The first HDD a third generation

Evgenie Rudometov,

Victor Rudometov

authors@rudometov.com

Developing the set of 2,5-inch hard disk drives, company Seagate has released third generation Momentus. Now high model of this bar is the disk drive with informational size of 160 Gbytes. The given disk drive with interface ParallelATA differs not only high size, but also high efficiency, energoekonomichnostju and a low level of acoustic noise

Modern computers are the most complicated systems in which each of units fulfils the specific functions. It is considered traditionally main the central processor unit. However programs and the handled data it is necessary to store long time somewhere.

Dynamic storage for this role is not necessary, as the information is lost after computer turn off, and its size is smallest for modern files. Really, the sizes of multimedia files are quite often calculated already by gigabytes.

Suitable arrangements are hard disk drives. These arrangements participate in processes of information processing and provide its durable, non-volatile storage. Besides, they possess very much a high capacity. Responding to inquiries of the market, manufacturers develop and release a wide spectrum of such arrangements of various form factors.

It is necessary to mark, that hard disk drives find now wide application not only in computers, but also in products of the consumer electronics which nomenclature promptly increases. According to development of this sector, and also growth of requirements of computers, release of disk drives permanently increases at the simultaneous extension of their nomenclature.

Certainly, the largest manufacturers of disk drives on hard disks which number also company Seagate which is the largest player of this sector of the market, by the way, concerns cannot ignore this fact. This company releases wide gamma of models of different form factors. However, considering advanced growth of transportable arrangements, special attention Seagate gives to disk drives of compact form factors.

Models first of all concern their number with 2,5-inch magnetic disks. These popular arrangements combine compactness, high size, productivity and energoekonomichnost.

Estimating technical parametres of disk drives of the given form factor, it is necessary to mark, that now progress demands the big efforts. It is linked this by that traditional processing techniques of writing practically have already settled the possibilities. As a result, the last some years rates of overgrowth of information capacity of hard disk drives have essentially decreased. However, despite physical, technological and industrial difficulties, the corporations which are engaged in development and production of this type of the major accessories, continue to improve processing techniques and to perfect constructions of the arrangements intended for an information storage.

Company Seagate which in the products uses magnetic heads and the slices released at its own firms concerns their number. These components banked by means of firm processing techniques together with other units make a basis of the newest models of hard disk drives. These models are released within the limits of several bars. One of them is the newest Momentus 5400.3.

Models HDD Seagate Momentus 5400.3

The new models, which bar has received name Seagate Momentus 5400.3, are characterised by higher parametres. First of all it concerns the high information capacity reaching for the upper model of disk drives of the given bar of value of 160 Gbytes. It is reached thanks to implantation of the newest processing technique of writing. The main difference from traditional processing technique consists that writing is carried out not by parallel way, and perpendicular. It means, that magnetic domains are allocated perpendicularly magnetic disk planes. It allows to raise essentially a bit density on magnetic disks. As a result the information capacity of one disk has increased to 80 Gbytes against 50 Gbytes in the previous bar. Considering, that in the high disk drive uses two hard magnetic disks, size rise has allowed to reach 160 Gbytes. And it as affirms very far to a limit of the new processing technique which have opened a new era vysokoemkih of disk drives.

Estimating reachings of the company in the field of disk drives for sector of transportable solutions, it is necessary to mark, that the rotation high speed was saved also. For models of the given bar it is saved at level of 5400 rpm, that is at level of speed of rotation of disks in models of previous bar Momentus 5400.2.

Appearance of high model of a hard disk drive of bar Momenus 5400.3 is presented in a Fig. 1. The fragment of a label of this model is resulted in a Fig. 2.

Fig. 1. 2,5-inch hard disk drive Seagate Momentus in 5400.3 size of 160 Gbytes

Fig. 2. Marking of 2,5-inch hard disk drive Seagate Momentus in 5400.3 size of 160 Gbytes

The bar of disk drives of bar Momentus 5400.3 consists of models in size 40, 60, 80, 100, 120, 160 Gbytes. Size of the built in cache memory — 8 Mb, the front end — Ultra ATA 100 (Parallel ATA — PATA). According to the technical parametres resulted on a firm site of company Seagate, mo have put Momentus 5400.3 possess high energoekonomichnostju. Moreover, despite essentially big information capacity which has reached of 160 Gbytes, level energopotreblenija to high model became more low energopotreblenija the previous leader which size made 100 Gbytes.

Models of disk drives of bar Momentus 5400.3 are capable to soak blows in a non-working state to 900 G. High shock resistance and dependability of a construction together with energoekonomichnostju models of the given bar allow to use disk drives in the various arrangements which maintenance is carried out in difficult conditions of service. Numerous variants of notebooks and other systems oriented to usage in transportable conditions concern such arrangements, for example. Besides, it can be the various compact portable devices of high information capacity applied for resocks and durable, non-volatile storage of programs and data. The transportable disk drives which are hooked up to computer systems by means of become traditional external serial interfaces USB  2.0/USB  1.1 and IEEE  1394 A/1394 b concern their number, for example   .

Key parametres of models of bar Momentus 5400.3 are resulted in Table 1.

Table 1. Key parametres of models Seagate Momentus 5400.3

As to productivity of disk drives of the given popular bar from the known and authoritative manufacturer this parametre can be estimated on the basis of results of testing of the high model Momentus 5400.3 possessing information capacity of 160 Gbytes. This model has technical name ST9160821 A. In quality of the original measurement standard to which it is compared given topovaja model, it is selected the popular model of 2,5-inch disk drive Fujitsu MHT2030 AT was no time. This model thanks to high consumer properties uses till now in a number of transportable arrangements, including some popular variants of notebooks of various type.

Testing of 160 Gbytes HDD Seagate Momentus 5400.3

Pattern of the system used in testing:

·        the Motherboard of Intel D925 XCV (chip set I925 X, memory DDR2, the slot of video PCI Express x16, ports PATA and SATA),

·        the Processor of Intel of Pentium  4 with clock rate of a kernel of 3,4 GHz (LGA 775, kernel Prescott, the bus of 800 MHz, processing technique Hyper-Threading),

·        Dynamic storage DDR2 of 533 MHz, two units on 512 Mb, two channels,

·        ASUS EXTREME AX 600 XT Videoadapter (chip ATI Radeon X600 XT, bus PCI Express x16),

·        Disk drives on hard disks Seagate Momentus 5400.3 model ST9160821 A (160 Gbytes, 5400 rpm, 8 Mb of an onboard cache, PATA-100) and Fujitsu MHT2030 AT (30 Gbytes, 4200 rpm, 2 Mb of an onboard cache, PATA-100),

·        OC Operating system Windows XP.

After hooking up both models of disk drives correctly and without any problems and difficulties were defined by the operating system of Windows XP.

Results of testing are presented in Table 2 and Table 3.

Tabitsa 2. Results of test Disk Transfer Rate

Fig. 3. Results of performance of test Disk Transfer Rate: Beginning and End

Tabitsa 3. Results of test High-End Disk WinMark 99

Fig. 4. Results of performance of test High-End Disk WinMark 99

In conclusion of the given short browse it is necessary to mark, that the high model of the newest bar Momentus 5400.3 possesses not only the big information capacity, but also high efficiency.

Hard disk drive Seagate Momentus in 5400.3 size of 160 Gbytes (ST9160821 A) has been given by company EAST SIDE Consulting