Seagate To End 7200 RPM 2.5-Inch Hard Drive Production This Year

Seagate has sold a number of different hard drives aimed at the portable device market over the years. The company has been successful in the notebook market with it storage devices hidden inside a number of the notebooks on the market today. Seagate has offered several different types of hard drives in the 2.5-inch form factor including 5400 RPM and 7200 RPM drives.

Seagate has announced that it will cease production of its 7200 RPM 2.5-inch hard drives by the end of this year. The company currently has four different drives in its 2.5-inch line including the Momentus 7200.4, 7200.2, Momentus Thin 7200, and Momentus XT. The Momentus XT is a hybrid drive using conventional hard drive spinning platters combined with 8 GB of solid-state storage for caching.

Computer enthusiasts may be saddened by the fact that Seagate is vacating the 7200 RPM 2.5-inch hard drive market. However, most computer enthusiasts won't notice a difference because these fast portable hard drives are typically only found in high-end laptops. These faster drives also typically consume more power than slower drives making them a bigger drain on the laptop battery.

Seagate will apparently continue to manufacture its 5400 RPM drive family. Some newer notebooks use a 5400 RPM drive for bulk storage and a smaller capacity SSD to store frequently accessed content where speed is important. Seagate never stepped into the SSD market so the 7200 RPM line is its high-end offerings.

[via Anandtech]