14 DAY TRIAL // Though solid state drives are gaining popularity among consumers, their high prices and lower storage capacities, compared with those of hard drives, haven't exactly brought them close to taking the latter's place on the mainstream market. In the meantime, hard drives are making advances of their own, particularly in the area of data density. Most recently, Samsung has come forth to show off its latest high-capacity, 2.5-inch hard drive, which has a high-enough areal density to reach a maximum capacity of 640GB.
Known as the Spinpoint MP4, the new storage unit operates on the SATA 3.0Gbps interface, has a buffer memory of 16MB and a rotary speed of 7,200RPM. Also, according to Samsung, the high rotary speed enables a performance boost of 30% compared to 5,400RPM drives, which makes the HDD especially suited for gamers, multi-taskers and enthusiasts, where fast and sustained data access is needed.
Of course, this performance would not be worthwhile without the same level of reliability, and the company made a point of making sure that the fast spindle speed did not have a negative impact. As such, the Spinpoint MP4 uses a motor design that improves stability during read/write operation and reduces the risk of disk imbalance.
“Demonstrating Samsung’s industry leadership in delivering advanced and high performing storage solutions, the Spinpoint MP4 offers the biggest capacity in what has previously been offered as an option for advanced data storage,” H.S. Lee, vice president, storage marketing, Samsung Electronics, said. “The large capacity and productivity improvements in the MP4 drive make is an optimal solution for our notebook PC and slim-desktop customers.”
In addition to performance and reliability, Samsung's high-capacity, 2.5-inch HDD also brings the benefit of silent operation, through the integration of the hardware maker's SilentSeek and NoiseGuard technologies. Unfortunately, prices haven't been mentioned, but key OEMs should receive shipments of the 640GB device in April, along with a 250GB version.