Samsung Introduces New ''Rugged'' High-capacity 500 GB 2.5-inch Hard Disk Drive

Samsung Electronics Co, a world leader in digital consumer electronics and information technology, today introduced their new 500-Gigabyte (GB) 2.5-inch hard disk drive with a shock operation tolerance of 400G/2ms. The Spinpoint M7 500 GB 2.5-inch hard drive with 250 GB per platter features a rugged base and cover design, offering better data protection for road warriors and other mobile laptop users.

"Our customers have been requesting hard drives with higher density, lower power and greater reliability for their mobile applications," said C.H. Lee, vice president, Storage sales & marketing, Samsung Electronics. "The Spinpoint M7 answers these needs with a high-speed operating shock specification and extraordinary drive capacity for storing large data files, music, photos and videos."

The Spinpoint M7 is available in 250-, 320-, 400-, 500-GB capacities. A new controller has been adopted to reduce power consumption in seek mode to up to 25 percent over conventional 2.5" drives. In particular, internal test results on PC Mark show an 18 percent improvement in overall performance over 2.5" hard drives.

"Samsung's M7 will appeal to notebook PC customers who want to have a hard drive operating shock tolerance for mobile applications in tough environments," commented John Chen, senior director, TRENDFOCUS.

The Spinpoint M7 utilizes Samsung's proprietary SilentSeek and NoiseGuard technologies to minimize the noise-level of the mechanical drive operation. The halogen-free drive complies with the European Union's Restriction of the Use of Certain Hazardous Substances in Electrical and Electronic Equipment (RoHS) regulations.

The Spinpoint M7 500 GB hard drive is lightweight and durable, featuring a 5400 rpm spindle speed, 8 MB cache, native command queuing and a 3.0 Gbps SATA interface. The perpendicular magnetic recording technology enables the 500 GB drive to store 160,000 digital images, 125 hours of DVD movies, or 60 hours of high definition video images.

Qualification samples of the Spinpoint M7 are currently shipping to major OEMs. Global shipments in the United States and Europe began in April with shipments to other regions to follow accordingly.