14 DAY TRIAL // Samsung Electronics has recently announced the introduction of its new 1.8-inch hard disk drive, featuring a high capacity of 250GB and a new native USB controller, integrated on the HDD's printed circuit board (PCB). According to Samsung, this design feature will enable portable hard disk vendors to provide its customers with a smaller footprint, lower power consumption and an optimized performance. The Spinpoint N3U will provide users with up to 250GB of storage space, 125GB on each platter.
“The new high-capacity 1.8” 250GB drive enhances Samsung’s product offerings and is ideal for consumers who require a small form factor, high capacity data storage,” said Choel-Hee Lee, vice president of marketing Storage System Division, Samsung Electronics. “It is easy to carry around and it is designed to withstand a free fall drop of up to 50 centimeters and be resistant to a maximum shock incident of up to 1500G.”
Traditional external hard drives are designed with a native PATA interface, a design feature that requires the storage vendor to add an additional bridge circuit board that is mean to convert the hard drive's PATA interface into the USB interface. That is not the case with Samsung's latest Spinpoint N3U drive, which has been specifically built with the native USB interface. In addition, the new N3U drive from Samsung comes with a reduced power consumption of 40 percent less than on 2.5-inch drives with equivalent capacity, according to the company.
The new Spinpoint 1.8-inch hard drive from Samsung comes in capacities of 120GB, 160GB, 200GB and 250GB, also featuring a disk rotational speed of 3600RPM, 8MB of cache memory and the aforementioned USB 2.0 interface support. The drive will initially be available to OEMs, with shipments due to start in mid-July with an MSRP of US$199.