Seagate claims first 1TB per platter hard drives

Seagate is claiming the world's first 3.5in hard drives capable of storing 1TB of data on a single platter, allowing it to push capacity to meet the ever growing storage requirements of content such as audio and video.

The technology will appear first in Seagate's GoFlex Desk external drives over the next few weeks, offering storage capacities up to 3TB. But Seagate is also preparing to ship its 3.5in Barracuda line of internal drives for desktops with the higher densities by mid-2011, according to the firm.

Seagate said that it has achieved an areal density of 625 gigabits per square inch in its 3.5in disk technology, allowing drives that can store 1TB of data per platter.

However, drives typically contain more than a single platter, which has already allowed Seagate to ship a 3TB model earlier this year, while the new development is likely to see 4TB models before long.

Breaking the 1TB per platter barrier will help meet the explosive demand for digital content storage in the home and office, according to Seagate, a 3TB drive capable of holding 120 HD movies, 1,500 video games and thousands of photos.

"Organisations of all sizes and consumers worldwide are amassing digital content at light speed, generating immense demand for storage of digital content of every imaginable kind," said Seagate sales and marketing vice president Rocky Pimentel.

Meanwhile, Seagate is set to capture 40 per cent of the global hard drive market once its acquisition of Samsung's hard drive business is complete, according to analyst IHS iSuppli.

However, this still leaves Seagate trailing Western Digital, which accounts for 50 per cent of the market thanks to its own takeover of Hitachi Global Storage Technologies.

The two recent mergers leave the hard drive market with just three players, Toshiba/Fujitsu accounting for the remaining 10 per cent.