Seagate Plans Ultrathin Drive for Netbooks

Seagate Plans Ultrathin Drive for Netbooks

At the Consumer Electronics Show this January, Seagate plans to announce Momentus Thin, a disc drive only 7mm high that the company will use to attack the netbook market.


Current drives are 9.5mm in height—not that much of a difference from the 7mm drive Seagate will offer, but enough that the drive may be able to squeak into a netbook or an ultrathin portable.

Seagate will offer the Momentus Thin in two capacities: 160GB and 250GB. Each drive will spin at 5,400 rpm and include an 8MB cache.

"Momentus Thin promises to help computer makers differentiate on mobile-computing form factor and better compete in the fast-growing markets for thin laptop PCs and netbooks," said Dave Mosley, executive vice president of sales and marketing at Seagate, in a statement. "Seagate is committed to helping its OEM and system integrator partners meet market demand for thinner laptop PCs and plans to expand storage capabilities for thin laptops as demand for these slimmer models continues to grow."

Seagate's argument is that the drives will now fit into the tight spaces reserved for storage inside netbooks, that some have reserved for SSDs—which are typically faster and more rugged, but more expensive, than hard disk drives. But the Momentus Thin also lacks a free-fall sensor that some of Seagate's other Momentus drives include, meaning that the drive may be less rugged than other rivals. It does consume 1.54 watts on average while seeking, however, on par with Seagate's other Momentus drives.