Seagate ships U series disc drives

Seagate has announced the shipping of the latest U Series disc drive, the sixth generation hard drive that offers up to 80 GB on just two platters and an density of 32.6 GB per square inch. Chennai-based Wellwin is the distributor for Seagate products in the local market. 

The new U Series spins up faster than ever, improving time-to-ready by 35 percent over previous generations to improve PC boot-up time. It features faster internal transfer rates of up to 54.5 Mbytes per second, an 8.9-msec seek time, the largest cache in its class at 2 Mbytes, and the Ultra ATA/100 interface for external burst transfer rates up to 100 Mbytes per second. With Seagate's exclusive 3D Defense System(tm) and "sound barrier technology" (SBT), U Series offers the best combination of ruggedness, performance and quiet operation for mainstream PC and CE applications. 

"As the first 40-Gbyte-per-disc product shipping in volume, U Series changes the economics of high-capacity storage with 60 and 80 GB packed onto only two discs. At the same time, it provides the best value for today's popular PC capacities. We've worked closely with our PC customers to meet their needs with the best combination of performance, acoustics and reliability. As a leader in research and development, now we've also leaped to the industry's highest areal density using stable, proven technologies," said Brian Dexheimer, Seagate executive vice president of Sales, Marketing and Customer Service. 

"The new 80-Gbyte U Series is ideally positioned as a value solution that can support up to 120 hours of TV-quality video. Just as importantly, CE device makers continue to partner with Seagate's Consumer Electronics Testing and Engineering Center (CETEC) for its unparalleled combination of development services to help them design and build tomorrow's entertainment devices," said Michael Sklar, Seagate senior director of Consumer Electronics Business Development.