News Bits: Intel Making SSD Drives, Seagate's 160GB 7200RPM Drive, Hitachi to Rebrand HP Notebooks

Good informative posting Chaz, I only knew about two of those stories, the LCD panel news is pretty interesting. I wonder what that means for the LED vs Cold Cathode LCDs.....

 

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Intel introduces new solid state flash drives

Intel has announced that it will enter the hard drive market with solid-state drives (SSDs) based on NAND flash memory. The Z-U130 drive is a value solid-state drive and has USB interfaces. They can be used in many computing platforms according to Intel, including notebooks, servers, and other low-cost PCs.

The Z-U130 will come in 1, 2, 4, and 8GB capacities. Intel reports read times of 28MB/s and write times of 20MB/s. Because it uses USB 1.1/2.0 intefaces, it will be easy to integrate into manufacturer's designs.

Read More (ExtremeTech)

 

Seagate introduces new 160GB 7,200RPM notebook hard drive

Seagate Technology has announced the availability of its new 160GB 7,200RPM 2.5&quot; notebook hard drive, the Momentus 7200.2. The drive has a SATA 3.0Gbps connection, a free-fall sensor to prevent damage if the notebook is dropped, and uses perpendicular recording technology to reach high storage capacity. The Momentus 7200.2 is available in 80, 100, 120, and 160GB capacities.

Read More (DigiTimes)

 

Notebook LCD panels in short supply according to manufacturers

DigiTimes is reporting that LCD panels for notebooks (14.1-, 15.4-, and 17-in widescreens) are in short supply as manufacturers stockpile them in anticipation of increased demand. Panel makers are unable to keep up with demand and are shifting some of their resources to making notebook displays.

Read More (DigiTimes)

 

Hitachi to sell HP computers under its own name

The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that Hitachi Ltd. said it would sell HP-made computers under its own brand name. Hitachi already assembles business desktops and laptops from parts made by various Asian manufacturers. It will be replacing these machines with the HP-made machines.

The details of the deal between the two companies have not been worked out yet. Hitachi says there will be an official agreement later this month, and Hitachi will start to sell the HP-made machines in May. Hitachi plans to sell 350,000 business PCs this fiscal year.

Read More (People's Daily Online)

 

vBulletin hiccup!

 

Hope all Sant Rose notebook will b using the 7,200RPM HD

 

So...

Hitachi notebooks will be rebranded HPs which are actually Compals and Quantas...

 

Will those 1 to 8GB hdd's actually be used as primary hard drives since even vista would barely fit on 8GB?

 

Welcome to the world of computers...where nothing makes sense.

Forget even installing a small program on a drive like that. You'd need another, larger SATA drive, to even install programs. Completely defeats the purpose...

Of course, once we actually get a 100GB SSD disk that's cheap enough for the masses, I'll be singing a different tune.

 

Anyone else sees stockpiles of unsued LCDs as led panels take the market by storm in one to two years ?

 

LED is still LCD, just different backlight. Can't they just switch it easely?
Unless you meant OLED.

 

msrp 299 in case someone was wondering

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=117014


Id like to know what the fujitsu 300 gb 4200 rpm one is going to cost because its a tough sell

 

Is that hard drive SATA 2? Does it have 16 MB cache? Lots of question, I hope CeBit can give us some answers.

 

yay! go seagate!

 

It is SATA II, although it still has an 8MB cache to my knowledge.

 

How long do you think it'll take a large flash memory drive (like, say, 64MB), to sink down to sub-$150?

 

I'm glad to see some progress with hard drives. I've been needing some extra space for a while now, but I didn't see much point in getting the 5400rpm 160GB drives because I would also like a performance boost, while the 7200RPM 100GB drives only offered me 20GB more than I currently have. Once these drives come down in price a bit I will definitely be getting one.

 

16Mb cache

 

The intel news is a bit of a gimmick... 1GB, 2GB, 4GB & 8GB via USB. This sounds more like what you get with a flash/thumb drives and those speeds are slower than what some USB sticks can achieve right now. I wonder if intel is just promoting their type of thumb drives as SSD!

8GB is also way too small. Who would buy one of these? If you're moving data about you're much better off with thumb drives which is also a lot cheaper.

I like the news from Seagate though!