Samsung Debuts 1.8-Inch 250GB Hard Drive

By John Laposky -- TWICE, 7/9/2009

Seoul, South Korea - Samsung Electronics today unveiled a 250GB 1.8-inch external hard drive, the Spinpoint N3U.

The device incorporates a native USB controller on its printed circuit board, resulting in a smaller footprint, less power consumption and optimized performance, the company said.

The drive's native USB interface reportedly eliminates possible points of failure due to loose cable connections and optimizes performance by eliminating the interrupt-service time for the bridge board to convert PATA to USB signals.

Samsung said N3U consumes about 40 percent less power than a 2.5-inch hard drive of equivalent capacity.

"The new high-capacity 1.8-inch 250GB drive enhances Samsung's product offerings and is ideal for consumers who require a small form factor with high-capacity data storage," said Choel-Hee Lee, marketing VP of the company's storage system division. "It is easy to carry around and it is designed to withstand a freefall drop of up to 50 centimeters and be resistant to a maximum shock incident of up to 1,500G.

The drive's disk rotation speed is 3,600 rpm, and it supports a USB 2.0 interface.

The drive is equipped with an 8MB cache memory. Initial shipments to OEMs are scheduled for mid-July with a suggested retail of $199.