Seagate Ships 5mm HDD To OEM Partners, Pricing Starts At $89

Remember the days when a 9.5mm hard drive seemed thin? And then the 7mm drive came along? Say hello to one that's even slimmer: the 5mm HDD. Western Digital may have hit first, but Seagate is close behind -- this week launching a 5mm ultra-thin hard drive of its own, which is destined for ultra-mobile PCs and tablets from OEMs like Asus and Dell. In fact, the drive will begin shipping this week, enabling those product makers to produce form factors that are even thinner.

"When we originally demonstrated this solution last September, we knew we had a truly innovative product that would empower our partners to reimagine mobile applications," said Steve Luczo, president, CEO and chairman of Seagate. "The strong support from our OEM partners indicates we have delivered on our vision and look forward to a new wave of innovative solutions enabled by this revolutionary product."


The 2.5- inch drive is just 5mm thin and weighs a mere 3.3oz- making it about as thin as four stacked credit cards and lighter than a deck of cards. It delivers up to 500GB of capacity in 25 percent less space than its previous-generation 7mm counterpart, freeing up valuable real-estate within portable devices to accommodate additional designed-in features such as longer-life batteries and better air circulation. An affordable alternative to SSD storage, Laptop Ultrathin HDD helps blur the lines between notebook and tablets by enabling new emerging applications like convertible and detachable storage.

The Laptop Ultrathin incorporates a 6GB/s SATA interface for fast data transfer rates and comes with the industry standard SATA connection for easy integration into existing laptops supported by both hard drive and SSD storage. SED encryption is available on the 500GB capacity version. Retail pricing is expected to start at around $89, and head up from there depending on size.

Tags:  Seagate, HDD, Storage, 5mm