As you may have read, Hitachi was the first company that has managed to squeeze 500GB in a 2.5-inch package, but they did it by making it 12.5mm thick. That sounded good three days ago, but now Samsung has something even better, a 2.5-inch 500GB drive which is 9.5mm thick and on top of that a 1.8-inch 160GB drive. Both of these little things will be showcased at this year's CES 2008.
The new Spinpoint M6 features 500GB in a 2.5-inch package at standard 9.5mm thickness. This thing has three 166GB platters spinning at 5400RPM. It uses a 3.0 Gbps SATA connection and has 8MB of cache.
In addition to this, Samsung went even further and managed to squeeze 160GB into a 1.8-inch package. This little jewel, branded Spinpoint N2 160GB, features optional free-fall sensor technology which locks the head when it detects a drop, proprietary Silentseek technology which minimize noise to 1.6 Bel ,and shock resistance of up to 600G without free-fall and 1500G with it. It spins at 4200 RPMs and has 8MB of cache.
Unlike the 2.5-inch Spinpoint M6, which will be available sometime in March, the 1.8-inch Spinpoint N2 is available now for $199.00 for 160GB. The N series is now available for 40GB to 160GB capacity.
