14 DAY TRIAL // Seagate has released a hard disk drive that may act as sufficient incentive for tablet makers to make slates without NAND Flash storage.
Normally, HDDs are described as too large and supposedly vulnerable to shocks and the constant jostling that tablets are always subjected to. After all, tablets are always being moved around.
The second argument usually falls flat in the face of the clear fact that laptops are also jostled and moved a lot but their HDDs are just fine. Yet some people still believe this.
The force of habit is also involved here. Most everyone gives their tablet NAND chips with 8 GB, 16 GB, 3 GB or 64 GB storage space, and there hasn't been enough reason to do otherwise so far.
Also, ultrathin HDDs, especially those with internal protection mechanisms for the moving parts, are more expensive than the standard, usually exceeding the cost of the 64 GB NAND chips.
Seagate decided it was still unsightly, however, for the consumer tablet market to be largely bereft of HDD-equipped members.
One thing led to another, and now the world gets to greet the Seagate Ultra Mobile HDD.
5 mm thin and weighing just 3.3 ounces (94 grams, like a light bulb), it gives tablets 500 GB to work with.
Performance will be slower than on flash, but not by much thanks to a new caching technique included in the adjoining software, which relies on enhanced motion sensor and thermal monitoring algorithms to control drive access and avoid HDD damaging conditions.
Due to these elements, Seagate claims that the Ultra Mobile HDD could survive falls that would crack the tablet screen.
The SATA 6.0 Gbps interface is used (SATA III), as one would expect, and the platter rotary speed is of 5,400 RPM (rotations per minute).
Seagate Ultra Mobile HDD will ship as part of the Seagate Mobile Enablement Kit (with Seagate’s Dynamic Data Driver software technology) or alone, for prices that have yet to be determined.
