Svelte HDDs: Simultaneously Stocky

Last Friday, I trumpeted flash memory's ascendancy over small form factor (i.e. 1" and smaller) HDDs. Today, I'm writing about a new 1" HDD. A contradiction? Not really (and in the interests of full disclosure, I already knew about today's news when I did last week's writeup). Look carefully at my earlier writeup, and you'll see the words in audio-only portable players and other similar-capacity mobile electronics devices. In contrast, all bets are off when you add ultra-high bit rate multimedia material (such as video, as I pointed out in a pre-CES writeup) or other large file size content to the mix.

With that clarifier in mind, let's look at Seagate's latest unveiling. A month ago, when Seagate announced its first PMR (perpendicular magnetic recording)-based 2.5" Momentus internal HDD (predated by a PMR-based 2.5" external HDD launch at CES), I made a mental note to expect a 1" HDD unveiling in the near future. I didn't need to wait long. Seagate employed PMR to squeeze 12 GBytes' worth of capacity (alternatively stated, 130 Gbits/in² of areal density) into its newly-introduced ST1.3 Series, which deliver 50% more storage capability than their largest-sized (8 GByte) longitudinal-based predecessors. Although Seagate still classifies the ST1.3 line as 1" drives, the company was able to shrink their footprint by 23% (now 40×30x5 mm), along with their typical power consumption profile by 30% (ExtremeTech got some current draw estimates from Seagate; 0.6 mA in idle mode, and 3.5 mA for "typical video playback").

Don't get too excited; the new drives won't be shipping, according to the company, until the third calendar quarter. And, probably reflective of that fact, the company's not yet releasing pricing, so we don't yet know if the drives' comparable areal density to 2.5" Momentus 5400.3 drives will lead to comparable (or perhaps even lower?) per-GByte pricing versus longitudinal ST1.2 precursors. If you believe in native storage of lots of video on cell phones (the fact that Seagate's announcement coincided with this week's 3GSM World Congress is not coincidental) and other bit-abundant material (oodles of CDs, still images and the like), Seagate's news is likely momentous (pun intended). If, on the other hand, you're an advocate of live streaming of multimedia material to phones, with no on-phone archive, it's probably not as pertinent. Which way is your stored-versus-streamed pendulum currently swinging?