo, the main point why some of us prefer 5400rpm is not just the power consumption, but the silence, and less annoying vibrations. Not sure, but the 5400rpm may also have advantages in the heat management.... | |
| » read whole comment | |
| #2 Re: Seagate to stop making 7200 RPM drives for not | danwat1234, 09:41 18.03 |
I think that many in the enthusiast community don't fully understand why they are beginning to just use 5400RPM mechanicals for their mobile SSHDs rather than 7200RPM.It is opposite to their policy of desktop drives, where I believe they no longer make 5400/5900RPM desktop drives but just 7200RPM drives.This was because they think 5400RPM drives waste time (less productivity) and don't save that much power and they are exactly right.Why not make the same policy for laptop drives? Power consumption isn't an issue, maybe 1 watt more. I know hybrid drives are a bit different but they still benefit from fast mechanicals since it's only 8GB of flash and doesn't cache writes (yet). 7200RPM makes it less likely that the user will encounter a sharp drop in performance when the data the user wants isn't available on the cache or if the user is installing a lot of updates or a big piece of software. 7200RPM ensures a smoother overall experience.2 reasons why I think Seagate has gone this way is because of cost of manufacturing and also to allow for slightly larger capacities since head technology is often holding back capacities (I think). But, Hitachi has a 7200RPM 1TB laptop drive (500GB/platter) so the only real reason I can see is cost. 7200RPM + flash memory FTW. 5400RPM, no thanks.True that 7200RPM only give you maybe 20% more sequential transfer rates but can give you towards 50% better random IO performance.... | |
| » read whole comment | |
| #1 Re: Seagate to stop making 7200 RPM drives for not | Yup, 12:25 02.03 |
Good choice. If you want a fast disk, then you have to look for a ssd. If you want large storage, a 5,400rpm hdd is enough. Also, the heat generated by 7,200rpm hdd is a problem.... | |
| » read whole comment | |
