Seagate, today announced that it has begun worldwide volume shipments of the industry's first 250GB-per-disc, 3.5-inch disc drive on the strength of second-generation perpendicular magnetic recording technology. Packing an industry-leading data density of 180 Gbits per square inch, the one-disc Barracuda hard drive sets new benchmarks for power consumption, acoustics and performance for Seagate desktop PC hard drives - all critical factors in providing the massive amounts of storage required for the world's exploding volume of digital content at home and in the office. Low power consumption reduces operating temperatures, crucial in ensuring high reliability and a long drive life.

The Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 drive, the industry's most advanced 3.5-inch desktop drive, is built with a fast SATA 3Gb/s interface and will serve as the foundation for Seagate's 1-terabyte desktop, enterprise, consumer electronics and external hard drives.

"Seagate remains focused on leading the hard drive's pivotal transition to perpendicular recording technology and maintaining our areal density leadership in order to meet our customers' growing storage capacity and reliability needs," said Brian Dexheimer, chief sales and marketing officer for Seagate. "This product's leading areal density epitomizes our efforts to deliver technologies that are unmatched in allowing organizations and consumers to store, protect and share digital content."