Seagate Rolls Out 4 TB Hard Drives

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Seagate has announced that it has started shipping out 4 TB drives with platters of 1 TB.

Seagate has reportedly started shipping the first 4 TB hard drives that are built on just four platters. This means that each platter has a density of 1 TB, which in combination with the 7,200 RPM speed and SATA3 interface, gives  impressive performance for a hard drive.

The 4 TB drives that are on the horizon from Seagate will carry 64 MB of buffer, and in combination with its 7,200 RPM, it reaches read speeds as high as 146 MB/s. There is no word on its write speeds. Power consumption is also expected to be about 35 percent lower than that of the competition.

Now that 1 TB platters are becoming more common, it might not be long before manufacturers start shipping 5 TB drives with five platters of 1 TB.

When the drives will hit the shelves remains unknown, but it would be available for prices as low as $190 for the OEM version. The retail version that would include documentation and cables would cost $212. Seagate boasts that at these prices the drive will have the lowest cost/GB.

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Niels Broekhuijsen
Niels Broekhuijsen

Niels Broekhuijsen is a Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware US. He reviews cases, water cooling and pc builds.

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35 Comments Comment from the forums
  • greghome
    Now........if only I'd get 3 Years Warranty from them again....
    Reply
  • slomo4sho
    This should make for good competition for the WD Red 4 TB drives that are coming.
    Reply
  • jhansonxi
    I once had IBM Ultrastar 36GB SCSI drives with 10 platters. Expensive, heavy and hot. Makes me really appreciate today's data density.
    Reply
  • Devoteicon
    lol, I still haven't filled up my 320GB drive that I've had for three years.
    Reply
  • InvalidError
    greghomeNow........if only I'd get 3 Years Warranty from them again....Three years? Five year warranties were almost standard until the mid-2000s, then they dropped to three years for mid-range drives and one year for consumer/budget models.

    Most of my failed HDDs crashed during the 2nd year so I am really skeptical of HDD manufacturers' claims that the reason they reduced the standard warranty to one year is because most drives fail within the first year... it personally makes me quite wary of 1-year drives.

    On the other hand, all my 3+ years old HDDs are still working fine.
    Reply
  • Rune Olsen
    Have 5 years reclamation on almost everything here in Norway
    Reply
  • blacksummit92
    Personally i chose WB over Seage do to prior experience, and the warranty 3 vs 5, it is obvious to go with the one with better warranty although the WB tend to be slightly more expensive but you get what you pay for..
    Reply
  • dextermat
    Now, would you have confidence in a hard drive that has 3 years warranty and 4 TB of important data on it ?

    Not me... they need to find a way to make backup external hard drives last longer!!
    Reply
  • somebodyspecial
    WB? Warner Bros making cartoon drives now?

    You don't always get what you pay for either :) Diablo 3 isn't worth $60. Torchlight 2 is worth MORE than $20. ;) Just an example.
    Reply
  • belardo
    To keep the prices low the drives of today need to be made cheaper, and with the Chinese way of making junk with short life spans, they want you to keep rebuying more crap with short life spans.

    The other BIG problems is that low grade crap creates more pollution winces customers have to replace their stuff much more often. This is not just computer parts... It's everything made from china today... He'll, Chinese stuff made 5+ years ago wasn't this bad. I'm including shoes and socks that lasts weeks. Toasters that costs $30 that look good but can't toast... They either burned everything to black or toast only one side... Then fall apart in 6 months. Unlike the $10 toasters from the past that would last you 10 years.
    The $50 bicycle wheel I bought last year has warped or broken 5 times in 300 miles, unlike the previous 2005 wheel that lasted me 3000 miles! Nope, I need to get a $120 wheel to equal the quality of yesterday's $40 version.

    A 4TB HD should have a 5 year warranty... It's not some USB stick that holds a few GB for transport, it's something that holds tons of people's data.
    Reply