Big things come in small packages for Seagate Technology, which has introduced what it says is the thinnest 2.5-inch hard drive on the market. The addition to its Momentus product line, the Momentus Thin, is seven millimeters high, according to Joni Clark, product marketing manger for notebook hard drives. The drive is aimed at laptops, netbooks, backup devices, and consumer electronics.

While the technical news is the reduced height of the drive — Seagate says it is 25 percent slimmer than generally available 9.5mm 2.5-inch drives — the real-world advantage is in the cost/value equation. That’s an critical element as the World Wide Web becomes increasingly mobile and smaller profile factor computing devices, such as netbooks, tablets and mobile World Wide Web devices (MIDs), continue to gain in popularity.

Indeed, the small-device drive sector will develop into a major battleground among disk-drive makers. “Our goal is to blow the doors off thin drives, so that everyone can enjoy the

advantages of thin computing,” Clark said.

Lower Cost, More Capacity

She said currently 8mm, 1.8-inch drives with 40 gigabytes of capacity cost about $80. A 1.8-inch 100GB unit runs about $170 and a 100GB solid-state drive can run as high as $936. Against that backdrop, Seagate is betting that its $55 Momentus Thin with 250GB of capacity will have a significant impact.

The Momentus Thin, according to Clark, mainstreams more slender drives. “Today, whether you want a slimmer laptop or netbook, one that is very slim, you are going to pay a premium considering to get the smaller size all the components are more ‘nichy’ and harder to come by,” Clark said. “So [the Momentus Thin] is incredibly affordable compared to the other options that are out there today.”

The Momentus Thin comes in 250GB and 160GB models. Both have 8MB cache, a serial advanced technology attachment (SATA) bus…

Original post by dhiram