Samsung Electronics said it had begun shipping the worlds first Serial ATA II disk drives.
Three drives—an 80-Gbyte model priced at $89, a 120-GB version priced at $120, and a 160-GB version for $150—are all currently shipping, the company said.
According to Samsung, the drives all contain the 3-Gbit interface characteristic of SATA-II drives. However, it is not known whether the drives also support the other features of SATA-II, including features like staggered spinup and even the ability to support external cabling.
SATA executives have warned that not all drive makers are strictly adhering to the spec, and may be marketing capabilities that are not there. Samsung representatives did not respond to requests for comment.
Hitachi recently began selling the Deskstar 7K500, which also sports the 3-Gbit interface.
All of the new Samsung Serial ATA II hard drives feature a 7,200 rpm spindle speed, an 8.9 millisecond average seek time and an 8-Mbyte cache buffer.
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