Seagate announces 1.5 terabyte desktop hard drive

World's first is a half-TB jump from last version

11 July 2008 13:32 GMT / By Amy-Mae Elliott

Seagate has unveiled the industry's first 1.5-terabyte desktop hard drive - as well as half-terabyte notebook hard drives - in order to meet what it says is "explosive worldwide demand for digital-content storage in home and business environments".

The Barracuda 7200.11 1.5TB hard drive, the eleventh gen of Seagate's flagship drive for desktop PCs, marks the single largest capacity hard drive jump in the more than half-century history of hard drives - a half-terabyte increase from the previous highest capacity of 1TB.

This leap is down to the capacity-boosting power of perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) technology, says Seagate.

Seagate's new 2.5-inch half-terabyte 5400- and 7200-rpm drives, the Momentus 5400.6 and Momentus 7200.4 are aimed at high-performance notebook computers, external storage solutions, PCs and industrial applications requiring small form factor.

Shipments of the Barracuda 7200.11 1.5TB are set to begin August 2008 while Momentus 5400.6 and 7200.4 hard drives are to begin shipping in Q4 2008.