June 15, 2010, 8:49 PM — NEW YORK - Samsung Semiconductor Inc. today announced a new, more reliable 3.5-in desktop hard drive, a desktop optical disk drive that it said is the smallest in the world and an internal Blu-ray player it described as the fastest it has ever produced.
Samsung's new Spinpoint F4 hard drive has 320GB capacity on a single disk platter. The 7,200rpm drive is more reliable than earlier models because it has 70% fewer moving parts, including a single read/write head, according to John Suh, director of Samsung's Optical Media Solutions group.
Samsung typically sells hard drives with dual real/write heads.
Suh said Samsung's typical desktop hard drives offer 640GB of capacity on two platters, but noted that 320GB is still a "sweet spot" in the marketplace, prompting the company to focus on introducing a lower-capacity, but more reliable, drive. The new Spinpoint F4 drive, due out next month, is 10% faster than Samsung's previous 320GB hard disk drives, he said.
Suh did not have a suggested retail price for the drive, but said it would be "very competitive" with other 320GB internal drives on the market.
Additionally, Samsung introduced what it is calling the thinnest, lightest external optical disc drive, which is just over a half-inch thick at .67-in. The player is 5.75-in wide and 5.39-in deep and weighs about 9.5 ounces. It is 20% smaller than Samsung's current external DVD drive.
The new SE-S084 external DVD writer is expected to be generally available in July and will retail for $69.99.
Finally, Samsung unveiled its latest internal Blu-ray disc drive for desktop PC systems. The SH-B123 model Blu-ray drive has 12X read speed, or 400Mbit/sec. Samsung's other recent desktop Blu-ray drive had an 8X read speed or 288Mbit/sec.
The SH-B123 Blu-ray drive, which plays discs at 1080p resolution, is also expected to be available next month. Samsung did not release a suggested retail price for the device.
Lucas Mearian covers storage, disaster recovery and business continuity, financial services infrastructure and health care IT for Computerworld. Follow Lucas on Twitter at @lucasmearian or subscribe to Lucas's RSS feed . His e-mail address is lmearian@computerworld.com .
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