malwareSamsung has announced that it has paved the way for laptops to come with upto 1TB hard drives following an announcement at CES in Las Vegas. The South Korean company has announced the development of its new Spinpoint M6 500GB hard drive, the world’s first 500GB 2.5-inch hard drive that fits in the industry’s standard 9.5mm height dimension of laptops. The announcement comes just a few days after Hitachi Ltd. announced it will be introducing a 500 GB laptop hard drive in February. Samsung’s new Spinpoint M6 500GB consists of three 166GB platters spinning at 5400rpm. The M6 drives will feature 8MB cache, and 3.0Gbps SATA interface. Samsung's Spinpoint M6 500 GB hard drive is scheduled to launch in March this year.



Source: Pocket-lint

If its less than $400 this will be a steal for mobile users

This seems like a great option for a desktop-replacement laptop, however I have a question.

How "durable" would drives like this be?

I say this because you are packing so much data in such a small space, that if something should go awry, file corruption/loss could be an issue. As laptops are always moving around and such, these would probably be very fragile.

Any follow up on this would be appreciated, but that was just my idea.

russianboyThis seems like a great option for a desktop-replacement laptop, however I have a question.

How "durable" would drives like this be?

I say this because you are packing so much data in such a small space, that if something should go awry, file corruption/loss could be an issue. As laptops are always moving around and such, these would probably be very fragile.

Any follow up on this would be appreciated, but that was just my idea.

In my opinion, the whole idea that laptop drives get damaged from the laptop being moved is slightly bull. Laptop hard drives are no more succeptible to damage than your regular desktop hard drive. Granted, hard shock from dropping or undue stress on the laptop chassis is bound to cause some kind of damage. But I find the idea that a laptop hard drive gets damage from ordinary carry (packed away in a bag slung over the shoulder) is slightly exaggerated. Maybe if the laptop was on while being moved it would be more of an issue, but otherwise I disagree.

I have moved a hard drive while it was on, the gyroscopic effect was insane.

I wouldn't be surprised if that causes undue stress on the drives, being that they are mechanical and all.

Also I wonder if the fact that a laptop usually is not as sturdy as a PC tower has any effect on the drive, perhaps it vibrates more?

However that is all speculation on my part, and I do understand your statement, ex_reven. But the fact that it is mechanical is enough to make me say-"SSD FTW!" Since the durability of those devices is much greater than those of mechanical drives, but until they become mainstream, I will be using my current drives, since they do the job! But if technology continues progressing the way it is, I would not be surprised if next year around this time everyone would have solid state drives.

Still, it is still awesome, 500 gb. on a laptop is a mighty lot of portable media/entertainment.

Agreed, I can see it being an issue if the laptop is jarred while the hard drives are spinning. I mean, just look at the effect a bump has when you have a cd in your drive, the disk jumps and you can audibly hear it tearing the disk to shreds within the drive. A hard drive platter might not move so much, but there has to be some form of damage to the devices that interface with/move the platters.