Samsung Electronics Co. today announced its first 500GB-per-platter hard drive. The EcoGreen F2EG hard disk delivers up 1.5TB of capacity on three platters. Because the drive has fewer platters and therefore fewer moving parts, Samsung claimed that the drive is more reliable than past iterations of multiplatter, high-capacity hard disk drives.

While Samsung claims to have the world's first 500GB per platter drive, Western Digital actually announced its 500GB per platter, 2TB capacity Caviar Green drive in January. "With fewer heads and disks, the F2EG hard drive has a lower probability of head-disk failures, enabling customers to build more reliable systems," Andy Higginbotham, director of hard disk sales at Samsung's Semiconductor Storage Division, said in a statement. "Lower platter count means less power to start the motor, less power to continuously spin the motor and a lighter head stack, which takes less power to seek."

Samsung said that the 3.5-in. Serial ATA drive has a maximum data transfer rate of 140MB/sec. and runs quieter and cooler and uses less power than other high-capacity models.

For example, the 1.5TB version of the F2EG uses 6.3 watts during read/writes and 5.1 watts when idle. By comparison, Western Digital's "green" 1TB RE2-GP hard drive has an average operational power consumption of 7.4 watts and Seagate's 7200.11 1.5TB drive idles at 8.0 watts.

The EcoGreen F2EG, which comes in 500GB, 1TB and 1.5TB capacities and either a 16MB buffer memory or a 32MB buffer, is aimed not only at data center operations, but also at desktops, external backup drives, DVRs and video surveillance systems.

"With its advanced design and fewer components, the F2EG drive is 40% lower in power consumption in idle mode and 45% lower in reading/writing mode than competitive drives," Samsung said. "Samsung's Eco-Triangle technology offers more energy-efficient and high-performance hard drive options to manufacturers of home media PC, external HDD, set-top box and personal NAS."

Samsung is also marketing the drive as its most environmentally friendly model because it does not use halogen insulation and is compliant with the European Union's Restriction of the Use of Certain Hazardous Substances in Electrical and Electronic Equipment (RoHS) regulations. Again, Samsung is not alone. Other new, high capacity drives also comply with RoHS.

The 1.5TB version of the EcoGreen F2EG has a manufacturer's suggested retail price of $149.

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