10 Compact Hard Disks Delivering Terabyte-Scale Storage

by Fahmida Y Rashid

This 2.5-inch hard disk drive from Seagate Technologies is available in 250GB, 500GB and 1TB capacities. Designed for storage arrays and enterprise data centers, these drives operate on less than 6.4 watts and have a 7,200-rpm spin speed. The enterprise-class drive in the Constellation family, the Constellation ES, also goes up to 2TB.

Western Digital’s Caviar Green is the largest single internal hard disk drive available on the market. Available in both 2.4TB and 3TB capacities, the drive’s entire storage capacity will be accessible only for computers with relatively new EFI motherboards and 64-bit Windows Vista and Windows 7. The Caviar Black model is also available as 2TB, and Caviar Blue is a 1TB drive that supports the older PATA 100Mbps interface for “unique or legacy” systems.

The eco-friendly low-power Barracuda Green comes in 1.5TB and 2TB sizes. The 3.5-inch drive is designed for low-power PCs, multi-drive home networking systems and PC storage backup devices. Other members of the family include the Barracuda XT, at 2TB, and the entry-level Barracuda at 1.5TB.

The Deskstar 7K3000 from Hitachi Data Storage comes in 1.5TB, 2TB and 3TB capacities. A 7,200-rpm drive, the 3TB Deskstar is also available as part of a kit with software that enables Windows users (even older XP versions) to get past the 2.2TB limit to use the entire storage capacity.

The Scorpio Blue is the largest-capacity hard disk drive for laptops. Available in both 750GB and 1TB, the 2.5-inch laptop drive can also be used as an external device.

These enterprise hard drives from Toshiba are available in 1TB and 2TB capacities. Boasting both SAS and SATA interfaces, they’re designed for use in a data center environment. The drives feature Rotational Vibration technology to withstand heavy use in multi-drive arrays.

Similar to its brother Deskstar drives, the Deskstar 5K3000 is 14 times quieter and more power-efficient, consuming 29 percent less power, than the 7K3000 drives. The 5K3000 is available in 1.5TB, 2TB and 3TB capacities, but the 3TB drive will not be available until early 2011.

Designed for streaming digital audio/video environments such as PVRs, DVRs and surveillance video recorders, the AV-GP drives are available in 2TB capacities with a SATA 3G-bps interface. The AV-GP is also power efficient, with a combination of IntelliSeek, IntelliPark and IntelliPower technologies.

The three enterprise drives from Western Digital—RE3, RE4 and RE4-GP—are designed for demanding server and storage applications. The RE3 goes up to 1TB and is tested to perform reliably in vibration-prone environments. The RE4 goes up to 2TB, and the RE4-GP, the green version, is available in 1.5TB or 2TB capacities.

The 2.5-inch PC drive from Toshiba has a spin speed of 5,400 rpm and comes in 750GB or 1TB capacities. The drives can be used as both external and primary storage and features the Advanced Sector Format technology for enhanced data integrity.