Seagate Develops 2TB 2.5-Inch HDD Only 7mm Thick

Seagate has announced that it has reached a new milestone in the development of 2.5-inch HDDs for mobile use. The new milestone is in areal density with a new 7mm thick HDD that has 2TB of storage capacity. The breakthrough means that manufacturers can get storage drives with a capacity of 1TB per platter.

These new drives are the first to use recording-subsystem components like the head, media, preamp, and channel to reach greater areal densities. The tech delivers drives with lots of storage space that are thin, lightweight, quiet, and mechanically robust.

Seagate says that the new drives can survive intense shocks and vibrations. Seagate says that at 3.17-oucnes, the new drive line is 25% lighter than previous generations. With a smaller drives, computer makers can design machines to be thinner or have larger batteries for more run time.

Seagate says that it is investigating using the new tech to make a hybrid drive that would combine NAND flash with learning algorithms with the higher areal density platters rivaling SSD performance with higher capacities at lower prices. Seagate offers no indication of when these new drives might land in computers that consumers can purchase. The image here is for illustration only.