Samsung First to Ship 500GB Laptop Hard Drive

Samsung Electronics is the first hard drive manufacturer to ship a 500GB 2.5-inch drive. Samsung announced its drive was shipping in volume to OEMs and PC makers today.
The 500GB drive marks a significant milestone in portable storage: On notebooks that support dual-hard drive configurations, a 500GB drive means you can have a whopping 1TB of storage in a laptop computer.
Competition to MarketHitachi was the first company to announce a 500GB 2.5-inch hard drive, before the start of the 2008 International Consumer Electronics Show. Samsung was the second to announce, also at the show; Fujitsu also recently announced its intention to offer a 500GB drive.
However, both Hitachi and Fujitsu are taking a different approach to 500GB than Samsung. All three drive makers use three disk platters, but Hitachi and Fujitsu reach 500GB by expanding the height of the drive from 9.5mm--the common standard for most notebooks--to 12.5mm, a height that's increasingly accommodated on larger, desktop-replacement laptop designs, but not necessarily on more general-use laptops.
Samsung's Spinpoint M6 drive spins at 5,400 rpm (revolutions per minute). Hitachi's drive carries the same rating, but Fujitsu slowed its drive to 4200 rpm.
Hitachi's drive was supposed to ship in February, but is now expected to ship later this month. Fujitsu says its drive will ship in May.


Thanks