by Anton Shilov
07/29/2006 | 09:03 AM
Western Digital Corp., the world’s No.2 maker of hard drives, announced that the company had begun to produce hard disk drives featuring 160GB platters, which potentially enable to company to produce higher-capacity or more energy efficient hard disk drives. Additionally, the new products will feature improved reliability.
“Our high density 160 GB-per-platter design with ramp load is a platform that enables WD to continue serving our customers’ growing needs for dependable, high capacity hard drives,” said John Coyne, WD's president and chief operating officer.
WD said that the platters will be used with the next-generation WD Caviar Serial ATA family of 3.5” 7200rpm desktop hard drives with up to 16MB buffers. This new product family also incorporates ramp load technology, a proven technique in mobile-class drives that parks the recording heads when the drive is idle, powered off and spinning up. WD utilizes ramp load in its new desktop products to maximize shock robustness and minimize power consumption, enabling continued leadership in quality and long-term reliability, the company said. Additionally, such 7200rpm HDDs may find home in desktop replacement notebooks, which use hard drives for desktops.
160GB platters with traditional recording technology give the Lake Forest, California-based maker of hard disk drives (HDDs) to produce either single platter 160GB products, dual platter 320GB hard drives, triple platter 480GB HDDs or quad platter 640GB drives. Additionally, some of the 160GB platters may be used to make 80GB products.
No official model details or price points have been touched upon in the company’s statement.