Rumor Mill: Seagate Preps 2.5-Inch 1TB Drive

Back in late July, Lake Forest, California-based Western Digital announced the introduction of the industry's first 1TB mobile hard drive, as part of the company's Scorpio Blue line. It now appears that Seagate, Western Digital's main competitor, is also gearing up to announce its first 1TB mobile drive solution, according to recent details that have surfaced on the Internet. The new drives are reportedly available on sale, as part of two of the company's lines of external storage solutions, which can only indicate that the storage vendor is planning the official launch in a near future.

 

According to a recent news-article on Fudzilla, the Scotts Valley, California-based Seagate will likely announce its first 1TB 2.5-inch drive soon, although the specific launch date is yet unknown. The new drives have already been listed by several British retailers as part of two Seagate external drive products, the Seagate Portable and the Seagate FreeAgent Go. They go for approximately €160, according to Fudzilla, but the price tag could differ once Seagate officially takes the wraps off its new solutions.

 

Unfortunately, there aren't many details available on the new drives, except that they will boast a 5400RPM platter speed, coupled with 8MB of cache, which means that they won't be particularly fast when compared with some of the other lower-capacity 2.5-inch drives already announced on the market. However, they will enable consumers to pack more data inside a lower, more portable form factor, which should make them an ideal choice for a new external drive solution.

 

It's yet to be established if the new drives will boast a notebook-compatible design, with a 9.5mm form factor, unlike Western Digital's 12.5mm models, which aren't compatible with most notebooks on the market.