Samsung's Latest SpinPoint Drive Offers More Storage Capacity, Uses Less Power

Samsung Electronics has announced it will soon begin production of a 2.5-inch hard drive with a maximum storage capacity of 160 GB. Drives this small are typically used in notebooks, Tablet PCs, and UMPCs.

Samsung's SpinPoint M5 Series has been developed specifically for portable consumer electronics, and it emphasizes controlling noise, vibration, and power consumption. These drives are 15% quieter and use 5% less energy than other models with the same storage capacity.

The weight of the 160 GB hard drive has also been reduced by approximately 4% from 98.66g to 94.83g.

Headed Toward 250 GB

The capacity of the single-disk version of this drive ranges between 60 GB and 160 GB, while a dual-disk model is under development that will provide up to 250 GB of storage space.

Samsung has already shipped test samples of the SpinPoint M5 Series to device manufacturers, and plans to begin mass production in mid-April.