The next big thing in hard drives is perpendicular recording. These drives are now appearing, with Seagate's Barracuda 7200.10 among the largest.
At 750 Gbytes, it's a major jump from its predecessor, the 500-Gbyte 7200.9. The new technology lets Seagate pack 188 Gbytes on a single platter, but increased areal density is only part of the package. A combination of features makes the drive about 10% faster. It's also very quiet—only 2.7 bels.
Seagate's Adaptive Fly Height adjusts the heads based upon factors such as temperature. Clean Sweep technology passes the head over the entire platter during power-on to smooth out any irregularities in the disc surface. And, the Directed Offline Scan runs diagnostics when the drive isn't being accessed. This is important on large drives where scanning can take a very long time.
Interface support includes ATA100 and 3-Gbit/s SATA-II. Other features include NCQ support, staggered spin-up, and pin 11 LED. MSRP is $590.
Seagate
www.seagate.com
