Seagate to Cease Production of 7,200RPM Mobile HDDs By End 2013
Seagate to Cease Production of 7,200RPM Mobile HDDs This Year
Seagate has announced plans to phase out its 7,200rpm 2.5-inch magnetic hard disk drives (HDDs) by stopping their production by the end of this year. The company plans to focus on solid-state hybrid drives like its Momentus XT series that will transition to its third-generation later this year.
“We are going stop building our notebook 7200rpm hard disk drives at the end of 2013,” said David Burks, director of marketing and product management at Seagate Technology, during a conversation with X-bit labs.
The 2.5-inch HDDs that operate at speeds of 7,200rpm generally offer a slight performance edge over their 5,400rpm counterparts; however, they pale in comparison to solid-state drives (SSDs) or solid-state hybrid drives. Due to their lower prices, SSDs are becoming more popular and consumers who care about performance and battery-life will opt for laptops and ultrabooks that feature such drives, eschewing those purely mechanical ones.
Despite this announcement, Seagate will continue to offer its 5,400rpm mobile HDDs and X-bit Labs noted that due to the company's large stockpile of existing 7,200rpm 2.5-inch HDDs, they will be still available to fulfill the customers' demands.
(Source: Seagate via X-bit Labs)